Remembering Kishore Kumar: 7 unique, unknown stories about the legend

On the occasion of Kishore Kumar's 93rd anniversary, let's read some fantastic stories about the singer you probably didn't know.

Team Newsable

Bangalore, First Published Aug 4, 2022, 7:30 AM IST

We honour Kishoreda's birthday today, August 4, by remembering him as a great singer and an actor with excellent comic timing in front of the camera also for his quirky demeanour. In addition to being a great voice, Kishore Kumar was a gifted lyricist, composer, producer, director, screenwriter, and scriptwriter. Whether we are happy, in love, or on a long trip, especially during the monsoons, we still adore listening to his tunes.

Here are some mesmerising facts from the eventful life of our Kishoreda.
Kishoreda had an extremely harsh, nearly ear-splitting voice when he was younger. Kishore's family members used to make fun of his squeaky voice.

Kishore failed to respond to a single question in his fifth-grade arithmetic tests. Instead of answering the questions on the paper, he wrote jokes, short poems, drawings, and happy faces on his answer sheet for his teacher.

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Kishore frequently used his bench in the college classroom as a tabla. When his professor angrily advised him to stop misusing time with tricks like these, he said that music was how he planned to earn his living.

It was said that Kishore Kumar was obsessed with his long-black overcoat back when he was in college.

During his time in Madhya Pradesh, he put a sign that said "Mental Hospital" outside his house in place of his nameplate. Likewise, he has also put up a signboard saying ‘Beware of Kishore’ on the door of his Warden Road flat in Mumbai.

When a filmmaker wasn't paid, he supposedly continued to shave off patches of his hair and moustache until the whole amount was received.

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The example above demonstrates how fussy Kishore was about his payment. Still, few are aware that in 1964, Oscar-winning filmmaker Satyajit Ray refused to pay him for singing in his masterpiece Charulata.

Tex Morton and Jimmie Rodgers influenced Kishore's unique yodelling style. Yodeling is a style of singing in which the voice rapidly shifts between a normal and an exaggerated tone. We have seen him do it in songs like Zindagi Ek Safar and Chala Jata Hoon Kisi Ki Dhun Mein.