Raichand Boral Biography 
Raichand Boral is regarded as the ‘Father of Bollywood film music’. He was awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke Award the highest award in Indian cinema in the year 1978 for his contributions to Indian film music. Same year he received Sangeet Natak Akademi award as well. In 1935, he introduced playback singing for the first time in Hindi feature film Dhoop Chhaon - a remake of Bengali movie, Bhagya Chakra which happened to be the first Indian film in which playback singing has been introduced. It was film maker Bose who came up with the idea of playback singing. They experimented it in both the versions of the same film, Bengali being the first. The title of ‘Father of Bollywood film music’ was given to him by Anil Biswas and he also called him 'Bhishma Pitamah of film music'. Boral played a significant role in bringing up the career of K.L.Saighal and many others.
Boral was born in Calcutta in 1903 as the youngest son of Dhrupad expert, Lal Chand Boral. Boral learnt music from Ustad Mushtaq Hussain Khan (Rampur-Sahaswan gharana), Masit Khan (tabla) and Ustad Hafiz Ali Khan (sarod). Rai Chand learnt "Sath Sangat" on the tabla and used to attend music concerts in different parts of India. Boral joined the Indian Broadcasting Company in the year of its formation, 1927. Later he moved to New Theatres. Once he joined New Theatres Kolkata, he was in charge of music department of production company, along with Pankaj Mullick. They experimented many new things that Indian music industry has never witnessed before. They together gave a new format to film music and it was followed for the first 20–30 years in Hindi film music. He created tunes by combining Ghazals with Bengali classical music.
The first song recorded by a playback voice in Hindi cinema was "Main Khush Hona Chahun", with women chorus led by Parul Ghosh. It was a dance picturation. A few of his music compositions from Hindi movies are President (1937), Manzil (1936), Inquilab (1935), Anath Aashram (1937) and Krorepati (1936). His Bengali filmography includes - Bhagyachakra (1935), Didi (1937) and Abhigyan (1938).
Published: N/A
Updated: November 19, 2013
