Legendary Indian singer-composer Bhupen Hazarika dead

Mumbai, Nov 5 (PTI) Legendary Indian singer-composer Bhupen Hazarika died in a hospital in Mumbai on Saturday after a multi-organ failure. He was 86. "It was a multi-organ failure. The end came around 4.30 pm," Jayanta Saha, chief PRO at the Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani hospital, told PTI. Hazarika had been undergoing treatment at the hospital since June 29. His long-time companion and filmmaker Kalpana Lajmi was beside him when he died. Known as the 'bard of Brahmaputra', the major river of the northeast Indian state of Assam from where he hailed, Hazarika was a poet, music composer, singer, actor, journalist, author and filmmaker. He was the self-proclaimed 'jajabor' (wanderer) who took the rich folk heritage of Assam and interpreted it beautifully for the world through his songs. A winner of the Dadasaheb Phalke award, the top cine award given by Indian government for lifetime contribution to the country's cinema, sang his first song 'Biswa nijoy nojowan' (in the second Assamese language film "Indramalati") in 1939 at the age of 12. In addition to his native Assamese, Hazarika composed, wrote and sang for numerous Bengali and Hindi films from 1930s to the 1990s besides other songs. He was also one of the leading author-poets of Assam with more than 1,000 lyrics and several books on short stories, essays, travelogues, poems and children's rhymes. He produced and directed, composed music and sang for Assamese films like "Era Batar Sur", "Shakuntala", "Loti ghoti", "Pratidhwani", "Chick Mick Bijuli", "Swikarokti" and "Siraj". His most famous Hindi films include his long-time companion Kalpana Lajmi's "Rudaali", "Ek Pal", "Darmiyaan", "Daman" and "Kyon", Sai Paranjpe's "Papiha" and "Saaz", "Mil Gayee Manzil Mujhe" and M F Husain's "Gajagamini". PTI