It was Shapmochan that brought the two of them together. A film that introduced a singer-actor combination, Shapmochan is still widely talked about by music lovers and film-buffs in Bengal. In a certain sense, it was Tollywood’s answer to the Raj Kapoor-Mukesh combination of Bollywood.

In the Fifties and the early-Sixties, the recipe of a successful Bengali film was the mixture of three ingredients - Uttam Kumar, Suchitra Sen and last but definitely not the least, Hemanta Mukherjee.

As he had related once, Hemanta would imagine himself to be Uttam Kumar before recording a song for him and the latter would transform himself into Hemanta before picturising the song. This was one of the main reasons for the extraordinary success of their songs.

Incidentally, all the songs of Shapmochan, their first film together, were superhits. Bashey aachhi patha cheyey, Surer aakashey tumi je go shuktara, Jhar uthechhey baul bataash - each one of songs could move millions to tears. Recalls a diehard Hemanta-fan, “ Shapmochan was released in May 1955 and instantly became a craze with the public. It was clear that Hemanta would continue singing for Uttam for a long time.”

With Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen during a recording session

But what many people do not know is that the entire score of Shapmochan was done very hurriedly in just two days. As Hemanta once said in an interview, “I was in Bombay when I got the offer for Shapmochan. I was very busy then. Nagin had just been released and was a big hit. It was in this situation that I did the music for Shapmochan. In fact, I had my own reservations about the quality of the score and felt that it was not up to the mark.” But all doubts were put to rest when the film was released and went on to become such a big hit. After the phenomenal success of Shapmochan, the Uttam-Hemanta combination never let the producers down. It went on to scale new heights. Tumi je aamar and Aaj dujonar duti path (Harano Sur), Aei path jadi na shesh hai (Saptapadi), Taare bole dio (Dui Bhai), Mou bone aaj mou jomechhe (Bandhu) - all of these became chartbusters. The popularity of the Uttam-Hemanta combination was such that even a background song in a Uttam Kumar film had to be sung by Hemanta. Tomar bhubone mago (from the film Marutirtha Hinglaj) is one of the most glowing examples.

In a few films, Hemanta even did voice-overs from Uttam Kumar. For example, the line “Baaja, thamli keno...” in the famous Dui Bhai was dubbed by none other than Hemanta Mukherjee. And had he not revealed it himself, one doubts how many could have recognised it to be his and not Uttam’s voice.

But in the Sixties, a small misunderstanding led to the breaking off of the partnership. According to Hemanta, “In 1962, when Bees Saal Baad became a superhit, we planned out next venture with Uttam Kumar in mind. Hiren Nag was the director and J Nayar the writer of the film. When Uttam was approached for the project, he agreed and even took some money as an advance. But he probably did not like the storyline and hence did not turn up for the shooting. We had to suffer a big loss.”

The singer was disappointed. “We were worried about the money that had already been paid to him,” Hemanta had confessed. “So we recovered out money from the producer of another Uttam Kumar film, asking him to adjust the amount.” But this upset the Mahanayak. And as a retaliatory move, he decided not to sing (on screen) any Hemanta Mukherjee number. But how long could the two stalwarts of Bengali film industry stay away from each other? A happy renunion followed and the ‘good old days’ were back again.