SAGAR SEN (15.05.1932 – 04.01.1983)

Born May 15th, 1932 in a zamindar family of Rajbari, Faridpur district in erstwhile East Bengal, Sagar Sen was the youngest son of Bijon Behari Sen and Noyonmanjari Sen. The family migrated to India during partition. Though his early childhood was spent in what is now Bangladesh, his entire musical career spanning more than 2½ decades was based out of Kolkata, West Bengal, India.

Sagar Sen showed a remarkable range & depth and a prodigious ability to convey complex emotions as a singer in his early days, impressing audiences and building up a strong following through his local performances. His songs were first broadcast on ALL INDIA RADIO (AIR) in 1958. Frequent live AIR broadcasts of his renditions through the following decades became the listening staple of his ardent fans and followers. Sagar Sen cut his first album in 1961 under the MEGAPHONE record label with record topping songs NUPURO BEJEY JAYE and OGO JOLER RANI.

In 1962, the legend married Sumita Sen. He founded the RABI RASHMI, a Tagorean music academy the same year. RABI RASHMI registered student enrolment in the thousands and garnered a manifold increase in the number of his ardent followers. Pritam, his first son was born in 1964. His singles APNAKE EI JANA AMAR and KENO AAMAYE PAGOL KORE JAAS under the COLUMBIA record label were released the same year. His second son Priyam was born in 1966 and his youngest son Promit was born in 1967, the year COLUMBIA records released his singles OEI MALATILATA DOLEY and AAMAAR NAYANO TABO NAYANER.

1968, the defining year of Sagar Sen’s musical journey, saw the release of his cult single AMI JENE SHUNE BISH KORECHHI PAAN, a song from Tagore’s first operatic ballad Mayar Khela, under the EMI record label. JENE SHUNE BISH instantaneously transported Sagar Sen to luminous heights; his dizzying fame transformed RABI RASHMI to a living institution, most coveted by students of Tagorean music and adored by music lovers & aficionados. A legend was born.

The legends’ albums were released by EMI every year thereafter. His first stereophonic Long Play (LP) record comprising 14 Tagore songs was released in the year 1974 under the EMI-HMV record label. In 1979, the BFJA, a premier cinematic award was conferred upon him for best playback singing of the Tagore song AAJ JYOTSNARATEY SHOBAI GECHHEY BONEY in the film PARICHAY; it was the first time ever that anyone had won a Bengal film award by singing Rabindrasangeet in a film playback track. Sagar Sen has left behind a hundred odd Rabindrasangeet song recordings through his musical journey. The legend’s innumerable Rabindrasangeet renditions that were regularly broadcast live by the AIR and AKAASHBANI through the decades are now part of AIR archival collections. His solo recitals were beamed live during the inaugural broadcasts of the Kolkata DOORDARSHAN in August 1975, the first live television broadcast in Bengali; he featured in several subsequent broadcasts of the DOORDARSHAN.

Sagar Sen’s unique understanding & spiritual insight of Tagore's songs has been invariably watermarked in each of his enigmatic renditions. His mellifluous dulcet renditions harmonising with his attention to infinitesimal Tagorean nuances breathed life into the songs he rendered. His golden baritone voice and his near perfect emotional delivery brought out the best that Tagore music had to offer to the listener; and yet he fastidiously stuck to the rigid notations set by Tagore, not once digressing from them in any of his magical renditions. Sagar Sen was the consummate minstrel, the doyen who satisfied the puritans and yet popularised Tagorean music and brought it to the masses.

Sagar Sen has left behind a rich, unparalleled musical legacy of contemporary Rabindrasangeet renditions through his hundred plus soundtracks recorded with the Megaphone, Columbia, EMI-HMV in several chartbusting albums traversing two and half decades. Apart from staging & conducting innumerable Tagorean operatic ballads, he has been an exemplary torchbearer in popularising Tagorean music through the various Tagorean thematic stage shows conceptualised, presented & conducted by him. The legend had pioneered the model of conceptualising thematic stage shows & concerts, based solely on Tagorean music. Among his popular stage shows & concerts were SHRABON SANDHYA (Monsoon Evening), BISHWAJANA MOHICHHEY (World Spellbound in Music), GAANER JHARNATALAYE (Under the Cascade of Songs), SWADESHI NAYE BIDESHI KHEYA (Tagore songs from Western Tunes), RITURANGA (Season’s Varieties); amongst these SHRABAN SANDHYA was the most acclaimed. Through these thematic stage-show concerts, Sagar Sen provided a huge platform and reach for contemporary Tagorean artistes and danseuse to promote and showcase their talents. Sagar Sen was a dynamic stage organiser and musical visionary far ahead of his times.

Although the legend of Sagar Sen revolves around his being a virtuoso artiste par excellence and an archetypal Rabindrasangeet singer, he was also an exemplary music mentor, organiser, music director, and a humanist. Through his countless charitable public performances Sagar Sen tirelessly contributed to social causes, especially to the West Bengal Chief Minister’s Relief Fund that was instituted to provide relief to the millions affected by the havoc of floods in Bengal during the decade of 70s. He was a larger-than-life humanitarian persona providing succour to many of his students and admirers; he was their mentor, their altruistic peer figure, their SAGARDA.

In the mature years of his musical career, Sagar Sen started recording numerous Bengali modern songs, notably under the music directions of maestro composers Hemanta Mukherjee & Salil Chowdhury. The AIR archives have recordings of a number of Bengali modern songs sung by him. He performed as a playback artist notably in Bengali movies Je Jekhaney Dariye (1974), Byatikrom (1976), Anweshan (1976 recording, 1984 release), Montromugdho (1977), Abirbhav (record release 1978), Porichoy (1979), Paka Dekha (1980), Maa Kalyaneshwari (1982), Debika (1985), Dabar Chaal (?) amongst others. Sagar Sen music directed the Bengali movie ABIRBHAB; not known to many, Hemanta Mukherjee & Bhupen Hazarika have sung under his music direction. His renditions EI JIBON EMNI KORE AR TO SOY NA and KI HOLO CHAND KENO MEGHE DHEKE GELO, modern Bengali song tracks composed by Salil Chowdhury and recorded in 1980, were runaway hits.

At the zenith of his career, Sagar Sen succumbed to virulent cancer early 1983; an abrupt, sudden end to the mercurial career of a doyen. At 50, Sagar Sen the living legend had passed on leaving behind his indelible, luminous footprints in our musical landscape for times to come.