Debabrata Biswas

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Debabrata Biswas (Bangla: দেবব্রত বিশ্বাস Debobroto Bishshash, also spelled as Debebrata Biswas, Debabrata Biswash and various other combinations) (1911 - 1980) was a Bengali singer, one of the best-known performers of the songs of Rabindranath Thakur (Rabindrasangeet). He was born in 1911 in Mymensinha district of British colonial undivided Bengal province of India, when King George V was visiting India for the Delhi Durbar, so he was nicknamed George. He is popularly known as George Biswas or George-da or Brother George.

His music, though not always technically pristine, was notable for its exceptional depth of emotional expression verging on the dramatic. His early gramophone recordings of Tagore songs brought out in the late 1940s demonstrate soulful full-throated expression of melody with a strict adherence to the rules and norms of tradition, written and unwritten, which he felt obliged to break in the early 1960s - considered by most to be his heyday up to the year 1969. His renderings in this period show amazing power of voice and modulation, compounded with overt emotional expression of a kind hitherto unpractised by his contemporaries and even himself. His voice at this period ranged at ease within the three octaves and with varied tempos and rhythms and showed greater variety of emotional expression from the thunderous and rumbling to the soft and mellow. Somewhat audacious and overpowering in his personal feelings and mores, his enunciation of the words of over-used and hackneyed Tagore lyrics extracted new meanings and freshness from the compositions.

Eyebrows started to be raised from 1965 with the liberties he started taking by challenging the authorised notations,beat and traditional rhythms of Tagore lyrics, as well as with his inclination towards the use of western musical instruments - an obsession that remained with him till his death. He challenged the sensibilities of Tagore song listeners with the use of the spanish guitar, the saxophone,the clarionet, the piano and the cello along with the sitar,the sarode, the esraj and the violin. But his popularity swelled beyond bounds with the masses , young and old - connoisseurs and dilletante alike.

In the later part of the 1960s Debabrata was seriously challenged by the authorities over his audacious style and quite a number of his records were prohibited from public production for reasons attributed to wrong spirit,tempo and other melodic excesses not regarded as harmonious to the purity of Tagore compositions. Although initially he did brace himself to meet the challenge,he retreated later and on his own volition stopped all record production. As further controversy fuelled,his Public live performances continued with an even increasing demand but with age (now he was 60)and a declining voice and his lifelong affliction of the asthma, he withdrew from public appearance, venting his anguish and frustrations in his autobiographical reflections : Bratyo Janer Rudhha Sangit or The Stifled Music of an Untouchable, published in 1979, a year before his death on August18, 1980.

A bachelor, a teetotaller, a traditionalist at heart yet posing as a bohemian in a tongue-in- cheek style, and by any standards an eccentric, he lived a simple life at his rented flat in South Calcutta, untouched by scandals and affairs, retiring in 1971 from the Life Insurance Corporation of India where he held a clerical position throughout his tenure. This, despite his being a post-graduate in economics from the Calcutta University. A confirmed communist, he held his party membership with the Communist Party Of India till the mid 1950s, before his disillusionment with party activities which led him to sever his communist bonds. Apart from Rabindrasangit he is known to have enthralled the masses with his booming and baritone voice singing Ganasangit or Peoples' songs in party gatherings, meetings and party plenary sessions. He remains one of the towering personalities of the peak era of Indian People Theatre Association (IPTA).

A broad-hearted man of caustic humour even to the point of self-mockery, buffonery and feigned frivolity, he was fond of sketching and often gave drawings along with autographs. One such signature features himself praying to Tagore and another showing Tagore hitting a sixer with a cricket bat.

He lent his voice to a number of films and after his death was the subject of a documentary film by his name, based on archival footage and interviews.

To this day he remains the most popular exponent in the art of Rabindrasangit, a model of orthodoxy when orthodox  and an icon of protest against establishment, organised media and cultural dictatorship when breaking away from the orthodox.. Even after 27 years from his death his records remain in market demand.