Legendary sound designer Anup Mukhopadhyay passes away at 70

KOLKATA: On Friday, veteran sound designer Anup Mukhopadhyay passed away. The 70-year-old succumbed to a massive cardiac arrest.

With a remarkable career that earned him five National Awards, Mukhopadhyay’s influence extended across the artistic realm, working with directors like Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Tapan Sinha, Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Aparna Sen, and Goutam Ghose and the commercial sphere, collaborating with directors such as Swapan Saha and Anjan Choudhury.

A graduate of FTII, he found his passion for sound designing at the institute. From highly successful commercial ventures like ‘Shatru,’ ‘Gurudakkhhina,’ ‘Papi,’ and ‘Chhoto Bou’ to meaningful cinema such as ‘Samapti,’ ‘Ghare Baire,’ ‘Kaalpurush,’ ‘Herbert,’ ‘Kailashey Kelankari,’ ‘The Japanese Wife,’ ‘Thana Theke Aschi,’ among others, his versatility knew no bounds.

Director Subrata Sen was saddened to hear about Mukhopadhyay’s death. Out of the 13 films Sen has made, Mukhopadhyay worked on eight of them. Sen had last spoken to him on Monday. “Most of the sound designers working in the Bengali film industry today learned from him. I owe what I know about sound to him. I believe ‘Swapner Feriwala’ (2002) was the first Bengali film to be made in 5.1 and it was Anup da who did it,” he said.

Working with Mukhopadhyay on five films, including ‘Angshumaner Chhobi’, and ‘Rupkotha Noy,’

changed director Atanu Ghosh’s way of thinking about sound. “Through the five feature films I did with Anup da, my sensitivity to sound changed, and I believe, the nature of soundtracks of the films I made changed as well. Filmmakers of the current generation like us saw him as a banyan tree,” said Ghosh.

Veteran music composer Debojyoti Mishra, who had a 40-year association with the legendary sound designer, praised Mukhopadhyay as a true master of the craft of sound.