Statues of SD Burman, Kishore Kumar to come up at Southern Avenue
Kolkata: Statues of two legendary musical personalities, S D Burman and Kishore Kumar, will be installed on Southern Avenue on October 1.
The statues will be installed by Amit Kumar Fan Club. This was announced by Sudipta Chanda, general secretary of the club on the 89th birth anniversary of Kishore Kumar on Saturday.
The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has provided a plot where the statues will be installed.
Amit Kumar Fan Club has already installed a statue of R D Burman. The statue of the duo will be installed on a plot situated opposite Nazrul Mancha. It is a thematic garden where both the full busts will be installed on October 1 this year. Sculptor Sanjib Kumar Das is giving the final touches to the statues. The place where the statues will be installed is close to South End Park where S D Burman used to live before he moved to Mumbai in the early 1950s. He used to come to Kolkata twice or thrice every year.
The 89th birthday of Kishore Kumar was celebrated with much enthusiasm. A rally was taken out from Salkia to Esplanade by Salkia Kishore Kumar Memorial Cultural Association. The association members demanded that Bharat Ratna be awarded to Kishore Kumar posthumously. People from all walks of life took part in the rally.
Laxmi Ratan Shukla uploaded a 13-minute video of Kishore Kumar's songs sung by him along with Iman Chakraborty and Shovan Ganguly.
The statues of Kishore Kumar were garlanded by his fans at Tollygunge and Baisanabghata-Patuli.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also remembered the legend and tweeted: "Remembering the legend Kishore Kumar on his birth anniversary." The state Information and Cultural Affairs department organised a programme at Rabindra Sadan to pay respect to Kishore Kumar and some of his contemporaries including S D Burman, Salil Chowdhury, Hemanta Mukherjee, R D Burman and Mukesh. Indranil Sen, noted singer and the Minister of State, Information and Cultural Affairs, and Vivek Kumar, Principal Secretary of the department also sang a few of Kishore's timeless classics.
