KOLKATA, DEC 15  :   Noted Bengali singer Anup Ghoshal, who attained cult status for churning out memorable numbers for auteur Satyajit Ray’s Goopy Bagha movies, died in a city hospital on Friday following a brief illness, official sources said.

Ghoshal was 78. He was admitted to a private hospital in south Kolkata last week and was on artificial ventilation support. His end came around 1-45 pm, the medics said.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, while reacting to the demise of the singer and composer, said it was a great loss to the music world.

Ghoshal was the evergreen voice of singer Goopy, one of the two protagonists of Ray’s classic children’s fantasy Goopy Bagha movies – Goopy Gyen Bagha Byen (1969) and Hirak Rajar Deshe (1980) – which became blockbusters and have retained their appeal till date.
Ghoshal also bagged the National Film award for best male playback singer for Hirak Rajar Deshe.

Twelve years after Hirak Rajar Deshe was released, Ghoshal yet again sang songs for the third and last instalment of the series – Goopy Bagha Fire Elo, which was directed by Ray’s son Sandip. Satyajit Ray, however, again composed the songs

Ghoshal was also the composer of Tapan Sinha’s movie Sagina Mahato, and the song “choti si panchhi” rendered by him became very popular.

Both Sagina Mahato and Goopy Bagha fire Elo brought him the Bengal Film Journalists’ Association award as best male playback singer.

Besides being a prominent Nazrulgeeti (songs of Kazi Nazrul Islam) and Shyasangeet (songs eulogising Goddess Kali) exponent, Ghoshal also contributed music to Hindi and other language movies.

He was also elected to the West Bengal legislative assembly in 2011 from Uttarpara constituency on a Trinamool Congress ticket.

The state government awarded him Nazrul Smiti Puraskar in 2011 and Sangeet Mahasanman in 2013. (UNI)