Listening to his songs, I was reading up about his life and learnt a lot. For one thing, I did not know that the epicenter of Hindi movies was Calcutta before it moved to Bombay. Apparently, he sang under the name Saigal Kashmiri (he was born in Jammu) for the first few movies before changing it to his real name – Kundan Lal – but used his initials. He died at the age of 43, a few months before India got its independence. His death was due to his alcoholism, the records indicate.

Interestingly, before becoming a singer-actor, he was a railway timekeeper for some time (did not finish school), then a typewriter salesman and then a hotel manager!

Growing up, we heard quite a few of his Bengali songs. That was a language he picked up much later in his life.