His round, boyish face and his cute dimpled smile reminds me more of his mother- Leena Chandawarkar, a famous actress in the seventies but Sumeet Kumar’s real claim to fame is more through paternal side. He is the late great Kishore Kumar’s second son. Following into the footsteps of his father Kishore Kumar and half-brother Amit Kumar, Sumeet has also joined the playback singers’ league by singing for soundtracks like Mudda and Naach.
Clad in dark blue denim shirt and faded blue jeans, Sumeet sits besides me on a sofa in the crowded hotel lobby. Amidst the constant hubbub of a particularly noisy group of people waiting for their city-tour bus, we chat about his life in spotlight. He is refreshingly candid and free of any put-on acts. Here are the excerpts from the interview:
How was your experience of making a debut in playback singing?
It was not at all planned. My mother just told me that producer Raju Mawani wanted to listen to my voice and when I went for that test-session, it went on to become a full-fledged recording session for Mudda. More than the actual recording, the media reaction to that event really took me by surprise.
There was a big horde of reporters waiting outside the recording room and everybody was asking me if I would sound like Kishore Kumar! How can a twenty year old sound like Kishore Kumar? Even he himself didn’t sound like Kishore Kumar when he was twenty! It was totally crazy media hype as if I had come back to claim and conquer my father’s lost empire!
But luckily the song was appreciated and was aired on music channels often. Through that exposure, I got to sing other songs.
What are your memories of your father?
I lost my father at the age of five. Whatever I remember of him is as a fun-loving father pampering me to the hilt with toys and videos. I was a fat child and he used to call me ‘Chiballa Bachcha’.
Kesariya Balam