Although he was seventy nobody expected Salil Choudhury to go right at this moment. His creative surge had hardly ebbed and he was as prim and trim as he ever was before he was moved to hospital on August 1 On September 6 he left behind a subcontinent of admirers mourning the unexpected loss.

Salil Choudhury entered the Bengal musical scene as the standard-bearer of Benoy Roy and Jyotirindra Moitra's innovation of ganosangeet. These gurus of his were the founders of the Indian People’s Theatrical Association — known throughout the subcontinent as IPTA.. Soon enough Salil became the musical mainstay of IPTA. He excelled in writing agitprop lyrics and setting them to tune both moving and beautiful — and more importantly, ushering in new rhythm patterns.

tn spite of his prolific output that nearly revolutionised Bengali music. Salil became a victim of the Communist leadership's dogmatic belief that art and culture came way behind politics. Salil charlged pasture. went to Bombay and started doing music for films. He had done film music in Calcutta as early as in 1956. Bombay, because of the all-India market it commanded and also because ot a concentration of talented people, helped Salil's radical musical ideas to come to fruition with more facility and spread to find a billion-strong clientele. It was during his tenure in Bombay that he brought Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhonsle and others to Bengali music. ’

After the ‘Five Suns' — PanchaBhaskar — of Bengali music, namely Tagore. D L Ray. Atul Prasad. Rajanikanta and Nazrul. Kamal Dasgupta took over as the sovereign. Hardly had his reign ended. Salil Choudhury started his long 30-year rule.

Will ne be remembered as only a film man? Never. As only the creator of a long strand of super hit Bengali songs? That wouldn’t either adequately describe him. For his IPTA achievements are the best guide to the inner truth of this incomparable man and musician given incorrigibly to innovations that always clicked and broke ever new grounds.