Raichand Boral - Life and Career

Life and Career

Boral was born in Calcutta. His father, Lal Chand Boral was a classical musician (expert of Dhrupad). He had three sons, and Rai Chand was the youngest. Musicians from Rampur and Gwalior were invited for lessons. These include Ustad Mushtaq Hussain Khan, Masit Khan (tabla player), and Ustad Hafeez Ali Khan (sarod player). Rai Chand learnt "Sath Sangat" on the tabla and attended music conferences in Lucknow, Allahabad, and Benares.

Boral is often credited to be the pioneer of Indian film music. Along with Pankaj Mullick, he was in charge of New Theatres' music department. New Theatres set standards in film music which have rarely been approached since. They also shaped film music in its early days and their format was followed for the most part for first 20–30 years in Hindi film music. He was also responsible for shaping Saigal's budding career. Anil Biswas called Boral 'Bhishma Pitamah of film music'.

Boral joined the Indian Broadcasting Company in the year of its inception, 1927. In 1931, he shifted to the New Theatres in the silent era for supporting the stage with live music. He dissolved the Ghazal style of singing from Northern India into the 19th Century Bengali tunes with string instrument medium. In 1935, he introduced playback singing for the first time in the Hindi feature film Dhoop Chhaon (1935). The song, "Main Khush Hona Chahun", had an all women chorus led by Parul Ghosh with Suprabha Sarkar and Harimati picturised in a dance sequence. After arriving at Bombay in 1953, Boral composed music for Dard-e-Dil (1953) with Lata's songs. Music for some basic records were composed by him. Anjangarh (1948) was his last famous film with New Theatres. He is correctly complemented by late Anil Biswas as the Father of Indian Cinema Music. He had directed music of 70-75 (?) films (excluding live scores of silent movies) including Hindi and Bengali films. He received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1978 at the age of 75. He died in 1981 at the age of 78.