By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: The city lost one of its renowned classical singers with the death of Bela Chowdhury who passed away at a hospital in Kolkata on Sunday.
Chowdhury was staying in an old age home at Narendrapur in Kolkata and had to be admitted to a hospital in the first week of January due to several complications. “She had a fall in the old age home following which she had a fracture in her waist and was operated thereafter,” said her youngest sister.
“She was later released from the hospital and was advised physiotherapy. But she gave up the desire to live and confined herself totally to bed and developed bedsore following which she had to be admitted to the hospital where she breathed her last at 4.40 pm on Sunday,” she added.
Born in 1937 at Thana Road in the city, Chowdhury was hit by a series of diseases such as pox, typhoid etc at the tender age of ten months which resulted in loss of her sight. However, undeterred by this, she went on to earn enormous name in classical singing.
A recipient of several prestigious music degrees like Sangeet Visharad (Bhatkhande), Sangeet Vidyapith (Lucknow) Sangeet Prabhakar (Allahabad), Chowdhury was one of the very few surviving classical singers in the city.
She was associated with a number of music schools and organizations here and also imparted singing and music lessons from her ancestral home at Oakland.
An expert in various classical renditions such as Kheyal, Thumri and even Bhajan, Chowdhury participated in many prestigious music conferences including the National Program for Classical Music in 1975. She also served as a regular artist at AIR Calcutta, Guwahati, Shillong, Silchar, Kurseong etc. Till the last day of her stay in the city she was associated with Student Welfare Association (SWA) Music College and Zenith Jubelieth Club, Laban as its Principal.
