Wishing a happy 70th birthday to the legendary singer who has mesmerized us with film songs, bhajans, and ghazals alike!
If you’re familiar with songs like ‘Tu Hi Re,’ ‘O Hansini,’ ‘Sirf Tum,’ or ‘Baahon Ke Darmiyan,’ then you’ve undoubtedly heard the voice of the legendary Hariharan. A versatile singer, he has recorded over 15,000 songs across more than 10 languages, including Marathi, Sinhala, Maithili, Bhojpuri, Odia, Bengali, Sanskrit, Gujarati, and English. Renowned as a pioneer of Indian fusion music, fusion remains his signature style. Moreover, Hariharan is celebrated for his ghazals, with over thirty albums to his name. In his early career, he composed and performed several successful ghazal albums, including ‘Aabshar-e-Ghazal’ with Asha Bhosle, which went gold in sales. Beyond ghazals and film songs, he is also a prominent figure in devotional music, with bhajans like ‘Shiv Shankar Beda Paar Karo,’ ‘Ambe Tu Hai Jagdambe Kali,’ and ‘Mangalmurti Maruti Nandan’ among his many contributions. As he turns 70 today, let’s uncover an intriguing fact about one of his devotional songs!
Gulshan Kumar, the founder of Super Cassettes Industries Private Limited—widely known as T-Series—a well-known figure in the Bollywood music industry. A prominent figure in devotional music, he lent his voice to numerous religious and traditional songs dedicated to almost all major Hindu deities. After establishing T-Series in 1983, he made it into a leading record label by the 1990s.
In 1992, Gulshan Kumar collaborated with the renowned playback singer Hariharan to record ‘Hanuman Chalisa’ under the T-Series label. The song, composed by Lalit Sen and Chander, remains one of the most popular devotional tracks even today. Decades after its release, ‘Hanuman Chalisa’ continues to be a global phenomenon, amassing an enormous viewership on YouTube and maintaining its significance.
What makes this even more fascinating is that the ‘Hanuman Chalisa’ video featuring Hariharan and Gulshan Kumar became the first devotional video to surpass 1 billion views on YouTube. It later set another groundbreaking record by becoming the first Indian video to cross both 2 billion and 3 billion views. Yes, it was the first of its kind to achieve the incredible milestone of 3 billion views worldwide!
