Google celebrates India's 1st superstar KL Saigal

NEW DELHI: Search engine Google on Wednesday dedicated a doodle to legendary singer-actor KL Saigal on his 114th birth anniversary.

The doodle, designed by Vidhya Nagarajan, shows Saigal singing with the background of Kolkata, where the Hindi film industry or Bollywood was based initially.

Born on this day in 1904 in Jammu, Kundanlal Saigal is considered the first superstar of the Hindi film industry. His style of singing and power of expression took film music to an unprecedented height in that era.

Saigal sang 200 film and non-film songs, some being -- "Jab Dil Hi Toot Gaya", "Ek Bangla Bane Nyara", "Hum Apna Unhe Bana Na Sake", "Do Naina Matwale Tihare", "Main Kya Janoon Kya Jadu Hai", "Katibe Taqdeer" that continue to enthrall generations of music lovers even to this day.

The veteran artist ventured into films during 1931-32. He became the most popular actor-singer in Indian films between 1935 and 1947. 

Starting off his career at the dawn of the talkie era, Saigal acted in 36 feature films -- 28 in Hindi, seven in Bengali, and one in Tamil -- in a career spanning fifteen years. 

Some of his noted films are "President", "My Sister", "Zindagi", "Chandidas", "Bhakta Surdas", "Tansen" among others.

The celebrated artist passed away at an early age of 42 in the year 1947. 

He was an inspiration to legends like Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar, Mohammad Rafi, and Mukesh.