Today is the birth centenary of one of Hindi film music’s greats: Mukesh Chand Mathur was born on July 22, 1923, in Delhi. In a far too short lifetime (he died in 1976, before his fifty-third birthday) Mukesh sang playback for many of Hindi cinema’s most popular songs. He was Raj Kapoor’s ‘voice’, known and loved not just in India but in countries far and wide, from the Soviet Union to Turkey.

Introduced to the film industry by Motilal, who was a relative, Mukesh’s first hit song ended up being for Motilal himself: Dil jalta hai toh jalne de in Pehli Nazar (1945). He had already debuted four years earlier, with the song Dil hi bujha hua toh from Nirdosh (1941), the film which also marked Mukesh’s debut as an actor.