Indubala

Indubala
Indubala, from a 1936 issue of The Indian Listener
Born1898
Amritsar, India
Died30 November 1984 (aged approximately 83)
Kolkata, India
Other namesIndubālā Debī, Miss Indubala, Indu Bala
OccupationsSinger and actress

Indubala (1898 – 30 November 1984), sometimes credited as Miss Indubala, Indubālā Debī, or Indubala Devi, was a Bengali singer and actress. She received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1975.

Early life

Indubala was born in Amritsar, the daughter of Motilal Bose and Rajabala. Her parents were with the Great Bengal Circus,[1] and separated soon after her birth.Her father was a circus owner, her mother performed acrobatics in the circus. Her mother also had other siblings, including Matibala who worked in performance and Tinkary a circus performer. She lived with her mother in Calcutta. Her mother later began her singing career in Kolkata.[2] She trained as a singer in Calcutta with several teachers, including Gauhar Jaan,[3] Kamal Dasgupta, and Kazi Nazrul Islam.[4] Gauhar Jaan was indubala's most helpful teacher, not only teaching her to sing but also instructing her in etiquette. Indubala began her singing career as a courtesan (tawaif) in her teens.[5][6] Indubala's mother wanted her to become a nurse, she had even been accepted as an intern at a hospital in Pataldanga, Kolkata. However, Indubala didn't like nursing and ultimately chose to follow in her mother's footsteps as a singer, despite her mother's disappointment at her decision to give up nursing.[7]

Career

Indubala is considered one of the great Bengali women singers.[8][9] She made her first of hundreds of recordings for Gramaphone Records in 1915 or 1916.[10][11] She performed on stage with her mother's company, the Rambagan Female Kali Theatre,[12] and at the Star Theatre. She sang on All India Radio beginning in 1927, on the broadcaster's second day on the air, and regularly through the 1930s.[13] In 1936 she was appointed court musician to the Maharaja of Mysore.[14] Beginning in the 1930s she provided playback vocals for sound films, and she acted on-screen in more than two dozen films, including Rajrani Meera (1933), Sati Sulochana (1934), and Naveena Sarangadhara (1936).[15] She retired from the stage in 1950. She received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1975.[1]

Indubala lived most of her life in the Rambagan neighborhood of Calcutta,[16] and was concerned for the welfare of the actresses and sex workers concentrated in that district. "I am Rambagan's Indu," she declared. "Here I have learnt music, established myself, and got respect."[12]

Personal life

After several years of declining health, Indubala died in 1984, in Calcutta, in her mid-eighties.[4] She is one of the title characters of Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay's short story "Einstein and Indubala" (2016).[17] In 2020 a compilation album of Indubala's recordings was released on vinyl, by Tara Disc.[18]

References

  1. ^ a b Chakrabarti, Kunal; Chakrabarti, Shubhra (22 August 2013). Historical Dictionary of the Bengalis. Scarecrow Press. pp. 232–233. ISBN 978-0-8108-8024-5.
  2. ^ "The journal of the 'Sociely of Indian Record Collectors, Mumbai '" (PDF). Record News. Retrieved 14 March 2026.
  3. ^ Gupta, Debdutta (17 January 2020). "Indubala Devi – the singing sensation of 1915 Calcutta!". Get Bengal. Retrieved 14 November 2021.
  4. ^ a b Guha, Jyoti Prakash (2008). "A short biography of Indubala" (PDF). Record News: 35–50.
  5. ^ "Indubala Devi â€" the singing sensation of 1915 Calcutta!". Getbengal. Retrieved 17 January 2020.
  6. ^ "4 - Joyous Courtesan Worlds Amod (Pleasure), Alladi (Indulgence) and Indubala's Scrapbook". Cambridge University. Retrieved 24 October 2025.
  7. ^ "78rpm vintage: Indubala". Indian Raga. Retrieved 14 March 2026.
  8. ^ Murshid, Ghulam (25 January 2018). Bengali Culture Over a Thousand Years. Niyogi Books. ISBN 978-93-86906-12-0.
  9. ^ Bhattacharya, Rimli (15 May 2018). Public Women in British India: Icons and the Urban Stage. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-429-01655-4.
  10. ^ Denning, Michael (1 August 2015). Noise Uprising: The Audiopolitics of a World Musical Revolution. Verso Books. ISBN 978-1-78168-857-1.
  11. ^ Joshi, G. N. (1988). "A Concise History of the Phonograph Industry in India". Popular Music. 7 (2): 147–156. doi:10.1017/S0261143000002725. ISSN 0261-1430. JSTOR 853533. S2CID 161788875.
  12. ^ a b Chakraborti, Bikas (2014). "Mirabai and Indubala: Spiritual Empowerment Redefined". In Banerjee, Debalina (ed.). Boundaries of the Self: Gender, Culture and Spaces. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 127–139, quote on page 138. ISBN 9781443860789.
  13. ^ "Miss Indubala". The Indian Listener. 6: 11. 22 December 1940.
  14. ^ "Books Reviewed" The Indian Listener (22 September 1936): 952.
  15. ^ Dickey, Sara; Dudrah, Rajinder (24 October 2018). South Asian Cinemas: Widening the Lens. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-97729-2.
  16. ^ Purkayastha, Prarthana (2021). "Outing Pleasure and Indulgence: Indubala's Scrapbook and the Red-Light Dances of Calcutta". Contemporary Theatre Review. 31 (1–2): 14–33. doi:10.1080/10486801.2021.1878502. ISSN 1048-6801. S2CID 234783392.
  17. ^ Ravi, S. (20 April 2016). "Tales that continue to rankle". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 15 November 2021.
  18. ^ Discogs, Miss Indubala – Miss Indubala (1889-1984) (2020, Vinyl), retrieved 15 November 2021
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