He once had an architect redesign his home into a moat surrounded by water, so people who wanted access to him would at least be psychologically turned off. By the late ‘60s, his distaste for people peaked, so he began treating his trees as pets, giving each one a name and talking to them.

He didn’t smoke or drink, and had no friends, so he didn’t socialize either. That was turning him paranoid, a gradually intensifying mood that accompanied him faithfully all his life, especially when success arrived. Compound that with Kishore sometimes not being paid for his work, an occupational imperative in the sleazy world of our cinema. What got the better of him was peer pressure, principally from his brother Ashok Kumar, a huge box office star when Kishore made his entry, and with a nineteen year age gap, old enough to be the beginner’s father. Let’s see why.įirstly, he was never happy acting in films, he just wanted to be left alone to sing. Yes, not many think of him as essentially a sad person-at least not in their first thoughts, but a certain theory of the case needs to do the rounds. And perhaps, essentially more sad than happy. Clearly, there were two Kishores here, a happy connected one, and a sad withdrawn one.

Now this hardly sits well with what we also know, that till his very end, Kishore Kumar preferred to be a recluse, remaining a mystery to mankind in general. Surely we are talking about a people person. In his last 10 years, he connected beautifully on the stage through his shows too. Bollywood musicians talk about their favourite Kishore Kumar songs

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