Summer Concert in Dallas :: Bengali Association of Dallas Fort Worth

Neel Dutt...a worthy scion of a living legend

For most of his adult life, Neel Dutt has lived in the shadows of his father Anjan Dutt – a living legend. With such big shoes to step into Neel’s resurgence onto the contemporary Bengali music scene has been nothing short of spectacular. Today, Neel Dutt is regarded as the foremost amongst the young crop of musicians and he is increasingly making a name for himself as a music director par excellence.

Unlike the protégés of other musical greats, Neel’s induction into the world of music happened pretty late and only in his teens. In his own words – “The guitar was always lying around but I never bothered to pick it up”. The other interesting thing is that he never felt pressured into learning music. “I never learnt to play the guitar formally; Amit Datta lived in my para and he helped me out. Once I started playing, I also began writing my own songs, which I never dared to sing anywhere.

Despite the late start and the rather unorthodox training or the lack thereof, the natural talent in Neel sprang forth once he was in College. He started performing at College fests and later composing jingles and once Anjan Dutt got into making tele-films, Neel started to do the back ground score for tele-flims. That’s where he cut his teeth as a professional composer and director.

With 35 telefilms under his belt, Neel decided to give up his copywriting job at Bates as he took up the assignment of lyricist-composer for his father's second feature film, Bow Barracks Forever. That opened the flood gates literally. One film after another followed – from “The Bong Connection” and “Chalo let’s Go” to “Dutta v Dutta” to “Mach Mishti & More. Neel rode that wave into a National Award for music direction in the widely acclaimed blockbuster – Ranjana Ami Aar Ashbona.

But this is only the beginning for Neel and we hope to stay tuned as he leaves the milestones behind and mesmerizing us with his creative genius. Like father, like son. What more can we say?