The song is as old as a nursery rhyme. I heard it when I was a child & the lyrics, melody & the Voice… Suman Kalyanpur ! She was an Indian playback singer who is noted for her work in Hindi cinema. ‘Dil ek mandir hai’, ‘Na na karte pyar’ the songs are many.
Suman Hemmady , she was born in Dhaka, Bengal Presidency ( now in Bangladesh) on 28 Jan. 1937. She died on 31 May 2026 aged 89 in Mumbai, Maharashtra.
Her voice was often been mistaken to be that of Lata Mangeshkar due to their similar tone & texture. She started her career in 1954 & went on to become a popular singer in 1960s & 1970s.
She has sung for over 740 movie & non-movie songs. Over 140 duets with Rafi in the 1960s. She recorded songs for movies in several languages beside s Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Assamese, Gujrati, Kannada, Angika, Bhojpuri, Rajasthani, Odia & Punjabi. Her voice & range deserved more than she got in her lifetime.
Her rightful place should be among the more accomplished voices of the golden era of Hindi cinema songs.
But she had no regrets. Every photograph of hers has a smile that lit her face. After moving away from singing, she got time for her hobbies & never looked back.
Asian Entertainment 