Kishore Kumar and the Incredible Power of AI

Legendary singer Kishore Kumar passed away in 1987. With the magic of AI, his voice has been brought back to life for this new song, which is from the movie Saiyaara

 

I know it's not him. It's not Kishore Kumar's voice. It can't be. The legend passed away in 1987, when he was just 58 years old. My childhood and teenage years were filled with his music - so many songs, so many memories of sitting by a record player and, later, a cassette player and listening to Kishore Kumar's songs. Such a powerful voice, such resonance. 

Today, when I heard this new AI-generated version of the movie Saiyaara's title song, which has been co-created by musicians Kisna and Anshuman Sharma, it first came as an incredible shock. How can it be?! It's THAT voice, the one I knew and loved so well. The singer whose songs I still listen to all the time even today, almost 40 years after he passed away. And yet, here he is, again. Singing, like he used to. It's the 1980s all over again. I know, of course, that it isn't Kishore Kumar who's singing that song. It's just an AI-generated representation of what he might have sounded like, had he sung this song. But it still brought tears to my eyes. Tears of happiness. I couldn't stop crying. Tears flow, every time I listen to this song. I try to sing along and I can't, my voice gets choked with emotion.  

There will never, ever, be another Kishore Kumar. He'll remain unmatched. But I'm grateful that AI tech was able to bring him back, even if only for four minutes, for just one song, just this once. 

Time Traveller: My HMT Jawahar

The Jawahar, with its hand-winding mechanical movement, dates back to the early-1970s

I just bought a new watch. Only, this ‘new’ watch is around 55 years old, which makes it just a bit older than I am. It’s an HMT Jawahar, which is powered by a 17-jewel mechanical hand-winding movement. I bought it from a seller in Calcutta, whom I came across on a Facebook group for HMT watch enthusiasts. The deal was surprisingly hassle-free. I got in touch with the seller and asked him to send some photos of the watch, which he did. The watch looked clean and I liked it. Made the payment. He sent the watch via India Post which, as one may expect, did get the watch all the way from Calcutta to Greater Noida but did not deliver it to my house, making up some excuse about the door being locked at the time of attempted delivery. Yeah, right. In any case, the post office is not too far from my house and I went there, spoke to some guy who was sitting in a corner sorting mail and assorted packages, and he in turn spoke to another guy who found my package sitting in a random cupboard and handed it over to me after making me sign a piece of paper. And with that, I became the proud owner of a really, really old mechanical watch, one that I’ve been wanting to get my hands on for the last many months.

The Jawahar was one of the first watches to be manufactured by HMT Watches, which was set up in Bangalore in 1961. This was in collaboration with one of the biggest watch companies in Japan, Citizen. The Jawahar is powered by the HMT 0231 hand-winding movement, which I’m told is essentially an adaptation of Citizen's 0201 movement that incorporates the latter’s ‘Parashock’ shock protection system. And indeed, ‘Parashock 17 Jewels’ is imprinted on the Jawahar’s dial – a nice little touch for people like me, who love to wallow in horological nostalgia.