Legendary composer Ali Hossain passes away

National Film Award winning music director Ali Hossain is no more. He died at a US hospital on Wednesday morning. He was 71 at the time of his death. In our country even today the song 'Halud Bato Mehedi Bato' can be heard at the wedding house in the village. This song, the wedding arrangement would not be completed without it, was composed by Ali Hossain.

Ali Hossain's father Mohammad Yaqub’s house was in Kushtia. But he was born on March 23, 1940 in his grandfather's house in Comilla. Due to his father's job, he had to study in Karachi, Pakistan. There he once worked as an assistant teacher at Nazrul Academy. He also learned music from Piyare Khan, a classical music teacher from the same organisation who worked at Nazrul Academy. 

Ali Hossain came to the country in 1984. After coming to the country, he spent his time singing in various ways. In 1986, his first film, Dak Babu, directed by Mostafiz, was released. In this film, he performed the song 'Halud Bato Mehedi Bato' with Shahnaz Rahmatullah. Syed Abdul Hadi also sang in the same film. According to Ali Hossain, Shahnaz Rahmatullah and Syed Abdul Hadi made their debut in the film with his hand. In the same film, Abdul Hadi sang the song 'Chaturi Jaane Na Mor Bodhua'. Azim Sujata acted in the movie. The film was very popular at that time. As the songs became popular, Ali Hossain did not have to look back as a music director.

Apart from working in various Bengali films in Dhaka, Ali Hossain also directed the music for Urdu films like 'Chhota Saheb', 'Dag', 'Anari', 'kuli' etc. Ali Hossain used to sing most of the Bengali songs in the films made from Urdu to Bengali. At that time, Ali Hossain's hand created Asru Diye Lekha Ei Gaan', Are Oo Praner Raja’, ‘Ei Akash-k Shakkhi Rekhe' and many more popular songs.

Ali Hossain's fame spread all around at that time for conducting the perfect music of these songs. Prabal Chowdhury and Uma Khan got involved in music by holding his hand. When ghazal king Mehedi Hasan was very busy, he sang a song with Mehedi Hasan for the movie 'Raja Saheb'. After the release of the film, the song became very popular at that time. Because of this song, the audience was overwhelmed to see the film.

We spoke to Ali Hossain a month before his death. He said, “Those of us who worked together like Khan Ataur Rahman, Satya Saha, we used to wander in the world of music knowing and understanding about music. That is why such timeless songs have been created. We sang right but we were trying to find out information about the whole world of music. I would go deeper into the song and try to understand the song. If you want to be a true music composer, you have to understand the music. At the time we sang, many songs from neighboring countries tried to create a market here. But we established our song by driving that market away with our song.”