Bijoya Chaudhuri (born 7.10.1925; died 20.7.2016) was one of the most original 20th-century exponents of the Tagore song: the possessor of an exceptional voice as well as an acute critical intelligence that informed her approach to both music and the world. She was born on bijoya dashami (the tenth day of the Durga Puja festival, after which she was named), in Shibsagar, Assam, to a gifted and idiosyncratic family, the Nandi Majumdars, who fell into hard times after the death of their father, Jogesh Chandra Nandi Majumdar. Bijoya Chaudhuri (whose pet name was Khuku) was two years old at the time. The two sisters and five brothers – and two children from a previous marriage – were brought up in Sylhet by their mother, Sailabala Nandi Majumdar, by all accounts an extraordinary woman.
