Khandwa/Indore (MP), Oct 14 (PTI) The Madhya Pradesh government honoured renowned lyricist Prasoon Joshi with the National Kishore Kumar Award in Khandwa on Tuesday night for his contribution to the field of film song writing.
Joshi was awarded the National Kishore Kumar Award for the year 2024 during a grand ceremony held in Khandwa, the birthplace of Kishore Kumar, the all-rounder star of Indian cinema.
Chief Minister Mohan Yadav, attending the ceremony via video conference from Bhopal, recalled Kishore Kumar’s fun-loving anecdotes and called him the “precious gem” of Madhya Pradesh.
Congratulating lyricist Joshi for the award, the CM said he is a “magician of words” and that his songs take listeners on a spiritual journey.
Responding to the minister Vijay Shah’s demand, Yadav announced this award ceremony will now be held in Khandwa for two days every year.
Yadav also sang Kishore Kumar’s famous song “Zindagi Ek Safar Hai Suhana” on this occasion.
After receiving the honour, lyricist Joshi expressed his gratitude to the state government.
“I was in school when Kishore Da passed away, but I have written countless songs in my career wishing he was alive and could lend his voice to the songs I wrote,” he said.
Joshi said that Kishore Kumar’s inner artist was childlike, and this natural quality remained alive in him without any effort.
Joshi, who has penned songs for popular films like “Taare Zameen Par”, “Rang De Basanti”, and “Bhaag Milkha Bhaag”, said, “You’ll be surprised to know that nowadays, with the help of technology, songs are being created that are neither written by anyone, nor composed by anyone nor sung by anyone. At such a time, we greatly miss Kishore Da, who was devoid of any artificiality or pretence.” The state government annually confers the National Kishore Kumar Award on individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the film industry in the fields of acting, screenwriting, songwriting and direction.
Established in 1997, this award carries a cash prize of Rs 5 lakh and a citation.
So far, his award has been bestowed upon famous cine personalities such as Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Naseeruddin Shah, Gulzar, Kaifi Azmi, B R Chopra, Amitabh Bachchan, Govind Nihalani, Javed Akhtar, Shyam Benegal, Yash Chopra, Dev Anand, Salim Khan, Sameer, Priyadarshan, Waheeda Rehman, Amitabh Bhattacharya, Dharmendra and Rajkumar Hirani. PTI HWP MAS NP
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