MUMBAI: Pritam Chakraborty who’s mostly famous as Pritam in Bollywood music industry, completes 46-years today 14 June. Born in 1971 in Calcutta, now Kolkata, Pritam’s music has always been in the chartbusters. However, Pritam has been accused of plagiarism several times; he is widely regarded as one of the best musicians in the soul of Bollywood music. His contribution towards Bollywood music industry includes upcoming movies like ‘Jab Harry Met Sejal’, ‘Jagga Jasoos’, ‘Tubelight’ and recent releases such as ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’, ‘Dangal’, ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’ among many.

We at Radioandmusic.com thought of sharing some Pritam facts that you should be familiar with.

• Pritam debuted in Bollywood along with Jeet Ganguly, for a film ‘Tere Liye’ (2001), and he got his rise to fame with ‘Dhoom’ (2004) which was a runaway success. 

• Did you know that Pritam really prefers composing music for rom-com movies over action films?

• Pritam’s alma mater includes Presidency College, Kolkata and Film and Television Institute of India, Pune where he studied sound recording and engineering in 1994.

• Did you know before joining FTII, Pune one of the finest music directors of Bollywood was dropped out of Presidency College, Kolkata in 1993? 

• During his time in FTTI, Pune, Hungarian filmmaker Istvan Gaal offered him to compose background music for a film. 

• He gained his early training in music when he was in school from his father Prabodh Chakraborty, who was an insurance officer. He has also learned African music from musicologist Kedar Avati.

• During his college days, Pritam was associated with two Bengali bands Chandrabindoo and Jotugriher Pakhi.

• After completing his course from FTII Pune, Pritam moved to Mumbai in 1997 and started composing ad jingles. During that time, he has composed jingles for Emami, McDonald's, Head & Shoulders, Thums Up, Limca, Complan. He has also composed title tracks for TV serials such as Astitva, Kkavyanjali, Ye Meri Life Hai, Remix, Kashmir, Mili, and Dil Kya Kare.

• Pritam has been a judge on many popular television reality singing shows including ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2009’, ‘Chhote Ustaad’, ‘X Factor’, ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Bangla’ among others.

• He has won three Filmfare Awards for Best Music Director (Barfi!) and Best Background Score (Barfi!) in 2012, and Best Music Director for ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’ (2016).