Kolkata: Tracing back his association with legendary playback singer Kishore Kumar on his 88th birthday, Indian disco king Bappi Lahiri on Friday said that he would forever cherish the duets rendered with the mercurial song man.

“Together we had rendered so many numbers and most fittingly his last playback in Bengali was with me. I had no idea during the recording that this would be his last one,” said Lahiri. Kishoreda was his usual mischievous self during the recording that day, he recalled.

Describing Kishore Kumar as the man with a golden heart, Lahiri said, “Kishoreda was the epitome of the best Bengali gayak(singer) and nayak(actor) combined together.”

“If the Sera Bengali icon crown has to be conferred on someone with a mass base, in recent times it cannot be anyone but Kishore Kumar,” he said.

Also, singer Abhijeet Bhattacharya, speaking on the occasion said, “We all have been influenced by Kishoreda and his gayaki can never get stuck in a time warp.”

“Kishoreda is a phenomenon and will always pass the test of time,” he added. Abhijeet also pointed out that every singer, who has the calibre to make a mark, ultimately creates his own genre of music and his own trademark style like Kishore Kumar.

Singer Kumar Sanu, who during the early stage of his career had delivered a Bengali chart buster ‘Amar Shilpi Tumi Kishore Kumar’, said, “All of us have been influenced by a versatile singer like Kishore Kumar but he himself had inspired us to grow out of the mentor’s style to evolve and grow.”

The star singers were in the city to attend a tribute programme “Tomay Porechhe Mone”, the name inspired by legendary singer Kishore Kumar’s Bengali modern song, at Science City auditorium.