Salil Chowdhury, fondly referred to as "Salil-da" was a music director, musician, writer, and poet, who worked in Hindi, Bengali, and the south Indian film industries. He was most active from the 1950's through the 1960's. His strength was in the fact that he mastered numerous different genre. He was accomplished on the flute, esraj, violin, and piano; he was also a master lyricist and writer. He is fondly remembered for some of the most famous songs to come out of Bollywood.