India, Sept. 20 -- It was a winter evening in Kolkata when Bhupen Hazarika, draped in his trademark shawl, sang "Manush Manusher Jonno, Jibon Jiboner Jonno" to a packed auditorium. The baritone rolled across the hall, as much a moral call as a melody. Decades later, that refrain still echoes in Bengal. As India celebrates the centenary of the bard from Assam, it is worth remembering that his journey as an artist cannot be told without Kolkata and its people - a city that gave him a second home and a stage that amplified his voice to the world.

Hazarika's first brush with Calcutta came as a boy. In the late 1930s, under the guidance of cultural pioneers Jyotiprasad Agarwala and Bishnu Prasad Rabha, young Bhupen recorded his very first son...