MUMBAI: Legendary artiste Asha Bhosle paid a special visit to Kolkata today (15th September) to release her latest Saregama Bengali musical album "Pancham Tumi Kothay". Welcoming Asha ji to Kolkata Mr. Sanjiv Goenka Chairman of Saregama India Ltd., said that "this is a bouquet of 8 songs selected by Asha ji, which were originally composed and sung by the late R.D. Burman. The musical arrangements are by Nitin Shankar."

Giving a backgrounder, Mr. Sanjiv Goenka said, "Asha ji has nearly 6 decades of association with HMV. Her first Bengali songs were recorded by HMV way back in 1958 with Binod Chattopadhyay as the music director. Her first Puja recording in Bengali followed next year in 1959— both the songs were set to tune by Manna Dey."

Goenka recalled that there has been no new Bengali songs by Asha ji after 1990 and this year's album contains 8 Puja songs originally sung by Rahul Dev Burman and re-recorded recently by Asha ji with new musical arrangements. Mr. Goenka added that Saregama is proud of the fact that Asha ji has recorded so far more than 5000 songs for Saregama India out of which 300 are in Bengali.

Goenka also announced that an encyclopedia of all-Tagore songs (2213) is under preparation and will soon be available in a 10 volume pack under the title Shruti Gitabitan.

For those who are interested in Tagore music there is another good news that Saregama will soon be publishing a Hindi album with Gulzar's interpretation of Tagore's famous songs. This is an Audio-Video journey where Gulzarji narrates his interpretation along with musical rendition done by Shantanu Moitra, Shaan & Shreya Ghoshal.

The following is the track list of the album "Pancham Tumi Kothay"

· Shono Ei To Samay

· Phire Esho Anuradha

· Jete Jete Pathey Holo Deri

· Deke Deke Kato Kotha Chilo

· Mone Pore Ruby Roy

· Aage Ami Jodi Jantam

· Ele Na Tumi Je

· Shono Mon Boli Tomay