'Every time he sang, his sincerity and vulnerability shone through, leaving no doubt that here was a true gentleman,' that cannot be said of any other Hindi playback singer, except the sweetly sensitive and truly noble Mukesh Chand Mathur.

Born in Delhi on 22nd July 1923, Mukesh was the sixth in a family of ten children.  Mukesh was discovered by character actor Motilal in 1940. Mukesh was heard singing at his elder sister Ram Pyari's wedding. He also engaged the legendary Pandit Jagannath Prasad to train the young singer.

His first break in films came in 1945 under the baton of Anil Biswas in the film "Pehla Nazar". The raag was Darbari and the song was "Dil jalta hai to jalne de". A legend was born, and in the coming decades, the golden voice of this young 22 year lad was to be heard across the entire nation and spread far beyond its boundaries.

Mukesh was a favourite of all music directors. He sang for almost all the great and not-so-great music directors of the yesteryears and produced masterpieces for them. But it was his partnership with the duo of  Shankar-Jaikishen that produced the maximum number of hits

In 1974, he received the National Award for the "Kahin baar yun bhi dekha hai" from Rajnigandha. His last song was "Chanchal Sheetal Nirmal Komal" from "Satyam Shivam Sundaram" in June 1976. Immediately after on 27th August, 1976, the great singer breathed his last of a sudden heart attack in Detroit, while on a tour of the U.S.

On hearing the news of Mukesh's death, Raj Kapoor broke down and said "I've lost my voice." Mukesh left behding a treasure house of 1500 song sincluding the eight volume evergreen rendition of the Tulsi Ramayan.  Anyone who passes by Mukesh's residence in Mumbai cannot miss Mukesh Chowk where Mukesh's Ramayan is played every morning.