lit a candle 4h agoFound Do Ladke Dono Kadke on a late night streaming rabbit hole a few years back, long after everyone else apparently already knew it. Had no idea who the producer even was until I read this. Strange to learn about someone through the credits after the fact, but that film got me through a hard winter.
Their story
Jayanta Mukherjee was an Indian film and television producer from one of the best known musical families in Bengal. The son of the singer and composer Hemanta Mukherjee, known in Hindi cinema as Hemant Kumar, he produced the Hindi films Mazaaq (1975) and Do Ladke Dono Kadke (1979) and the…
Jayanta Mukherjee was an Indian film and television producer from one of the best known musical families in Bengal. The son of the singer and composer Hemanta Mukherjee, known in Hindi cinema as Hemant Kumar, he produced the Hindi films Mazaaq (1975) and Do Ladke Dono Kadke (1979) and the television serial Talaash (1992). He was married for more than five decades to the actress Moushumi Chatterjee. He died in Mumbai on 12 November 2026 after a long illness.
Known to family and friends as Babu, he grew up in a household shaped by music. His father was one of the defining voices of Bengali and Hindi film song, and his mother, Bela Mukherjee, was also a singer. Indian news agency IANS described Jayanta himself as a producer and composer, although his working life was spent largely behind the camera, and reports noted that he preferred to keep a relatively low profile.
His marriage came about through his father. Hemant Kumar composed the music for Tarun Majumdar's Bengali film Balika Badhu (1967), in which the schoolgirl Moushumi Chatterjee made her screen debut, and he was also the family's neighbour in Calcutta. In a Filmfare interview she recalled that he grew fond of her and wanted his son to marry her, and that Babu was the first man she had come to know outside her own family. She described it as both an arranged and a love marriage. Their engagement was fixed while she was in Class 10, and they married soon afterwards before moving to Bombay, where she went on to a long career in Hindi and Bengali cinema.
As a producer, Mukherjee made Mazaaq in 1975 and Do Ladke Dono Kadke in 1979, and later moved into television with Talaash in 1992. The couple had two daughters, Payal and Megha. Their elder daughter Payal died in December 2019 at the age of 45 after a long illness linked to juvenile diabetes and a prolonged coma, and in 2018 the parents had gone to the Bombay High Court seeking guardianship of her as her health declined.
Mukherjee's death on Thursday 12 November 2026 was first reported by the trade publication Film Information and confirmed to IANS by BN Tiwari of the Federation of Western India Cine Employees, who said he had been unwell for some time. No cause of death was made public. He is survived by his wife, Moushumi Chatterjee, and their younger daughter, Megha.
Biography adapted from News reports: IANS, ABP Live, Film Information, IWMBuzz, Filmfare, Free Press Journal.
Photos
1by People Forever
it's a underrated one, glad it found you