Early Life
Born to Prabodh and Anuradha Chakraborty in Kolkata, Pritam gained his early training in music from his father, who runs a music school in Kolkata and is a renowned radio artist, who plays the Hawaiian guitar. Pritam completed his schooling from St. James School (Kolkata) and later went on to study Geology from the esteemed Presidency College. Pritam, along with his Presidency batch-mates formed a band during college, named 'Jotugriher Pakhi'. They even had a cassette released to their credit at that time. In January 1993, Pritam Joined the Film and Television Institute in Pune to undertake a course in sound recording and sound engineering. During this time, he got a chance to compose music for a lot of diploma films. Pritam then moved to Mumbai after completing his sound engineering course. During his stay in Mumbai, he began composing ad jingles and became friendly with a number of other young men struggling to make it big like Shantanu Moitra, Rajkumar Hirani, Sanjay Gadhvi and Jeet Ganguly. During this time, Pritam had composed famous jingles for brands like Santro, Emami, Head and Shoulders, and had also composed title tracks for television shows like Astitva, Kavyanjali, Ye Meri Life Hai, Remix, Kashmir, Mili and Dil Kya Kare.
Career Highlights
Pritam got his first break when Sanjay Gadhvi was signed on to direct Tere Liye and he, in turn, signed on his friends Jeet and Pritam as music composers. Though the music was well received, the film sank at the box-office. However, in 2002, Jeet and Pritam were signed for the Yash Raj Film, Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hai, also directed by Sanjay Gadhvi. Jeet and Pritam went separate ways after a while and started composing solo. Some of his notable compositions in the Indian film industry include the soundtracks for films like Dhoom (2004), Dhoom 2 (2006), Life in a Metro (2007), Jab We Met (2007), Tum Mile (2009), Race (2008), Love Aaj Kal (2009), Bachna Ae Haseeno (2008), Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani (2009), Rajneeti (2010), Dum Maaro Dum (2011) and Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015), among others. Pritam received critical acclaim for his recent film, Dilwale (2016), which was a major box-office rave. We last heard his music in Azhar (2016). He also has the film Dishoom lined up for July, 2016 along with Jagga Jasoos, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, Baadshaho, Dangal and Golmaal 4 releasing this year.