Hemanta Kumar Mukhopadhyay also Hemanta Mukherjee; (16 June 1920 – 26 September 1989) was a singer, composer and film producer in India. He sang in Hindi films under the name Hemant Kumar.
Hemanta was born in the city of Varanasi (India). His family originated from Baharu village in West Bengal. They migrated to Kolkata in the early 1900s. Hemanta grew up there and attended Mitra Institution school of Bhawanipore area. There he met his longtime friend, Subhas Mukhopadhyay who later became a Bengali poet. During this time, he developed friendship with noted writer Santosh Kumar Ghosh. In fact, at that time, Hemanta used to write short stories, Santosh Kumar wrote poems and Subhash Mukhopadhyay sang songs. After passing the intermediate examinations (12th grade), Hemanta joined Bengal Technical Institute at Jadavpur to pursue Engineering. However, he quit academics to pursue a career in music, despite parental objection. He briefly tried his hand at literature and also published a short story in a prestigious Bengali magazine called Desh, but by the late-1930s he was committed entirely to the music