[1][2] Talat Mahmood received the Padma Bhushan award in 1992, in recognition of his artistic contributions in the spheres of cinematic and ghazal music.

Romantic and tragic were the moods he liked most and it was he who helped a great deal in shaping the style and method of modern ghazal singing in India during the 1950s and 1960s.

[2] His reputation as a ghazal singer was not limited to his hometown of Lucknow, but it reached the city that proved to shape his destiny – Calcutta.

Initially, in Calcutta, he recorded a lot of Bangla songs (basic album) under the assumed name of "Tapan Kumar".

Talat Mahmood acted in over a dozen films with actresses of the time like Nutan, Mala Sinha, Suraiya and others.

Talat's velvety vocals posed a special challenge to the music-composers, most of whom leaned towards the deep baritones of Mohammad Rafi and Mukesh.

At the same time, the social changes and happiness brought about by increasing prosperity in India meant that blue mood ghazals and heart-rending ballads were not popular any more.

His last soundtrack recording, in 1985, is the song "Mere Shareek-e-Safar", a duet sung with Hemlata, from the film "Wali-e-Azam" composed by Chitragupt and written by Ahmed Wasi.

However, Talat who was one of the first Indian singer to go on foreign concert tours in 1956 to East Africa, United States, the UK, West Indies.

He performed in Royal Albert Hall in London, Madison Square Garden in the United States and in the West Indies.

To mark the legend's birth centenary year in 2024, Sahar authored the award-winning book titled, 'Talat Mahmood The Definitive Biography'.

Veteran Indian film music director Mohammed Zahur Khayyam is reportedly quoted as saying, "He was a perfect gentleman.