this, Kumar was offered many other assignments, but he was not very serious about a film career. In 1949, he settled in Bombay. During the initial stage of his career, Kumar was deeply inspired by singer K. L. Saigal and imitated his style of singing in some of his early films but later evolved his own, unique style. He had a great respect for poet and musician Rabindranath Tagore who influenced him in many ways. He was an ardent admirer of Hollywood actor-singer Danny Kaye. He hung the portraits of all these three personalities at his Gouri Kunj residence and would bow respectfully before them everyday as a rule. In his later career, Kumar was also heavily influenced by playback singer Ahmed Rushdi and his liking towards Rushdi was to the extent that former paid a tribute at Royal Albert Hall in London to the latter by singing some of his songs. Kumar employed yodeling in many of his songs including; Yeh dil na hota bechara, Zindagi ek safar hai suhana, and Chala jata hoon. The style eventually became an essential feature of his singing and was inspired by Jimmie Rodgers and Tex Morton. In the movie Half Ticket, for one of the songs – "Aake Seedhi Lagi Dil Pe" – the music director Salil Chowdhary had a duet in mind and wanted Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar to sing the song. However, since Lata Mangeshkar was not in town and Salil Chowdhury had to record that song before she could return, Kumar solved the problem by singing both the male and female parts of the song himself. The duet is actually for Pran and Kumar on the screen dressed as a woman. It just turned out to be fine as he did admirably well singing both in male and female voices. Music director S. D. Burman is credited with spotting Kumar's talent for singing. During the making of Mashaal (1950), Burman visited Ashok's house, where he heard Kumar imitating K. L. Saigal. He complimented him and told him that he should develop a style of his own, instead of copying Saigal. Kumar eventually developed his own style of singing, which featured yodeling, which he had heard on the records of Tex Morton and Jimmie Rodgers.S. D. Burman kept making Kishore sing for Dev Anand from the 50s to the early 70s. S. D. Burman provided him the training and encouraged