Around the same period, Hemanta started receiving more assignments for music composition for Bengali films. Some were for director Hemen Gupta. When Hemen moved to Mumbai a few years later, he called upon Hemanta to compose music for his first directorial venture in Hindi titled "Anandmath" under the Filmistan banner. Responding to this call, Hemanta migrated to Mumbai in 1951 and joined Filmistan Studios. The music of "Anand Math" (1952) was a moderate success. Perhaps, the most notable songs from this movie is 'Vande mataram' sung by Lata Mangeshkar, which Hemanta set to a marching tune. Following "Anandamath", Hemanta scored music for a few Filmistan movies like "Shart" in subsequent years, the songs of which received moderate popularity. Simultaneously, Hemanta gained popularity in Mumbai as a playback singer. His songs for actor Dev Anand under the music direction of S. D. Burman in movies like "Jaal" (1952) ("Yeh Raat Yeh Chandni Phir Kahan"), "House No. 44" (1955) ("Chup Hai Dharti" and "Teri Duniya Mein Jeene Se"), "Solva Saal" (1958) ("Hai Apna Dil To Awara"), and Baat Ek Raat Ki (1962) ("Na Tum Humen Jano"), attained popularity. In the 1950s, he also play-backed for other heroes of Hindi films like Pradeep Kumar ("Nagin", "Detective") and Sunil Dutt ("Duniya Jhukti Hain") and later in the 1960s for Biswajeet ("Bees Saal Baad", "Bin Badal Barsat", "Kohra") and Dharmandra ("Anupama"); he was the music composer for all these films.