Book review: 'RD Burman The Man, The Music'

Book: RD Burman The Man, The Music
Anirudha Bhattacharjee and Balaji Vittal
Harper Collins
Pages 380
Rs399

When you think of Rahul Dev Burman, Teesri Manzil comes to mind immediately. Vijay Anand’s classic suspense thriller was brought to life by Burman’s pulsating background score — the title sequence and the scene where the killer’s identity is revealed, especially — and songs that continue to work their charm over listeners. However, Burman had a hurdle to cross before he could land the prestigious project — actor Shammi Kapoor.

With four films of Burman having released then, and not one of them a hit, Pancham (as Burman is lovingly referred to) was signed by producer Nasir Hussain for Teesri Manzil (1966). The film was to star Dev Anand then, who backed out because he was busy with his home production, Guide (1965). In came Shammi Kapoor, an actor with a number of hit songs to his credit, most of them worked on by composers Shankar-Jaikishan and OP Nayyar. 

Interestingly, it was Jaikishan himself, along with late scriptwriter Sachin Bhowmick, who coaxed the star to give “new boy” RD a chance. He played the tunes to ‘O haseena zulfowaali’, ‘Aaja aaja’ and ‘O mere sona re’ for Kapoor, who immediately agreed to Pancham coming on board. There was no looking back for the music maestro after that.

RD Burman The Man, The Music is full of such little nuggets about Pancham, never really focusing on the life of the musician, but bringing out various facets about him through his music and films itself. The book might seem like the work of fanboys (at places), but authors Anirudha Bhattacharjee and Balaji Vittal make sure they touch on some grey areas in the musician’s life too — from his struggle to break out of his legendary father SD Burman’s shadow; to his rocky marriage; to the financial crunch the actor faced in his penultimate years.  

If you are the kind of person who has an interest in the intricacies of music, the book is probably a must-read. The authors have picked RD’s films, right from his debut Chhote Nawab (1961) to 1942: A Love Story (1993), discussing the highlights of each album, Pancham’s innovations and how the sound differed from each other. Pancham’s liberal use of the bossa nova, a kind of Brazilian music in some of his earlier works, for instance, were among the innovations the musician brought to Hindi film music. But while the technical aspect of each song may not interest the layman, the interesting stories behind them surely will.

The recording of the song ‘Ek chatur naar karke shringaar’, (picturised as a jugalbandi between actors Sunil Dutt and Mehmood in the laugh riot Padosan), had its own competition going between singers Kishore Kumar and Manna Dey. Manna was confidence personified, write the authors, but also a little perturbed because he had to eventually lose the battle to Kishore, who was not trained in classical music. During the recording, Kishore suddenly started singing ‘O tedhe, seedhe ho ja re’ which took Manna completely by surprise, but Pancham signaled that they carry on. Anecdotes like these give you an inside view of what went into the making of some truly legendary songs.