On October 1, 1906, iconic music composer Sachin Dev Burman was born in Comilla district of the erstwhile Bengal Presidency (now in Bangladesh). Born into the royal family of Tripura, his father was Nabadwipchandra Dev Burman, the heir to the Tripura throne, and his mother, Nirmala Devi, was from the royal family of Manipur.
Lovingly called Sachin Karta by his friends, colleagues and numerous fans, S.D. Burman changed the playback scene in Bombay cinema through his eclectic and versatile musical sensibilities honed by his deep involvement with folk music and exposure to Western music. His compositions are still regarded as some of the most wildly popular tunes of Indian cinema.
Apart from being an icon in the film music industry, S.D. Burman was also an accomplished singer, having a thin yet evocative voice, immortalized in his recordings of Bengali folk songs. From his childhood, he was exposed to classical music at home, with his father Nabadwipchandra being an exponent of the sitar and a Dhrupad singer. Moving to Calcutta in his youth to pursue his MA from Calcutta University, S.D. came under the tutelage of musician K.C. Dey and underwent formal training in music. Subsequently, he trained under many luminaries, most notably Ustad Badal Khan, Bishmadev Chattopadhyay and renowned sarangi player Ustad Allauddin Khan.
Over the 1930s, he steadily claimed the limelight, first as a singer at the Calcutta Radio Station flaunting a rich repertoire of Bengali folk and light classical music, on to the All India Music Conference circuit as an accomplished exponent of the Bengali Thumri and finally as a composer for popular Bengali theatre productions and films. During this time he established his music School Sur Mandir in Calcutta. He was deeply influenced by both Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam, yet his innate sensibility remained the north-eastern folk, Bhatiali, Dhamail and other indigenous forms. He released his first album of folk and semi-classical music in 1932 and gave his first film score in 1937 to Bengali film Rajgee.
Responding to a request from Filmistan Studio’s Sasadhar Mukherjee, Dev Burman moved to Bombay in 1944 to work in the Hindi film industry as a music composer. It was here that he came to his own as an artist and delivered his greatest hits. Initially working with Filmistan, he became disillusioned with the commercial nature of the film industry, and had to be dissuaded from leaving for Calcutta, following which he started working with Vijay Anand and Dev Anand’s Nav Ketan Studios and lent his score for a host of films by Guru Dutt such as Pyaasa and Kaagaz ke Phool.
Dev Burman experimented widely with western music, infusing Hindi film scores with jazz, using instruments such as the piano accordion and the harmonica. Hitting the peak of his fame in the 1950s and 60s, he instinctively captured the pulse of the times in his westernized compositions, often using the bold voices of Kishore Kumar, Geeta Dutt and Asha Bhoshle, topping the charts with hits like Aradhana, Bandini, Guide, Tere Ghar Ke Samne, Jewel Thief etc. Under his close observation, his son, the extremely gifted music composer Rahul Dev Burman ushered Hindi film music into a new era, introducing sensibilities such as rock and roll and disco to the Indian audience. His wife Meera, an accomplished singer herself, also trained under his tutelage.
In 1975, while recording the score of the blockbuster Mili, Dev Burman suffered from a stroke and passed away on 31st October, but he remains a much-loved music director in the minds of many generations, immortalizing many tunes and turning the tide of film music in the country.
Also on this day:
1847: Annie Besant, theosophist and leader of the Home Rule Movement was born
1904: Communist Leader and first Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, A.K. Gopalan, was born.
