In this book on SD Burman?s life, the author quotes extensively from SD?s Bengali memoirs that have remained obscure to the non-Bengali speaking world

Sachin Dev Burman, or SD as he was called, travelled from the Ganga (Calcutta) to the Arabian Sea (Bombay) in 1944. Once there, he would learn to swim against the tide, and play alongside other music greats like Naushad, OP Nayyar, and C Ramachandra to hold sway over the music industry for the next three decades. As Khagesh Dev Burman, who has translated this book from the original in Bengali, writes, it was with SD?s second film in Hindi, Filmistan?s Eight Days, and the song Ummeed bhara panchhi tha khoj raha sajni that he stamped the entry of East Bengal?s folk music into Hindi films.

Quoting from SD?s memoir Sargamer Nikhad, the writer traces SD?s music lineage to his early years in Comilla (now in Bangladesh) and Agartala. ?In Tripura?s paddy fields the ploughman ploughs and sings, the boatman cannot steer his boat in the rivers without singing, the fisherman throws his net with a song on his lips, the weaver working on his looms weaves his own music and labourers find solace in singing in the midst of their toils. This prevalence of music in all aspects of its life is God-given. I am a son of that soil of Tripura…?

Though SD travelled far from his native land, he never forgot this rich musical lesson gathered from the son of the soil. ?From a very early age, folk music?s rural roots, its liveliness, its melancholia and spontaneity deeply attracted Sachin. This led him to roam around in the riverine expanse of rural Bengal and, like a honeybee collecting and storing honey, build his collection of tunes and music. In later years, this would earn him recognition as a composer.? The bhatiyali, song of the river, the baul songs of the wandering minstrels of Bengal are all to be found in SD?s music.

Starting him on his journey of music was the flute, the Tippera flute, made of the slender Tripura bamboo??Sachin made it his very own instrument right from childhood. He would be seen, flute in hand, in the midst of Vaishnav assemblies, in kirtan performances, in a baul?s hut, in the dargah of a fakir or dervish or in the company of boatmen on the Gomti river…? As Khagesh Dev Burman writes, and as we know from SD?s music, there is hardly any song in his repertoire that does not have a flute interlude or in which he hasn?t used the flute.

SD lives on in his songs, right from Dakle kokil roj bihane (1932) to Safai hogi teri aradhana in 1976, and this book traces SD?s musical lineage from childhood, his Calcutta years and his Bombay days, where Dev Anand and Guru Dutt were ?crazy about my songs?. Navketan films like Afsar, Baazi, Taxi Driver, House No 44, Funtoosh, etc, would all have SD?s music.??

SD put his heart in every Guru Dutt film?Baazi, Jaal, Pyaasa, Kaagaz Ke Phool?which had such immortal numbers, including Geeta Dutt?s Waqt ne kiya kya haseen sitam and the frothy San san san woh chali hawa. In his memoir, SD wrote: ?The moment he (Guru Dutt) came to know that I had composed a new tune, he would stop shooting and come over to listen to it. Listening to the song he would immediately sit with his script to create a situation for the song.?

The writer has quoted extensively from SD?s memoirs published in 1970 in Bengali and which have remained obscure to the non-Bengali speaking world. SD had an instinctive feel for the pulse of the people and was delighted when people on the streets hummed his tunes. In 1946, when SD visited Agartala for the last time, he went to the fair of Karampur Dargah in a boat. ?A navigable river, pleasant breeze, a silver-coin moon in the sky, the boat floating smoothly downstream and the boatman started singing O re sujan naiya…? One of SD?s famous songs, the maestro asked the boatman whether he knew whose song it was. ?Of course, it is our karta?s song… If I ever meet him, I will fall at his feet and say, ?What a voice you have… it seems as if a koel resides in your throat?.?

Well, the koel was rejected at first by one of the most well-known gramophone companies of the day, HMV, but then when SD reached Bombay and began composing one hit after another, HMV requested SD to record his songs through their company. And the rest, as they say, is history.

S D Burman: The World of His Music

Translated by Khagesh Dev Burman & SK Ray Chaudhuri

Rupa

Rs295

Pp 287

Sudipta Datta is a freelancer