आर.डी. बर्मन

Rahul Dev Burman (27 June 1939 – 4 January 1994) — 'Pancham' to the whole world — was the most revolutionary composer Hindi film music has known. Born in Calcutta, he was the only son of the great composer S.D. Burman and the lyricist Meera Dev Burman. Family legend says the actor Ashok Kumar named him 'Pancham' because the infant's cry seemed to echo Pa, the fifth note of the scale. His training was princely: sarod under Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, tabla under Pandit Samta Prasad. While still a boy he was composing — tunes of his made their way into his father's films ('Ae Meri Topi Palat Ke Aa' in Funtoosh).

His first film as an independent composer was Chhote Nawab (1961), but the detonation came with Teesri Manzil (1966): 'Aaja Aaja Main Hoon Pyar Tera' and 'O Haseena Zulfonwali' sent rock-and-roll voltage through Hindi music. There followed a decade without parallel: Padosan (1968), Kati Patang (1970), Amar Prem (1971 — with classically profound work like 'Raina Beeti Jaye' and 'Chingari Koi Bhadke'), Hare Rama Hare Krishna (1971 — 'Dum Maro Dum'), Caravan, Seeta Aur Geeta, Yaadon Ki Baaraat (1973), Aandhi (1975 — 'Tere Bina Zindagi Se Koi'), Sholay (1975, including his own growling vocal on 'Mehbooba Mehbooba') and Hum Kisise Kum Naheen (1977).

Composing for roughly 331 films, Pancham formed with Kishore Kumar and Asha Bhosle the trinity of the modern Hindi song; he married Asha in 1980. After Filmfare Awards for Sanam Teri Kasam (1982) and Masoom (1984), the late 1980s brought failing assignments, flops and a heart attack — yet he kept experimenting. He died on 4 January 1994; that same year the deathless score of 1942: A Love Story won him a third, posthumous Filmfare. Today every remix, every lounge cover, every young composer stands in Pancham's debt — the man who recorded breath, bottles, combs and rain, and made them all sing.

Rahul Dev Burman was born on 27 June 1939 in Calcutta to S.D. Burman and Meera Dev Burman. Nicknamed Pancham in infancy — the story credits Ashok Kumar, who heard the fifth note in the baby's cry — he grew up partly in Calcutta with his grandparents while his father conquered Bombay. Music arrived from every direction: his father's bhatiyali-rooted genius, formal sarod taleem from Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, tabla from Pandit Samta Prasad, and the harmonica, which he played well enough that his solo graced 'Hai Apna Dil To Awara' (Solva Saal, 1958). He composed startlingly early — the tune that became 'Ae Meri Topi Palat Ke Aa' (Funtoosh, 1956) is attributed to the nine-year-old Pancham, and 'Sar Jo Tera Chakraye' (Pyaasa, 1957) grew from a tune of his. By his late teens he was his father's assistant, absorbing the craft of the recording studio that he would later explode from within.

Pancham debuted with Chhote Nawab (1961) and scored the cult comedy Bhoot Bangla (1965), but Teesri Manzil (1966) — won for him by Shammi Kapoor's insistence — made him the new sound of India overnight. Through the 1970s he was a one-man modernity: electric guitars and transistor-radio pop in Caravan and Apna Desh, cabaret psychedelia in Hare Rama Hare Krishna, pure raag-rooted depth in Amar Prem and Kinara, Gulzar's poetry set like watermarks in Aandhi, Khushboo and Ijaazat ('Mera Kuchh Saamaan', 1987). He scored Sholay's iconic soundscape and sang 'Mehbooba Mehbooba' himself in his trademark growl. With Kishore Kumar he built the male voice of two decades; with Asha Bhosle — whom he married in 1980 — he pushed rhythm and sensuality into new territory ('Piya Tu Ab To Aaja', 'Duniya Mein'). Filmfare honoured him for Sanam Teri Kasam (1982) and Masoom (1984). The late-80s drought ended in the only way legends allow: 1942: A Love Story (1994), released after his death on 4 January 1994, won him a posthumous third Filmfare and a permanent second life.

R.D. Burman died believing himself out of fashion; three decades on, he is Hindi film music's most sampled, most remixed, most studied composer. The 1990s remix wave was practically a Pancham revival industry; lounge acts, indie bands and Grammy-stage tributes keep finding new rooms in his songs. His studio inventions — breath as percussion, bottles and combs as instruments, the bass-forward mixing, Latin and funk grafted onto khayal and bhatiyali — became the production grammar of everyone from Jatin-Lalit to Vishal-Shekhar; A.R. Rahman and Vishal Bhardwaj cite him openly. Filmfare instituted the R.D. Burman Award for New Music Talent in his memory in 1995 — the industry's formal admission that its future flows through him. The cult of Pancham, with its annual tribute concerts and obsessive collectors, is unlike anything around any other Indian composer: not nostalgia, but a living workshop.

Pancham's craft fused three educations: classical taleem (sarod, tabla), his father's melodic economy, and a shortwave-radio appetite for the world — jazz, bossa nova, funk, Nepali and Bengali folk, psychedelia. He treated the studio itself as an instrument: rubbing sandpaper for rhythm ('Meri Samne Wali Khidki Mein'), blowing across beer bottles ('Mehbooba Mehbooba'), recording breath, whispers and reversed tapes. His bass lines and drum patterns made Hindi songs groove for the first time, yet 'Raina Beeti Jaye' (Todi-Khamaj shades) and 'Beeti Na Bitai' proved his raag-daari ran deep. He demanded — and got — athletic singing: Asha's octave gymnastics, Kishore's controlled abandon. Melody first, mischief always, formula never.