स्वरानंद - सचिन देव बर्मन

 

S.D.Burman was born in Comilla, in the then Independent Tripura. His father was from the royal family of Tripura while his mother was from the royal family of Manipur. His mother died when he was just two years of age.

While in an Elite school in Agartala, Sachin’s father realised that the school was more interested in pampering him than his education, and he shifted him to a ‘normal’ school in Comilla. After his graduation in Tripura, Sachin was sent to Kolkatta to pursue higher studies. But he started his formal music training under K.C.Dey, then Bhismadev Chattopadhaya, followed by training from Kahifa Badal Khan, Sarangi player, and Ustad Allauddin Khan.

SD started working as a radio singer at Calcutta in the late '20s. His compositions were deeply influenced by his huge repertoire of folk-tunes from the present day Bangladesh.

He married his student, Meera Das Gupta in 1938 and she being a non-royal, it created a furore within the royal family. Subsequently he severed ties with his family, and forfeited his inheritance.

SD participated in music conferences and he used to sing Bengali Thumris which were much appreciated. He started composing music for plays and for Bengali movies in the thirties. He composed for nearly 20 Bangla movies. It was Sasadhar Mukherjee of Filmistan Studio, who coerced SD to come to Mumbai in 1944. He also assigned him to score music for Shikari (1946) and Aath Din. His first major breakthrough though came the following year with Do Bhai (1947). The song मेरा सुंदर सपना बीत गया  sung by Geeta Dutt was a great hit. 

SD had a penchant to seek folk and traditional melodies from everywhere and travelled through out the country to learn folk and traditional music, and used them beautifully in his compositions.

In 1950 s, SD teamed up with Dev Anand's Nav Ketan Productions. With the success of their second film, Baazi (1951) he made it to the top, and a long association with Nav Ketan and Dev Anand was on its way. 'Baazi's jazzy musical score revealed a new facet of singer Geeta Dutt, who was mainly known for melancholy songs and bhajans. 

While every song in the film was a hit, one stood out for special appeal – "तदबीर से बिगडी हुई तकदीर बनाले", a ghazal that was occidentalised into a seductive song. ये रात ये चांदनी फिर कहाँ' by Hemant Kumar is an all-time great classic. SD’s only child, Rahul Dev Burman and Meera Devi used to assist SD, with some of the musical compositions.

 

SD became the favourite of Dev Anand on one hand and Guru Dutt on the other, and what a genius he was, he created completely distinct styles for these two directors who had completely different filmmaking temperaments.

 

SD sang about 14 Hindi and 13 Bengali film songs. And what a fulfilling moment it must have been when he sang his equally illustrious son’s composition for 'अमर प्रेम'  डोली में बिठाई के कहार.

In 1958, he was awarded theSangeet Natak Akademi Award, and to date he remains the only film music director to ever won this prestigious award. SD is possibly the only Music composer who also received a National Award for Best Playback Singer.

SD had a unique style of composing film songs. While most of the composers used harmonium or piano to compose a  tune, he composed tunes using rhythm such as clapping hands.

SD was a real father figure of Bollywood music. Born in a royal family, he had heart of a prince, he (obviously), nurtured Rahul Dev into a fine composer, but also trained a number of musicians, composers, and was a mentor par excellence to many. He regarded Kishore Kumar as his second son.

 

Just to give a few examples, he picked up Dattaram Naik, while listening to him at a street orchestra, made him his assistant, and N.Datta eventually became an independent popular composer himself. Same was the case with Jaidev Verma, he was Dada’s assistant, and also carved out a niche for himself. It was SachinDa who advised Chitragupt to go to Madras, to serve the production houses in Chennai.

 

Sachin Tendulkar was named after SD, by Tendulkar’s grandfather, who was an ardent fan of BurmanDa.

To listen to song played on Accordian by Shirish Purohit click the link below

"खायी है रे हमने कसम" 

 

If you like Shirish Purohit’s music please subscribe to his You Tube channel - https://youtube.com/user/shirishpurohit

Shirish Purohit