Remembering ‘rebel’ RD Burman: the maverick maestro

Not many people know that among ‘perfectionist’ actor Aamir Khan’s top ten all-time favourite film-icons is RD Burman (fondly nicknamed Pancham-Da and RDB) . With his sense of quirky humour, RDB could easily make anyone laugh heartily. An impulsive, impatient man who would pour cold-water into his steaming hot tea-glass to allow him to gulp it down. At the same time he would ‘patiently’ play chess and would check-make his partner most of the times.

After ‘pack-up’ Rahul-da’s passions included cooking delicious food at home, growing and nurturing chilly plants and watching football matches! A modest, musical maestro who could come up with a haunting melodious tune in just 45 seconds after going thru the lyrics. Even if it were the most mundane.

Consider, how you would react if someone recited the seemingly insipid mukhada (refrain) ‘Mera kuchh saamaan, tumhare paas padaa hai’; translated it would mean, ‘my luggage or my belongings are lying with you’. Taking it as a creative challenge, Pancham da composed a classical tune for these same lyrics written by Gulzaar-saab for his bohemian movie Ijaazat and infused exuberant life into them. And the incredible climax came, when the playback singer melody-queen Asha Bhosle won the ‘National Award’ for this same song—sadly the marvellous composing talent was ‘overlooked’ by the jury. That then was the great genius of legendary Bollywood composer-singer Rahul Dev Burman whose chart-buster songs have defied time and are still as popular as they were forty years ago! The RDB composed song ‘Bachnaa Ae Haseeno’ (1977), which had the Rishi Kapoor gyrating to it, became an unforgettable melody and it was remixed three decades later for a movie Rishi Kapoor’s son Ranbir acted in.

Some of RDB’s yesteryear hit songs have been used as ad-commercial jingles, as they have an amazing recall value.

As a budding film journalist in the mid-’80s, I had the opportunity to meet RDB several times either at his song recordings at Film Centre (Tardeo in Mumbai) or at film-parties and movie premieres. With his exuberant witty nature, he would liven up the situation at recordings and enthuse his loyal team of core musicians. (I’m still a die hard RDB fan) I went to interview him twice, but he refused to speak to me. “Come back as an unbiased music-critic, not as my die-hard fan.”

This ‘guru-mantra’ laid the first foundation of my print media aspirations; as he candidly spoke about various sensitive issues. RDB was media-shy and rarely gave press interviews.

Although he was immensely popular for his cabaret compositions such as ‘Piya Tu Ab To Aaja’ and ‘Aao Na Gale Lagao Na’ and ‘Duniya Mein Logo Ko’, he revealed to me that he ‘hated’ composing for cabarets since classical music was his forte and that gave him a creative high. “Even as a playback singer, I wish to have my distinct rebel-identity, which is why my songs are unconventional and even have bizarre sound effects,” quipped RDB.

When I grilled him about ‘lifting’ specific western tunes he honestly admitted to it. “In a few songs like ‘Chura Liya Hai Tumne’ or ‘Mehbooba Mehbooba’, I have definitely been inspired by western tunes. But I have taken only the first one or two lines and the rest of the song is my original effort,” he clarified.

Passionately fond of playing the mouth-organ (harmonica), RDB incorporated the innovative mouth-organ notes in many of his compositions and even as haunting background themes such as in the movie ‘Sholay’ where Amitabh Bachchan is shown playing the instrument. “The notes of the mouth-organ have this youthful connectivity and add recall value to the song,” explained the junior Burman da who also ensured that almost every other song made use of crisp-clear side rhythm by way of the resso-resso, kabashe or the maracas. “It enhances the foot-tapping percussion effect,” he would justify.

As a versatile genius composer, who was fond of fusion, he would conjure up contrasting song-tracks like ‘Jaane-Jaan’ (Jawani Diwani) and ‘Biti Na Bitaai Raina’ (Parichay) or even ‘Ek Chatur Naar’ (Padosan). RD Burman was at least 40 years ahead of his time.

In 1971, when ‘trance music’ was unheard of, he came up with the all-time trance-dance hippie anthem ‘Dum Maro Dum’. So futuristic and enterprising was Pancham da, that he got ace guitarist (singer) Bhupinder Singh to use the electronic ‘wah-wah’ pedal as a guitar accessory to produce the haunting overture to create the drugs-trip effect as the ‘Dum Maro Dum’ song begins. An extensive survey conducted by one of the Mumbai FM Radios revealed that ‘Dum Maro Dum’ has been voted by fastidious music-lovers of today, as the ‘Song of the Century’ amidst tough competition from various other popular chart-busters. What better testimonial can there be, to prove RDB’s timeless talent.

A few days before he passed away, I met Pancham da at Amit Kumar’s non-filmy album release which had a relatively less media turn-out. Simply because in the showbiz media, ‘chief guest’ RDB was considered “no-longer-hot”. Besides on that same evening, a showman film-maker had hosted his flamboyant anniversary party at a swanky 5-star hotel elsewhere. So touched was Pancham da (he was recovering from malaria) to see me at this chhoti-si-party held on a terrace of an industrial gala building, that he hugged me. An hour later, as we were exiting from the high-tea party, RDB asked his driver Ramesh to shift to the back-seat and insisted on personally driving and dropped me in his modest car at the 5-star venue. As we parted, Dada (RDB) gave me a warm hand-shake for at least two minutes and said, “let’s celebrate my comeback with a bang, next year with 1942-A Love Story . But cruel destiny had other plans for the legendary composer, as he suddenly breathed his last, during the wee hours of January 4th 1994.

Superstar Rajesh Khanna, who was Pancham da’s close buddy, said to me at that time, “Who says RD Burman is no more—woh hamesha zinda rahenge through his legacy of chartbusting music”.

As told to Bharti Dubey

Chaitanya Padukone is a senior journalist and has a written a book on RD Burman, RD Burmania