‘Sunn Mere Bandhu Rey’-Remembering Maverick Composer-Singer  S D Burman On His death anniversary

Chaitanya Padukone

Today ( Oct 1^st ) happens to be iconic Bollywood composer-singer Padma Shri Sachin Dev Burman’s  birth anniversary. Lakhs of his loyal fans will be playing and listening to or humming some of his evergreen melodious gems.    Most of today’s whatsapp-tik tok young generation may probably figure out legendary Sachin-Da as the “father of innovative genius composer-singer Rahul Dev Burman.”

That’s because dozens of futuristic RDB’s westernized tracks ( ‘Dum Maro Dum’ , ‘Duniya Mein’, ‘Mehbooba Mehbooba’)  are frequently ‘re-mixed’ and ‘re-created’ much to the dancing delight of the gen-now.  Some music-buffs had surmised that twice National Award-winning  Sachin-da who projected this serious demeanor, excelled more in sober, classical-based songs like ‘Tere Naina Talaash Karen ’ or ‘Hum Bekhudi Mein Tum Ko’ or ‘Poocho Na Kaisey Maine Rayn’ ’. But with an awesome young-budding ‘assistant ‘ in the form of his talented-prodigy son Rahul-da (RDB),  the maestro father SDB ( who loved chewing paan), could conjure up peppy foot-tapping western-bongo-drums-beat songs. Like  for instance ‘ Haal Kaisa Hai Janaab Ka’ or ‘ even ‘Khwaab Ho Tum Ya Koi ’ or ‘Sar Jo Tera Chakraaye’ . Or even  ‘Hai Apna Dil Toh Aawara’ where son RDB (Pancham-Da) beautifully played  and segued the chromatic harmonica (mouth-organ) notes in the interludes. During his lifetime, RDB personally told me several times, that for him his father ‘Sachin-da was his sangeet Guru-Dev’.

Recalled Pancham-Da, “ There were so many precious lessons I got from him by way of optimum use of  orchestrations and natural sounds and weird sound effects. Also that one can daringly defy conventional norms . Although dad has to his credit over a dozen recorded hit Hindi film songs ( ‘Sunn Mere Bandhu Rey’ or ‘Waahan Kaun Hai Tera’ ) he never let the film-director use his ‘playback’ voice on any lead actor or supporting actor, That’s because my dad insisted that most of the Bhatiyali style songs sung in his deep resonant haunting nasal voice were ‘not’ meant for on-screen lip-sync on any actor, but were to be used only as ‘background vocal music’.  In fact he sang a couple of playback songs in movies released in the mid-30’s ( ‘Selima’  and ‘Rajgi’ which were picturised on him in cameo roles,” revealed RDB.

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Tags: Bollywood, Bollywood News, Bollywood Updates, Television, Telly News,  S D Burman, Sunn Mere Bandhu Rey