SD Burman- Biography

He was born Comilla (now Bangla Desh). He was from Tripura's royal family, but the brothers fell out, and one moved to Comilla, till they later went back. Anyway, he studied in Agartala and Calcutta, and started with singing Bengali songs of various kinds. His influences were Baul and Bhatiyali songs. He made a name for himself, but for further growth, moved to Mumbai. He stayed with Harindranath Chattopadhyay initially, and struggled.

Success came slowly, and he once even considered moving back. Ashok Kumar managed to delay his departure- for ever, thank God. We may otherwise have missed out on his superb music from later films. My own favourites are all his Dev Anand films- from Paying Guest Check out this song.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YXCTKubQLg from the film as an example.

Or Tere Ghar ke Samne Check this out too.. Dil ka bhanwar kare pukar.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEMMGb4xMQQ what a melody.

Later songs from Gambler (Dil aaj shayar hai..), Tere Mere Sapne (Hey, maine kasam li), Prem Pujari (Shokhiyon mein ghola jaaye), or Guide (Tere mere sapne ab ek rang hain), or others like Ek ladki bheegi bhagi si (Chalti ka Naam Gadi), O meri, o meri o meri Sharmeelee from the film Sharmeelee are a testimony to an abundant talent that gave Rajesh Khanna his superstardom in Aradhana. To me, SDB was a superstar too.

The book details the contributions of his assistants Jaidev, and arrangers/players like Basu, Manohari and Maruti Rao Keer, who assisted him throughout. Pandit Shiv Kumar played for him, and so did Hariprasad Chaurasia.There was also a professor Gopal das Saxena aka Neeraj who wrote many beautiful songs for him.

He composed (for Mili) till his last breath, and turned out superb numbers. In Abhimaan too, before that. Stories about various songs abound, and are thrilling to read. I read the translated book in Marathi, from HQ Chaudhary's original.

2 comments:

Diamond Head said...

I take it Harindranath C was not a good host?

Rajendra said...

No.

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