The life of a music maker
The legendary Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa had once said that those who have not seen Satyajit Ray's films have not seen the sun and the moon. Taking a cue from that, one can safely conclude that those in the Indian sub-continent who have not loved Sachin Dev Burman's music have no ears. Few in the subcontinent have not heard and enjoyed the music of Sachin-karta as he is popularly known in his home state of Tripura. So when a new book on the musical genius of Sachin Dev Burman comes out, it is bound to generate interest and curiosity. But what makes S D Burman: The World of His Music ( Rupa publication, New Delhi), which is an elaborate account of the journey of the musical maestro and how his music developed the way it had, a special one is that its author Khagesh Dev Burman himself is a member of Tripura's royal family, to which Sachin-kara belonged, and who knows the inside out of that family and its members down the centuries.
While Sachin Dev Burman had penned his autobiography Sargamer Nikhad in 1970 which was published by Desh magazine , this is possibly for the first time that the music director-singer's biography is available to us in English, which is in fact translated from the Bengali original, Khagesh Dev Burman's Sachin Kartar Ganer Bhuvan.
Sachin Dev Burman's father Nabadwdip Chandra Dev Burman as a member of Tripura's royal family and mother Nirupama Deve a Manipuri princess representing the core of Vaishnav culture. Nabawdip Chandra could have become the king of Tripura but betrayal, or a "cruel twist of fate", as the book's author says, deprived him of the throne and was exiled to the fringe of the kingdom—Comilla now in Bangladesh. However, what was a loss to the Tripura royal family was a huge gain for the world of music because it was in Comilla that Sachin Dev Burman was born on October 1, 1906. Sachin karta spent the first eighteen years of his life in Comilla, where he studied in Yusuf School and did his intermediate and graduation from the Victoria College while all his brothers studied at St Paul's School in Darjeeling.
The importance of Comilla and the topography of the then East Bengal in shaping Sachin Dev Burman during his formative years as a child and as an young man is beautifully summed up by Khagesh Dev Burman when he states in the book: "It can be said without a trace of doubt that had he not been born at Comilla, there would have been no Sangeetacharya Sachin Dev Burman". Sachin was the youngest of the nine siblings—five brothers and four sisters. Nabawdip Chandra, as the book's author tells us, himself was a man of arts, "an expert painter and sculptor and a skilled sitar player possessing an excellent voice that could mesmerize listeners". Nirupama Devi was also steeped in artistic ambience of Manipuri music and dance.
The royal family of Tripura not only patronized art and culture but many of its members were "successful artists in their own right" and Sachin's father used to organize musical soirees at home which were attended by all his children. But his stay in Comilla made Sachin Dev Burman break free from the palace culture—not totally though—"to create a separate tradition through the folk music of rural Bengal". It was during his stay in Comilla that Sachin Dev Burman was "deeply attracted to folk music's rural roots, its melancholia and spontaneity", according to the book.
It says the "cultural ambience of Comilla in those days played an important role in the development of Sachin Dev Burman's musical faculties" as it was the "nerve centre of music and drama in the area, boasting of a number of institutions and personalities to further the cause of music and culture". The Young Men's Club in Comilla was frequented by Sachin Dev Burman and it was a meeting point of musicians, lyricists, poets and writers including Kazi Nazrul Islam who later became a close friend and associate of Sachin karta.
Sachni and Nazrul would often be seen together at Kandirpar or around Talpukur, Ranidighi and Dharmasagar areas of Comilla and the two would often meet at the Young Men's Club "where they would punctuate the animate conversation with impromptu duets" and "curious onlookers would assembly to listen to them".
"There is no doubt that Nazrul's advent in Comilla inspired Sachin's experimentation with music and had a salutary effect on his music, elevating it to a different level", says Khagesh Dev Burman, adding that it is surprising that Sachin sang only four songs composed by Nazrul, including "meghla nishi bhorey""and "kuhu kuhu koelia".
After tracing Sachin Dev Burman's life in Comilla between 1906 and 1924, the book segments the rest of the chapters into three parts—from 1925 to 1931 and 1932 to 1944 in Calcutta and from 1944 to 1975 in Bombay.
In his first days in Calcutta, Sachin missed Comilla very much, especially the cooing of birds, splashing about in a pond, kirtan at daybreak and bhatiyali songs and the company of fakirs and Vaishnavas, says the writer, adding, though, that he also had a strong desire to listen to Hindustani music and learn from ustads. He became a disciple of famous singer Krishna Chandra Dey who persuaded Sachin to give up his love for tennis for the sake of music. Sachin then went to take training from Ustad Badal Khan Saheb who was K C Dey's guru. The pursuit of music was so important for Sachin that he spurned an offer to become the prime minister in the court of the then Tripura king Maharaj Bir Bikram to take the place of Sachin's father who died and the scion of the royal family took to giving tuition in music to make a living.
During his stay in Calcutta, Sachin came in contact with some of the legendary names in music world—Zamiruddin Khan, Bhishmadeb Chattopadhyay, Sailen Dasgupta and Girijashankar Chakravarty and developed close associations with some big names of cinema and music at that time—B N Sircar, Nitin Bose, Debaki Bose, Pramathesh Barua and K L Saigal. Sachin's composition of songs in Bengali failed to create much of a sensation in Bengal and his ambition to make it really big as a music director took him to Bombay where he set up an immediate rapport with Dev Anand, Guru Dutt and Navketan Films. The book tells us how Sachin Karta unearthed the talents of singing legends like Hemanta Mukhopadhyay, Kishore Kumar, Aasha Bhonsle, Manna Dey and Geeta Dutt.
The book also dwells on the relationships between Sachin Dev Burman and his composer-son Rahul Dev and rejects speculations about a rift and hostility between them due to competition. However, the book does acknowledge that Rahul had "ghost-composed" some of Sachin's popular compositions in the late fifties and sixties. While acknowledging differences of opinion between father and son, the writer, however, insists "his father was Pancham's idol".
The book is replete with interesting anecdotes from Sachin Karta's life. For instance, how Sachin was "terribly upset" with the kind of music Rahul Dev Burman gave to the popular number 'dum maro dum' in the Dev Anand-Zeenat Aman-starrer Hare Rama Kare Krishna.
The 291-page book has a list of all the Bangla and Hindi songs whose music was composed by Sachin Dev Burman. It will come in handy for music scholars as well as lovers of Sachin's work, which has delighted millions across generations. The English translation of the Bengali book by the author in collaboration with S K Ray Chaudhary never falters and makes it worthy of a book lover's collection largely because it is presented in a manner suited for laymen and music experts alike.
Pallab Bhattacharya is a senior Indian journalist based in New Delhi.
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