A prince in Bollywood

S D Burman: The Prince Musician

Anirudha Bhattacharjee and Balaji Vittal

Tranquebar

344 pages; Rs 799

What happens when two music aficionados come together to pen a book on their favourite music composer? The result is an extensively researched, anecdote-filled gem that is worth keeping in your personal library. Anirudha Bhattacharjee and Balaji Vittal’s previous book on R D Burman (R D Burman: The Man, The Music) set the bar high by winning them the National Film Award for Best Book on Cinema. That may be why the writers have ensured that their next book, this time on the father, hews to that standard.

Uncovering the various “facets of the great musician which are unknown even to his hard core fans”, the author duo delves into the life of S D Burman who “made history and shall always be counted amongst those who gave film music a new grammar”. S D Burman: The Prince Musician, does not talk about the music alone, but traverses the musician’s early years in Tripura, his royal roots, and how history played a significant role in the various stages of Burman’s life.

The biography covers accounts of Burman’s childhood, which roughly coincided with the outbreak of World War I; his debut on national radio even before it came to be known as All India Radio and how Bombay (now Mumbai) became his beloved city after his initial aversion to the city when he had arrived with a young wife and a boy in tow. 

As the young scion of the Tripura royal family, Burman stuck out into the world of cinema and popular music where artistes came from humbler stock. Going against, to some extent, the father’s wishes by pursuing music as a career and later marrying a “commoner” led to his ostracism from the family. But being in the metaphorical wilderness didn’t deter his spirits. Unlike other musicians who had come to Bombay to make a living, Burman’s temperament was nomadic by nature, the authors say. 

Despite spending most of his life in Bombay, he couldn’t bring himself to like the city as much as he did Calcutta (now Kolkata). That he spoke with a distinctive accent – Bangal – underlined his outside roots and didn’t help his quest to make a breakthrough in the competitive world of popular film music. Like every successful musician, his stint, too, didn’t begin on a high note and his royal roots certainly didn’t give him an advantage in a world in which talent was judged on merits. He became used to the rejection of his music and his nasal voice but it says much for his tenacity and humility that, despite linguistic and cultural constraints, he hauled himself up and transformed his style with the changing times.

Burman created a genre all his own, his music blending folk and classical. But the result was not self-indulgent fusion. His Hindustani classical roots were strong, and he knew exactly when and how to put them to use in a musical sequence, and he took care to synchronise his music with the tone of the script. Well balanced and minimalistic in nature – Burman never overwhelmed with his music. And though he had a signature sound, he was versatile. From Baazi to Taxi Driver, or Abhimaan, Burman’s soundtracks varied; yet there was something that could make even an untrained ear identify with Burman’s composition.

If Burman’s music endures, it is because he was clear that his music should resonate with the common man, not just the directors or the actors. While most of his music was well in line with the scripts he was offered, he didn’t shy away from experimenting with voices, and sounds. The fact that he took a chance on singers who were not as polished as the established singers of the day also speaks volumes about Burman’s character and his definitive views on his oeuvre. These not-so-polished singers included Hemant Kumar, Manna Dey and Geeta Dutt, who went on to become some of the most revered singers of their generation.

The book vividly traces the few constants of Burman’s musical life. From a long association with Dev Anand and his film production unit, Navketan, that became synonymous with Burman’s musical journey in Bollywood to his short but exhilarating jugalbandi with Sahir Ludhianvi, his unwavering faith in Lata Mangeshkar and not to forget Burman mentoring his son Rahul Dev (Pancham). 

The journey from Sachin Karta (as he was revered in the cultural/intellectual circles in Calcutta) to Sachin Dev Burman and, finally, SD Burman was long and arduous but all the worth the toil. To fill out the lesser-known details of his life, the authors have relied heavily on their interaction with some people who knew Burman well, had worked with him in his lifetime or been associated with the family for many years, such as Sachin Bhowmick and Manohari Singh. 

In some places, the effort to draw a parallel between historical developments and Burman’s life make for tedious and superfluous reading. Bar that, some glaring proof-reading errors and the publisher’s poor choice of font, the book is a decent read for those who grew up on Burman’s music.