R.D. Burman

Rahul Dev Burman, also known as, R. D. Burman, Pancham and Pancham da, was one of the greatest music composer in Bollywood films. He was the son of singer and music composer Sachin Dev Burman and the second husband of playback singer Asha Bhosle. He is known to have revolutionised the Hindi Film music whose style and techniques are followed by new upcoming composers even after years of his demise.

According to stories, Rahul Dev Burman was nicknamed Pancham because, as a child, whenever he cried, it sounded in the fifth note (Pa) of the Indian musical scale. The word Pancham means five (or fifth) in Sanskrit.

He started independent music composing in 1961 with Chhote Nawaab and did 331 Films and 4 Non-Film Albums. Before coming onto his own, he assisted his father S.D. Burman for long. Out of his 331 released movies 292 were in Hindi, 31 in Bangla, 3 in Telugu, 2 each in Tamil & Oriya and 1 in Marathi. RD also composed for 5 TV Serials in Hindi and Marathi. He also scored a large number of non-film songs in Bangla (also known as Pooja songs or modern songs), which are available in different albums. He did a song for a small documentary film called Maa Ki Pukaar too, in 1975.

A good amount of his work, however, is still to be released. There are songs from unreleased or shelved films. And then there are composition from the period when he had little work in hand (the last 5-6 years of his life), but when he kept composing tunes and stored them.

R D Burman did playback in eighteen movies composed by him. He was famous for unique, grunting bass singing style. He also acted in the film Bhoot Bungla (1965) and Pyar Ka Mausam (1967).

He also used some of the popular western songs to compose his own tunes.

Pancham was comfortable with all types of music, be it the romantic Raat kali from Buddha mil gaya, the sexy cabaret Piya tu ab to aaja from Caravan, the ultimate hippie anthem Dum Maro Dum from Hare Krishna Hare Rama or the classical Raina beeti jaaye. It is said that Dev Anand did not include the complete version of Dum Maro Dum in Hare Rama Hare Krishna, as he was worried the song would overshadow the film. At times, R D doubled up as a singer too. His most famous song as a singer was Mehbooba from Sholay.

Pancham was a very creative person. His percussion included a spoon against a glass (Chura liya hai from Yaadon Ki baraat), desks (Masterji ki aa gayee chitthee from Kitaab) a bamboo whistle with a balloon (Abdullah) and bottles filled with water at different levels (O maajhi re from Khushboo).

Some of Pancham's songs were inspired from popular western tunes. For example,Aao twist karein (Bhoot Bangla) was a direct lift of Come lets twist again by Chubby Checker while Tera mujhse hai pehle ka naata koi (Aaa Gale Lag Ja) is said to be a copy of The Yellow Rose of Texas by Elvis Presley

R D Burman's last years were not very pleasant. The few films he gave music for flopped at the box office. Subhash Ghai promised him Ram Lakhan but gave it instead to Laxmikant Pyarelal. This greatly upset Pancham. He suffered from a heart attack in 1988 and underwent heart surgery. During this period, he composed many tunes, which were never released

Pancham had financial difficulties particularly later in his life. There have been wide discussions about the disconnect between the success of his music and his financial success. Even today, at any given moment there is some radio or television channel that is playing his music. His music has found a new generation of followers. But unfortunately his music and his talent was never recognized during his life leading to financial difficulties.

After his death, in the late 1990s, the remix versions of R D Burman's hits ruled the Indian music scene. Even today, most of the Indian remix songs are his tunes remixed.