The Magic of RD
Burman
As you grow older and the world changes, you slip into
periods of nostalgia now and then, looking back to the road you have traveled.
It is in those moments that you remember music that you loved, food that you
enjoyed and some of life’s great reads, just to name a few. For me, music has
always been an integral part of my life so far and Hindi film music has been at
the fore, starting right from my high school days.
Last evening, we attended a lovely program by a Bombay based
troupe called Niche entertainment working with the Dhristi foundation and
titled ‘Gata Rahe Mera Dil’. It was a revelation, for it was so beautifully crafted
and conducted, with awesome (a word I do not use normally) singers and a
brilliant orchestra to boot. The evening was filled with some 4 hours of SD
Burman’s songs and the team on stage took us to another decade, a period when
melody was Queen. Milind Oak’s production with classy singers and a
scintillating orchestra including ace keyboardist Darshana Jog, made it truly
memorable. And that got me to continue on with my study on Bombay filmdom’s
music, this being the third installment after two articles covering its early years and the making of a song.
The late 60’s were the days when the music of SD Burman was
at its peak, Hemant Kumar had just slipped away into retirement, Salil Chowdhary
shone in flashes now and then, drifting into prominence at distant Kerala,
while Lakshmikant Pyarelal and Kalyanji Anandji came up with great stuff here
and there. Peeking through their midst was a young RD Burman, nicknamed Pancham.
There are interesting asides about how his cry as a child was always in the Pa
or 5th note and I would assume that it is all hyperbole from his khaas
fans, nevertheless Pancham was the name Rahul was stuck with, though he was called
Tublu at home.
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| Courtesy Indian Express |
RDB started his own compositions during his late teens after
obtaining a firm footing assisting his illustrious father, accompanied by his
father’s team of brilliant musicians. It should have been a relatively seamless
entry, but it was not. His ideas, his methods and his music were at most times
different, though at times, some of his compositions made you wonder if the
score was really his or if it was inspired by his father’s style. Most of all
he proved to be a changer of the industry’s style which had become set between
the 50’s and the 70’s, heavily influenced by a folk and classical base. It was
not that RD did not have a classical base, in fact he was reasonably well
trained in the tabla by Brajen Biswas, the sarod by Ustad Ali Akbar and Aashish
Khan and was a great harmonica player while at the same time assisting his well-entrenched
father with traditional music composition and arrangement for decades.
A couple of his earliest compositions which you will all
readily recognize and stand apart, found their way into his father’s films one
being Sar jo tera chakkraye filmed on the inimitable Johnny Walker in Pyaasa.
Even though his formal entry with the baton was in Chhote nawab, he left only a
few hits in the 60’s. The 70’s however belonged to Panchamda and nobody else.
Every film of his was a hit, every song still remains on our lips. Such was his
grip on the youth of that era. Kati Patang, Caravan, Hare Rama Hare Krishna,
Amar Prem, Jawani Diwani, Parichay, Yadoon ki Baraat, Heera panna, Anamika,
Namak haram, Khel Khel mein, Aandhi, Khushboo, Sholay, Balika Badhu, Mehbooba,
Hum kisise kum nahin, Ghar, Kinara, Shalimar, Golmal….the list simply goes on
and on, signifying a production rate of hits which can simply not be rivaled
by anybody. Let’s now figure out what made him tick.
I was in college those days and listening to almost all of
it either on the Vividbharati Aap ki farmaish or Radio Ceylon with Amin
Sayani’s Binaca Geetmala. In those days music was released on LP and EP records
and we would somehow scrounge money to buy and collect some of these records, a
few of which I still have in my collection. After a while they got scratched
and irritated you no end, till the Cassette player and CD player appeared to
make life a bit easier.
Interestingly, RD’s first film Chotte Nawab, starring
Mehmood (where his son Lucky Ali played a toddler) was rejected by his father
SDB and Mehmood who was good friends with RD, chose him. The songs barring one
were not noticed by the public, though if you listen to them today, you wonder
why! RD was somewhat upset and went into his shell and back to assisting his
dad, till Bhoot Bangla came by. There was another movie from Guru Dutt’s
stables which was meant to launch his talents, named Raaz which unfortunately
got canned after Dutt became morose with Kaagaz ke phool’s failure. He was 21
then and SD was not happy that Guru had chosen his son to direct music,
thinking that he was too raw then. A song from that movie was his very first
official composition with Lata Mangeshkar, ‘Ghar aaja ghir aye’, a lovely song
which many pundits grumbled seemed to be a gift from his father. Around that
period, SDB had a heart attack and slowed down. If you recall the famous harmonic interludes
in Hai apna dil to awara and the super famous Dosti songs, it would be
interesting to note that they were done by RDB.
People wonder where a person who had this amount of solid
classical music exposure found an avenue to imbibe the western touch. Well,
that came from the hip Calcutta music scene actually where RD perused all the
new pop and jazz records and formed a troupe called Melody Chimes. Western
classical never interested him though and after moving to Bombay (he was apparently
forced to move by his dad who felt he was drifting into bad company at Cal),
the collection of Kersi Lord - a famous arranger, accordion player and son of
Kawas Lord, was his mainstay (Kersi was the person who introduced the synthesizer
and glockenspiel (a metal xylophone) to Indian film music).
No music director becomes great without trusted aides who are
brilliant in their own right. RD made some great friends from his father’s
troupe and three of them who stayed with RD for a long time were Manohari Singh
on the sax (or any tube instrument), Maruti Rao the rhythm king and Basu
Charkraborthi a cello and strings maestro. But there were many more in his
creative team, like Bhupinder Singh, Ramesh Iyer, Shiv Kumar Sharma, Louis
banks, Hari Prasad Chaurasya, just to name
a few.
After a hiatus of 4 years in the 60’s, things were changing
in Bombay, Guru Dutt was no more and RDB was depressed what with people
muttering that he was being gifted tunes by his dad, but ge continued on gamely.
Remember Kishore’s ‘Jaago Sonewale’? That was from Bhoot Bangla and in it there
was also Aao Twist Karen, a song you would never expect from the great
Mannadey. That movie also bombed accolades came when the songs of Teesra kaun were
a hit and in this movie he met his to be partner in life Asha Bhonsle, to form
a lovely singing directorial combination. Teesri mazil followed, a hit (it took
some effort to make Shammi Kapoor a super star then to accept RDB as his MD!)
with an elevated brass section departing from tradition and using an electric
organ for the first time. The Nasir Hussain - RDB combo was to continue for a
long time after that super hit.
In fact it was about then that his father accepted that he
should strike out on his own and be different. It was going to be a huge
challenge, with SD churning out hits after hits under the Navketan banner, with
Guide, Jewel Thief, Bombay Ka babu and Tere ghar ke samne. An amusing incident
shows how disruptive RD could be, during the composition phase of one film, SD
insisted that RD be kept away from the room, lest he westernize the song. RDB, with
Asha in tow, in his next attempt introduced the Bossa Nova style in Pati Patni.
Try listening to Maar Dalega, it is mesmerizing. It was Jaikishan of the
Shankar Jaikishan duo who first stated that RD was the best among the upcoming
MD’s and he went on to state that RD’s mixing of sounds would set a trend which
will remain for a long time to come and even force others to make changes. The
change agent was finally arrived, in Bombay’s music scene.
I still remember Regal in Colaba, even in our times, it was
a nice theater to watch a film. It was here that RD met a fan named Rita Patel
for a movie, as part of a bet Rita had with her friends. Rita slunk away after
getting RDB into the theater, but RD was intrigued enough to chase her down
later and make an acquaintance which blossomed into a whirlwind romance. They
married in secret and a second time with the parent’s blessings. As was bound
to happen, the wanton hours of life in the film-world, the fact that RD was
strictly a Bong non veg and Rita was a chaste Gujju veg etc. were reasons for a
drift in the union, some years later.
Padosan followed, a classic in many respects, where Kishore
and RD simply rocked it. SD in the meanwhile came up with the block buster
Aradhana and slowly the wheels had turned around with murmurs going around that
Aradhana’s music showed bits of RD’s style and less of SD’s. Perhaps that was
because he was continuing to help his ailing father arrange music.
The 70’s arrived and most of the stalwarts had faded away
with SD and Madan Mohan continuing on. RD scored big with Kati Patang and new
instruments like the Roland echo machine and the grand piano were being used to
good effect. Mukesh got one lovely song in, since Kishore was traveling abroad
and as Rajesh Khanna would not favor Talat Mahmood. Many a music form crept
into those Kati Patang compositions according to experts, RD had samba, paso
doble, calypso and jazz to fuse with Indian classical to create magic. But by
this time marital discord had reached a pitch in their personal life and RD moved
away to live at Hotel Creasers palace. Eventually RD and Rita Patel decided get
divorced and Asha entered his life.
Purists like Naushad complained that RD was forcing
listeners towards western music but then RD proved that that was not the case when
Amar Prem, another classic hit the scene with stupendous songs like Raina beeti
jaye, Yeh kya hua, Kuch to log and of course Chingari koi bhadke. It became
clear that even though RD used western touches now and then, he was adept at
basing his songs in traditional classical fashion. Hare Rama Hare Krishna
followed, Dev Anand and RD met a singing Usha Utup, but a duet conceived to be
between her and Lata ended up as the super hit title song, an Asha solo ( Asha mentions
- "Sachin Dev Burman didn't want to compose for this film because it dealt
with drugs and hippies, so Pancham took over). The song was a raging hit and
Usha and RD continued to remain friends, sharing their common love for western
music and Calcutta. With this film, the Navketan banner welcomed one more
Burman in their logo, the younger RDB. Bhupinder mentions that a new style of
guitaring, different from the older Goan style soon evolved where bending the
notes and adding vibrato was prevalent.
The early 70’s with RDB rocked on and many a western tune or
style which inspired RD, could be seen in his compositions. His tunes for
Rajesh Khanna a.k.a. kaka had the pulse of Bombay racing, but it was not to
last long for the mega star Rajesh was soon to start his downward spiral even
though RD’s scores remained on the top of the charts with him working virtually
round the clock. Yadon ki Baraat and its songs, especially Chura Liya still remain
in our minds. Namak Haram from 1973 had truly inspiring songs like ‘main shayar
badnam’. Aap ki kasam was another of the greats at that time, so also Ajnabee,
Parichay (where Bhupinder came out with his amazing voice) and of course, Khel
Khel Mein where he even sang with Asha. Khushboo continued in the same vein,
and then there was the spellbinder Aandhi where people asked ‘did RD really do
the music for this film?’ Tere bina zindagi remains one of the most popular
Hindi songs to date. There are so many hits from his 70’s years which you can
talk about on and on, covering them can fill up a book!
Booth who studied those compositions in depth states that the
arrangements in Burman’s songs were more poly-rhythmic, more varied, and more
carefully structured, while his construction of musical time often more
aggressive and more global. Lord hit the vein when he argued that it was
Burman’s successful integration of a western rhythmic feel within an Indian
musical framework that distinguished his music from that of his predecessors
and competitors and that made his film songs so popular among younger Indians,
“the college crowd” of the late 1960s and 1970s. Booth explains that Burman,
through his use of musical/rhythmic gesture and his remarkably linear music,
established a clear break with previous musical practice in the Indian film
songs and established the basis for a more successful engagement with the
melodies, rhythms, and styles of Western pop. In doing so, he also changed the
possibilities for choreographers and dancers. Ultimately, Burman’s rhythmic
practice was a major factor in the revolution in film song sound and
choreography that resulted from his music.
I recall Sholay’s music and that was a revelation, what with
it defining Stereo and multi-channel recordings from a listeners point of view
not only with respect to songs but also the background scores. That was the
first film which released records that had dialog and background music to boast
of. And there was Mehbooba Mehbooba, what a song that was! Sadly, as all that
was going on, the legend SD Burman passed away. Incidentally RD was the first
to employ a recording assistant, using technology and the first of the lot was
Deepan Chatterjee working in his recording room boasting the latest in recording
technology. RD was much loved, not bothered about status, working closely with
his entire team, and his rhythm section was renowned, sometimes borrowed even
by his competitor LP.
And with that came a slack in RDB’s work schedule, and one
could see he was becoming more selective and perhaps a bit withdrawn,
nevertheless I can think of one movie which had a number of great songs, that
being Mehbooba with ‘mere naina’ leading them. Navketan was churning out lesser
hits with an ageing Dev Anand. Hum Kisise kum Nahin then burst into the scene
with a whole lot of hit numbers again making people recall the genius of RD.
After that came Shalimar with good songs, especially Usha Utup’s One two cha
cha cha and Kishore’s Hum Bewafa.
The emergency came along and got Kishore Kumar into some
amount of trouble, but the song that got me most interested and remains one of
my all-time favorites is the RD composed Amit Kumar hit Bade Acche lagte hain.
A recent version by Shreya Ghoshal only added to its everlasting allure. What a
song that is! Ghar followed with memorable songs, the movie itself a sordid
tale of rape and it’s after effects. Love Story and Satte pe satta had some
rollicking numbers, with Masoom’s hits to follow, one or two in Dost and
Parinda, but the magic of RD was starting to wane with only Shaan and Sanam teri
kasam to show up in the hit parade. On a domestic front, Asha and RD formalized
their relationship and then disco arrived with the lovely Nazia and Biddu, Bhappi
Lahiri and Mithun in tow, heralding a new style of music to the hipsters of
Bombay.
In general the quality of music declined during the mid and
late 80’s while cost cutting came to the fore. RD suffered a heart attack in
1985 and his team started to break up with Bhupinder and Basu Chakravarthy
stepping away into their worlds. As the ship started to leak, Vasudeo (longtime
arranger) had a heart attack and after his nephew Bablu was hired by RD,
deserted RD. Maruti Rao (table) and Homi Mullan (strings) also moved on with Sunil
Kaushik and Uttam Singh doing much of the strings to follow. The RD sound and the
composers magic were quickly forgotten.
The film fraternity started labeling him ‘unlucky’ after a
string of flops and RD’s greatest asset, Kishore Kumar, the legend passed away.
It appears he lost interest after that. His heart ailment took to the worse
necessitating a bypass surgery and this was a period when a certain amount of
coldness was noticed by some, in his relationship with Asha Bhosle. RD got back
to work after surgery and did a few insipid Hindi, Tamil and Telugu movies in
the 90’s, some with SPB and KS Chitra on the vocals. He was largely forgotten
except for the Gen X and the baby boomer generation who remembered his 70’s and
80’s compositions, people like me. Perhaps one could summarize that his output
declined markedly in those years as a result of his own declining health, his
declining reputation, and the gradual disintegration of the team that had
worked with him so happily through the early 1980s.
And then he simply burst back into the scene again, one last
time, as we would see, with simply mind blowing music in his swan song film,
1942 a love story. He decided to put his mind and soul into it as Manohari
Singh came back to join him as the arranger. RD was content, he had earlier
mentioned to his doctor – Ab heart theek hain, music bhi. Vidhu Vinod Chopra for
whom he had done Parinda a few years back, pushed him hard and RD finally
composed with his heart leading the way, just the way it was, when melody was
king….
The music of 1942 a love story was stupendous hit and stuck
to basics, no electronics, and mainly Indian instruments focusing on the vocals.
As Booth put it succinctly - For a
composer who had found so much of his inspiration in Western music, the 1942 –
ALS soundtrack was distinctively and unequivocally Indian. Burman had always
been concerned with sonic clarity; he was known for his sophisticated approach
to rhythm and for arrangements that did not obscure the song’s lyrics. The
romantic flavor, minimal and carefully managed orchestration, and unique formal
and other musical features of these immensely popular songs (in 1942 ALS) show
him breaking a path that popular young composers like A.R. Rahman and Uttam
Singh would later pursue. This final soundtrack, coming in the midst of a new
wave of melody-oriented, romantic soundtracks; significant changes in recording
technology; a new generation of film playback singers; and the return of middle
and upper-class audiences to the theaters, reflects on both the past and future
of Hindi film song.
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| Google's doodle |
I for one was happy that RD had finally silenced his
critics. The movie won him a third Filmfare Award posthumously. His next film
would have been Priyadarshan’s Thenmavin Kombathu in Malayalam and he had just
signed up for it. But it was not to be, for a couple of weeks later he was no
more. Lata Mangeshkar said in an Indian express interview ‘it was twice that my
recording for Pancham for ‘1942: A Love Story’ got postponed. Finally, I was in
Delhi when I heard he passed away. I recorded the song ‘Kuch na kaho’
posthumously for Pancham with a heavy heart’. But he left behind precious
memories for all of us with his timeless scores, ironically he left behind just
Rs 5 in his bank locker, or so it seems.
Booth believes that Burman’s adoption of Hollywood scoring
techniques and linear notions of rhythm and time (in contrast to the cyclical
nature of Hindustani’s tala) made his films more viable and current with a
younger and more globally oriented generation. Ashok Ranade however believes
that all sounds were basic raw material for RD’s music, be it a human sigh, a
rattle, an electronic noise or even bits from somebody else’s musical work. His
primary objective was to make an impact and to achieve it he used non-traditional
means, like multi layered approaches, double voice recording and even atonal
and unmusical vocals! Ranade concludes that RD work was perhaps secondary
melodic imagination, based on a basic statement.
As you will all agree, there will be no end to the
discussion of who is good, better or best. There are people who will say
Chembai or Bhimsen Joshi defined music in their purest form and there will be
others who say Chembai sounded absolutely terrible, but well, those forms gave
way to popular music and popular music adapts itself to newer and newer boundaries
as time goes by, becoming global as the Indian becomes more global and situated
well beyond the Indian subcontinent. Melody came in between classical and
rap…and this melody was then further shaped by reggae, blues, jazz, rock, pop
and what not…we will surely see more, we will hear more and we will enjoy,
while nostalgically musing about forms long gone, but fortunately preserved
these days as digital files… In the end music is mostly nostalgic and the music
business, a business of nostalgia…
I guess it is now time to listen to that classic song with
nutty orchestration which only RD can accomplish, Khullam Khulla from khel khel
mein, that still reminds me of the day we cycled from the SSB center to a
theater in Jabalpur late in the night, sans headlights to see the film with
Rishi Kapoor and the gorgeous Neetu Singh…..
References
RD Burman The man, the music – Anirudha Bhattacharjee and
Balaji Vittal
Behind the curtain – Gregory D Booth
Hindi Film Song – Ashok Da. Ranade
1942 – A Love Story R.D. Burman’s Posthumous “Comeback” at
the End of Old Bollywood - Gregory D. Booth from the book Music in Contemporary
Indian Film: Memory, Voice, Identity - Jayson Beaster-Jones, Natalie Sarrazin
R.D. Burman and Rhythm: “Making the Youth of This Nation to
Dance” - Gregory D Booth
The “Foreign” Influence in Discourse and Practice in the
Music of R. D. Burman - Gregory D Booth
Notes:
Once again I want to repeat - One of the finest books on
Bollywood music out there is Gregory Booth’s ‘Behind the Curtain’ and my humble
thanks to him for taking me through those hallowed corridors with his fine
writing. To that book, I have to add three more of his papers, referred above
for they provide even more depth to the character and work of RD Burman.
You may have wondered a bit about mentions of linear rhythm.
Rhythm is the element of ‘time’ in music compositions. Actually there are two types usually employed
i.e. cyclical rhythms, which involve simple intervals of repetition, and
alternating (or linear) rhythms. Take for example a rattling train in the
passenger’s perception. That is a never ending standard linear rhythm, and then
there are more complex versions as applied to music. Traditional Indian
classical music talas (adi, roopaka..) are always cyclic and form the metrical
structure that repeats, in a cyclical harmony, from the start to end of any
particular song or dance segment. To understand RD’s technique, I would suggest
that the reader peruse Booth’s fine paper on the subject.
The one aspect RD was always accused of was plagiarism – Bhattacharjee
and Vittal explain. “Right through his
career, this was probably one question that Pancham had to defend himself
against, in most of his interviews, and he often clarified that inspiration was
part of the game in any field of art and that his rule was to use one line and
recreate an entire song out of the same, something that most composers did”… Just
listen to any two versions and you will figure this out yourself, never the
whole, but only the start. And if you still want to take that discussion to
more depth, read The “Foreign” Influence in Discourse and Practice in the Music
of R. D. Burman” by G Booth.
