Today is the 107th anniversary of birth of the legendary singer and composer Sachin Dev Burman (October 1, 1906 to October 31, 1975).
Born in Comilla to Rajkumari Nirmala Devi, princess of Manipur and Nabadwipchandra Dev Burman, son of Maharaja Ishanachandra Manikya Dev Burman, Raja of Tripura; SD Burman started working as a radio singer on the then Calcutta Radio Station in 1932, where his early work was based on Bangla traditional music.
Soon after, he made a niche in folk and light classical music; as a result, his film compositions were often influenced by his huge repertory of folk-tunes of the different genres of traditional music forms such bhatiali, sari and dhamail.
In the following decade he reached his peak as a singer and composer.
In 1944, SD Burman moved to Mumbai, at the request of Sasadhar Mukherjee of Filmistan, who requested him to compose songs in the films like Shikari and Aath Din. His first major breakthrough came with the film Do Bhai. In 1949, came Shabnam, SD Burman’s biggest hit yet with Filmistan, especially noticeable for its multi-lingual hit song Yeh duniya roop ki chor which became a rage in those days.
In subsequent years, he became a dominating composer in the ‘classic melody era’ of the Indian filmdom popularly known as Bollywood. SD Burman was the only composer who had used both Kishore and Rafi in almost equal number of songs. He used to regard Kishore as his second son and the singer admitted that it was ‘Sachin Da’, who had given him the first chance in Bollywood.
His Bangla songs such as Shono gow dakhino dawa, Barne gandhe chhande, Tumi ashechhile parshu, Ke jashre and others are still very popular among the music lovers in Bangladesh. Many young generation musicians have experimented on such songs as well.
Marking SD Burman’s birthday experimental musicians like Lemon, Labiq Kamal Gaurav and Pantha Kani will experiment on SD Burman’s evergreen songs at a programme on Radio Swadhin 92.4 .
Buno and Bart will respectively play lead and bass guitars at the radio programme.
The radio station has dedicated its regular Uncut Segment in the memory of SD Burman, which the radio broadcasts every Tuesdays at 11:00pm.
An excited Gaurav said that he cancelled his scheduled foreign trip to perform at the programme. ‘It’s a great honour to be a part of the programme that is dedicated to a legend,’ he said.
Another participant Pantha Kanai said, ‘I am fortunate that I’m a part of the programme.’
The occasion is even more special for the young singer Limon, as he was also born on October 1. ‘I’ll be celebrating my birthday through the programme.’
-With New Age input
