MUSIC
Moody with 
a sense of quirky humor and at times an impatient and impulsive man who would pour cold-water to into his steaming hot tea-glass to make it “sip-pable”, rebel whose after-hours passions including cooking delicious khaana at home, growing and nurturing chillies (mirchi) plants and watching football matches! Yet a modest, musical maestro who could come up with an instant haunting melodious tune in just 45 seconds after going thru the lyrics, even if it were the most mundane.
Consider, how you would react if someone recited the seemingly insipid mukhdaa (refrain) ‘Mera kuchh saamaan, tumhare paas padaa hai .’ Translated it would mean, ‘my luggage or my belongings are lying with you’. Taking it as a creative challenge, Panchamda composed an awesome classical dhun for these same lyrics written by Gulzaar-saab for his bohemian movie ‘Ijaazat’ and infused exuberant life into them. And the incredible climax came, when the playback singer melody-queen Asha Bhosle won the ‘National Award’ for this same song—but sadly the marvelous composing talent was overlooked by the jury.
“Do you know that multi-talented composer R D Burman has also written the English lyrics of this romantic background song sung by Ursula Vaz, in the movie Deewar (1975) , which goes ‘I am Falling In Love with a Stranger”
As a budding film journalist in the mid-‘80s, I had the opportunity to meet RDB several times for interviews or casual chats either at his song recordings at Film Centre (Tardeo in Mumbai) where I stayed just a stone’s throw away or at film-parties and movie premieres. With his exuberant witty nature, he would liven up the situation at recordings and enthuse his loyal team of core musicians. I’m still a diehard RDB fan. As a student, I first went to ‘interview’ him twice, but he declined to speak to me, telling me that I should come back as an unbiased music-critic, not as my die-hard fan.That then was the great genius of legendary Bollywood composer-singer Rahul Dev Burman fondly nicknamed ‘Pancham-da’ or ‘RD’ whose chartbuster songs have defied time and are still as popular as they were even over 40 years ago! The RDB composed song ‘Bachnaa Ae Haseeno’ (1977) which had the gyrating Rishi Kapoor’s lip-sync has created its benchmark history because after three decades the same song was remixed as a movie-title song and picturised on Rishi Kapoor’s son Ranbir Kapoor ( 2008). And still remains phenomenally popular. Why even some of RDB’s yesteryear hit songs like ‘Chalaa Jaata Hoon’ and ‘Aaj Ki Raat’ have been used as ad-commercial jingles—as they have amazing recall value.
This ‘guru-mantra’ laid the first foundation of my print media aspirations; as he candidly spoke about various sensitive issues. Basically, by nature RDB was media-shy and rarely gave press interviews. Perhaps, as I was into western rhythm percussion, Panchamda shared a warm rapport with me.
Although he was immensely popular for his western cabaret situation compositions like ‘Piya Tu Ab To Aaja’ and ‘Aao Na Gale Lagao Na’ and ‘Duniya Mein Logo Ko’ he revealed to me that he ‘hated’ composing for cabarets since classical music was his forte and gave him a creative high and hangover ( call it ‘khumaar’). “Even as a playback singer, I wish to have my distinct rebel-identity, which is why my songs are unconventional and even have bizarre sound effects,” laughed RDB
When I grilled him about ‘lifting’ specific western tunes he honestly admitted to it. “In a few songs like ‘Chura Liya Hai Tumne’ or ‘Mehbooba Mehbooba’, I have definitely been inspired by Western tunes. But I have taken only the first one or two lines and the rest of the song is my original effort,” he clarified.
“Do you know that maestro composer R D Burman (Pancham-da) was very fond of gazing at the rains and even recording the pitter-patter sounds of the drops and sounds of the thunder? The innovative RDB had composed some of the most haunting yet foot-tapping songs dedicated to ‘sizzling romance-drenched-in-the-rains.’ Here are his own favorite Five RDB composed romantic rainy songs : i) Ab Ke Saawan ( ‘Jaise Ko Taisa’) ;ii) Bheegi Bheegi Raaton Mein ( ‘Ajnabee’) ; iii) Rim Jhim Rim Jhim ( ‘1942-A Love Story’) ; iv) Baadal Yun Garajta Hai (‘Betaab’) ; v) Rim Jhim Gire Saawan ( ‘Manzil’)”
Passionately fond of playing the mouth-organ (harmonica), RDB incorporated innovative mouth-organ notes in many of his song compositions or even haunting background themes, as in the movie ‘Sholay’ where Amitabh Bachchan is shown playing the instrument. “The notes of the mouth-organ have this youthful connectivity and add recall value to the song,” explained Burman-da who also ensured that almost every other song made use of crisp-clear side-rhythm by way of the resso-resso, kabashe or the maracas. “It enhances the foot-tapping percussion effect,” he would justify.
As a versatile genius composer, who whose fond fetish was fusion, he conjured up contrasting song-tracks like ‘Jaane-Jaan’ (Jawani Diwani) and ‘Biti Na Bitaai Raina’ (Parichay) or even ‘Ek Chatur Naar’ (Padosan), RD was at least 40 years ahead of his time. A brilliant example of his innovative Indo-Western fusion is the ‘Sholay’ instrumental title-theme and the racy raga-to-rock Lata song which goes ‘Aisa Sama Na Hota’ ( ‘Zameen Aasmaan’ ) Interestingly, this all-time classic ‘Padosan’ wacko number which takes sardonic jestful jibes at classical ragas, is considered one of Panchamdas’s most innovative compositions—and is among Bollywood maestro Pyarelal-ji’s ( of the erstwhile compose duo Lakshmikant-Pyarelal )top favourite songs.
Way back in 1971, when ‘trance music’ was unheard of, he came up with the all-time trance-dance hippie anthem ‘Dum Maro Dum’. So futuristic and enterprising was Panchamda, that he got ace guitarist (singer) Bhupinder Singh to use the electronic ‘wah-wah’ pedal as a guitar accessory to produce the haunting overture to create the drugs-trip effect as the ‘Dum Maro Dum’ song begins. An extensive survey conducted by one of the Mumbai FM Radios revealed that ‘Dum Maro Dum’ has been voted by fastidious music-lovers of today, as the ‘Song of the Century’ amidst tough competition from various other popular chartbusters.
What better testimonial can there be, to prove RDB’s timeless talent. “We had the gut-feeling in advance that the song would be a smash hit,” quipped Burman who would sign his audio-autograph in several of his songs with the reverb echo-effect of ‘Ta Ra Ta Ra Ta Ra’. With this song, RDB unleashed the famous ‘soul-drum-beat’, an infectious rhythm that is used even today by Hindi cinema composers.
A few weeks before he passed away, I met Panchamda at Amit Kumar’s non-filmy album release which had a relatively less media turn-out. Simply because in the showbiz media, ‘chief guest’ RDB was considered not a part of the mainstream milieu and hence “no-longer-hot” . On that same evening a showman film-maker had hosted his flamboyant anniversary party at a swanky 5-star hotel elsewhere nearby. So touched was Pancham-da ( who was recovering from malaria) to see me at the chhoti-si-party held on a terrace of an industrial gala building, that he hugged me. An hour later, as we were making our exit from the high-tea party, RDB asked his driver Ramesh to shift to the back-seat and insisted on personally driving and dropped me in his modest car at the 5-star venue. In fact, Cine Buster ‘Editor’ Jyothi Venkatesh also joined us along with a press photographer and sat in RDB’s car. As we parted, Dada gave me a warm hand-shake for at least two minutes and said, “let’s celebrate my comeback with a bang, next year with “1942-A Love Story” . But sadly cruel destiny had other plans for the legendary sangeetkaar, as he suddenly breathed his last, during the wee hours of January 4th 1994.
As the ‘late’ superstar ‘late’ Rajesh Khanna who was Pancham-da’s close buddy reacted to me with, “who says R D Burman is no more—woh hamesha zinda rahenge through his legacy of chartbusting music”. To conclude, RDB was also ‘married’ to his music, the dozens of chartbuster songs were like his ‘children’. When popular awards eluded him for nearly 25 years of his career, he called it an unfortunate ‘series of miscarriages’ ! Globally, Pancham kisi se kum nahin !
