'Rahul Dev Burman,the researcher of music'

'Rahul Dev Burman,the researcher of music'by Nilanjan Nandy

by Kaushik Bandyopadhyay

one one and half years ago (middle of 1992) in a winter noon,I was in  Rahul Dev Burman’s flat at Bombay for a long five hours.Only gossiping in a homely atmosphere.He knew that I came to guitar and singing  only after learning mainly percussion instruments from my childhood.So he used to teach me many kinds of rhythm with different techniques.In fact,during that noon,I learnt a lot by spending  those lots of hours with that wizard of music.He told me,”Nilanjan,never make chords  above the fifth frame in guitar.And try to use all the strings of guitar as many times as possible”.

He used to like stentorian voice very much.He also liked to listen to ‘Jazz’ and of course Latin American music.Rhythm was in his blood.Hence,in his almost all compositions we get extraordinarily distinctive and mesmerizing pattern of Taal.In so many fields of music he was the pioneer.The marvelous mixing of Indian and Western musics that he had done will not be seen any more.Starting from Teesri Manzil,then Kati patang,Mere jeevan saathi,Mehbooba,Aajnabi,Khusboo,Parichoy,Seeta aur Geeta,Joshilaa,Hare rama hare Krishna,Heera Panna,Sholay,Golmaal,Shaan,Aapna Desh,The Train,Rampur ka luxman,Jheel ke uspaar…how many more films should I mention?In every film there are perfect ‘fusion’ of melody.Of course he didn’t give us less number of pure classical musical songs.’Raina biti jaye’ in Amar Prem or ‘Gori teri pehjaaniya’ in Mehbooba etc remind us that Rahul Dev Burman was a quite competent disciple of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan.
By the way,I should mention here that he was an excellent musician also.He used to play tabla(Allarakha was his guru),mouth organ and Sarod with equal competence.RD’s sarod-recitals were in so many songs of ‘Dil Padosi Hai’,the album having lyrics of Gulzar.In the film ‘Dost’ of his friend Lakshmikaant (Lakshmikaant Pyarelal) he played mouth organ in music floor just like a common musician.He had no egos.He was a  very amiable person….innocent and simple.He used to spend 10-12 hours in a day in his music room.Once,during making of Hare rama hare Krishna,he returned home around midnight.Suddenly he woke up from sleep.Immediately he came downstairs in his music room because he got a superb tune in his dream.He often used to get tunes  in his dreams.Same way music composer Madanmohan also got so many tunes in his dreams.Rahul Dev Burman recorded that got-from-dream tune in his music room.Next morning,in Filmcenter’s rehearsal room,Dev Anand liked the tune very much hearing that from Rahul’s humming.The song was recorded…can you forget that great song  ‘Kanchi re kaanchi re’ in Hare rama hare Krishna…no,you can’t…he composed this tune on Nepali folk.
In his long musical journey,Rahul had made so many impossible possible.In the beginning of 80’s,he recorded an album with a very new concept in collaboration with negro music-personalities in USA and named that as ‘Pantera’…composed the full album on the base of Latin American and African mindblowing  rock musical structure.Nowadays  some insane’s deliriums are heard of called ‘Rap’.In fact,it’s  only Rahul who first  brought  Rap in India.Till then internationally famous Rap singers like M C Hammer or Vanila Ice didn’t took birth even.Just this time breaking all the rules of music,in fact by revolutionizing,he composed a Rap in the film Kati Patang called as ‘Mera naam hai shabnam’…on listening to this song sung by Asha Bhosle,many Rap artists will bow down their heads.
Not only in songs,Rahul Dev was a real genious in composing background music also.In the film Sholay,the unparallel background music  he composed,by creating full ‘Title’of guitar(country style) or making consecutive pitches by recording a marvelous short brass note as the ‘que music’  for Gabbar Singh,was simply exemplary till date.In the film Arjun,he used his own voice  in a murder scene with African rhythm music played in a different style of Bosanova.During the scene anybody will realize that something  aweful is going to happen on the scene even if he closes his eyes also.That was the speciality of Rahul akka Panchamda’s musical thoughts.(End)