Music and the pilgrim soul
Syed Badrul Ahsan spots richness in a biography
Incomparable Sachin Dev Burman, HQ Chowdhury, Toitomboor
There is music in the air, especially when you let nostalgia take over. In the world of black and white that once was, something of the truly lyrical came to define music in our part of the world. Sachin Dev Burman was part of that world. And those who shared that world with him, be it in creating melody or partaking of it, could not have missed realizing the increasingly larger dimensions it acquired through being peopled by Burman and his contemporaries. And yet there were the moments, there is that certain feeling, that Burman went beyond all those others. He sang, he had lyrics suit the melody. And he did it all with perfection. Incomparable Sachin Dev Burman is, all these years after the great artiste's passing, a reminder of the times when music was not merely cathartic but also an underpinning of existence. Burman brought into homes and hearts that old lesson of tragedy hovering on the cusp of hope. Think of kaahe ko roye. Or there was the purity of love that he sang of, of the pain of separation which needs must reinforce romantic desire in those who have had cause to be in love. The sensuousness is all. And this is a truth you recover once again as you go back to Burman singing tumi eshechhile porshu. Virgin love is at work. But HQ Chowdhury, whose interest in music, or melody dating back to old times, has rested on a profundity not many aficionados can match, gives us in this biography much more than a schedule of the songs that Burman sang or put to music. Start off with the fact of sacrifice. And sacrifice, of his place in a royal scheme of things, of promise of a life to be lived in beautiful decadence, was what Burman went for. You could suggest that this was a man without pretence, with little pretension. In his youth he watched the birds, observed the transformational patterns of the clouds dotting the sky and listened to the boatmen singing with the flow of the river. It was a pilgrim soul in the man, one that someday would amaze the world with the sort of sad happiness which sometimes adds richness to sensibilities. Listen to mere saajan hai uss paar. The pastoral invokes the romantic. It was the pastoral that left Sachin Dev Burman feeling depressed in Calcutta. He missed the open sky that was Comilla, for in Calcutta it was life that threatened to cut itself adrift from the roots which keep existence going. And yet, as time flowed on, Calcutta and then Bombay would bring new meaning into his perceptions of the world around him. Burman's 'entry into formal music', as Chowdhury puts it, spanned the decade between 1925 and 1935. Music in Bengal at the time was at its creative peaks, with Tagore, DL Roy, Rajanikanta and Atul Prasad adding newer dimensions to it. It was a world Burman would not miss being part of. He went looking for teachers, the masters who could help him steady himself in the world of song. There was the erudite Durjoti Prasad Mukherjee; and there was too K.C. Dey. From these men, indeed from others, he came to know of a world that was larger than a world. It was the universe that beckoned. He taught children, he assisted the reputed ustads as he struggled for economic survival. With father Nabadip having passed on in 1931, Sachin Burman was on his own. The rest is known, or is history. Chowdhury takes you by the hand through a lane which remains as defining as it was when Burman grasped at its walls, the leaves on its trees, to make his presence known. And it was, in the end, to be a presence few if at all have been able to surpass in greater measure. Think only of the songs. Sun mere bandhu re is a clear recalling of the pristine quality that came not just into love but into nature as a whole. In the Rafi number, tere mere sapne ab ek hi rang hai, it is an aching heart calling out to another. The intensity rises as the winds carry the old message of yearning in wahan kaun hai tera musafir jaaye ga kahan. Something of the naughty comes in the Bengali number shoite paari na bola mon niye chhinimini shoibo na. But the serious, the purposeful, soon returns through nishithe jaaiyo boney, through its Hindi version dheere se jaana bagiyan mein. It is special effects that you spot in Sachin Dev Burman's music. The modernity which gave his music its lift and its lilt was constantly underpinned by the fundamentally classical he was not willing to let go of. Reflect, even as you watch the day grow old, on aajo akashero pathobahi or even baanshi shune aar kaaj nai. In these songs, in others, ancient India shines through, with a dash of the modern. Modern agony is at work, a truth demonstrated once more with biroho borho bhalo laage. The man from Tripura moulded the world to his specifications, to a point where he made rhythm an exercise in mathematical precision through injecting a commonality of tune into both Bengali and Hindi. He sang mono dilo na bodhu. With Geeta Roy (Dutt) he took that tune into a new direction, language-wise, to come forth with jaane kya tum ne kahi. If this is not versatility, what is? HQ Chowdhury has opened the door, in all its width, to a past and let a blast of wind from a lost era come rushing back into our lives. There are the poignant stories, of the cracks which came into Burman's professional links with Lata Mangeshkar before they would be glossed over. The apocryphal comes too into a telling of the tale. The maestro would not sing for Tagore or sing Tagore. The bard's response? If Saigal could sing for him, why couldn't Sachin, a 'Bangal' from East Bengal? Dada --- and that was Burman, he who was too and always will be karta --- did not take the bait. "I can sing (your songs) but you cannot sing mine," he told Tagore, cheekily. The reminiscences say it all, from Manna Dey to Shakti Samanta to Brajen Biswas to Dev Anand. Read on. Syed Badrul Ahsan is Executive Editor, The Daily Star.
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