The Dynasty

In true filmy style, Meera impressed Sachin with her singing and the lover of music fell in love with her forever. Little did people know that the union of Meera and Sachin Dev Burman would not only create some of the most memorable melodies of Indian cinema but also result in the birth of another maestro; one who would ensure that innumerable books will be needed to pen down the family's contributions!

Sachinda is one of the finest composers of Indian cinema. He brought with him a melodious blend of Indian classical, popular and above all folk music forms. Coming from the royal family of Tripura, his style was no less royal. He is famous for turning down scripts because either the producer/banner was too small or he wudnt agree with the story! One such example is Dev Anand's Hare Rama Hare Krishna. He dint do the music for this film because he thought the brother-sister angle was quite wierd (or so we hear). Of course, by then our fellow was ready to take on a full-fledged project and ended up making this album a big hit. So much so that it seems as if the director had to use the club hit Dum Maro Dum sparingly, so as not to overshadow the leading man. Incidentally, both of the roles were played by Dev Saab himself. One of the most talented playback singer, actor, director, musician of our country Kishore Kumar (its quite sad that some pen unfriendly scribes have started comparing Himesh to KK!!) was a die hard fan of Sachinda and till his death was an amid follower of his work.

Sachinda had his music room full of artistes who were to become individually big names themselves. Right from Jaidev to Ravindra Jain to Shiv-Hari to our very own RD. Technique-wise, the most talented directors would always work with Sachinda. Be it Guru Dutt or Vijay Anand or the entire Navketan clan. Mehmood Saab had gone to sign Sachinda for his first production but it is said that Sachinda wasnt convinced about working with a new production house and Mehmood Saab signed RD for his aptly titled debut, Chhote Nawab!

When Chhote Nawab was released, 1961, Sachinda was one of the biggest names in the industry. Already a legend, with a huge fan following and a queue of producers waiting to sign him for their next venture. Amidst all this, Rahul Dev Burman made his quiet entry into films. Not many would have noticed this film and its music and those who did, may not have realised that this album and this man, will be discussed for ages to come.

As Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma once said that "it is quite rare to find a son making a name for himself in the same field as his famous father, and RD-SD is one of those rare jodis".

Next we shall discuss the complex relationship of the king and his prince and how it was not a smooth sailing for our man right from day one. But those legends are what separate men from boys!

Before concluding this section i must mention that as i write this, the queen of this dynasty, Meera Dev Burman is alive and lives in Mumbai. My salute to the lady who was Ma (the 4th note of classical music) amidst Sa(chin) and Pa(ncham).