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How R. D. Burman floored Shammi Kapoor with his tunes!
By Mansoor Khan, Glamsham Editorial
R. D. Burman fondly called Pancham Da is one of the few music directors who rebelled and brought a revolution in Indian film music. In fact readers would be surprised that even his own father the legendary music wizard S. D. Burman had reservations regarding his style of music and used to persistently aver Pancham to focus on the Indian classical music but Pancham was deeply influenced from Western and folk music. In fact his inspirations were as weird as the hitting of spoon on a glass that he used in the super hit song Chura liya hai tumne jo dil ko in YAADON KI BARAAT.
Though Pancham made his debut with Mehmood's home production CHHOTE NAWAB but it was with TEESRI MANZIL he made his mark as an outstanding music director. How Pancham got TEESRI MANZIL is an interesting tale. Few would know that earlier filmmaker Nasir Husain had roped in the super hit combination of S. D. Burman and Dev Anand for the movie but destiny had other plans. Dev Anand got busy with the English version of GUIDE, while S. D. Burman fell ill. Hence Burman Da advised Nasir Husain to give a chance to his son, Pancham. Nasir Husain agreed. But he was in a dilemma, because he had replaced Dev Anand with Shammi Kapoor and Shammi Kapoor worked with his favourite music directors like OP Nayyar or Shankar Jaikishan.
Further Nasir Sahab knew Shammi would never work with an upcoming music director as he gave utmost important to music in his films. Thus after lot of cajoling Nasir Sahab was able to persuade Shammi Kapoor to at least have a sitting and listen to Pancham's tunes.
In an interview Pancham confessed, "On the D-Day when I had a sitting with Shammiji I had my best of tunes ready. But I was in a fix which to play first. After lot of pondering I decided to play the tune of Deewana mujhsa nahin... inspired from a Nepali folk music and the next tune I played was Aa ja aa ja Mein hoon pyar tera...this was a fusion of Western and Indian music."
He added, "As Shammiji listened to the tunes with keenness, closed eyes, my heart was thumping and I was nervous. But when he opened his eyes there was a twinkle in his eyes he jumped with joy and declared you are my music director!"
Today is the 75th birth anniversary of the legendary music wizard, R. D. Burman, Glamsham.Com remembers the maestro!
