R D Burman

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Splendidly characterful portrait - full of life and charm.

Thanks Robert Jones...

A BIRTHDAY [75TH] TRIBUTE TO R D "PANCHAM" BURMAN ...WATERCOLOUR... 25CM*25CM ... 2014... Rahul Dev Burman (27 June 1939 – 4 January 1994) was an Indian film score composer, who is considered one of the seminal music directors of the Indian film industry. Nicknamed Pancham da, he was the only son of the illustrious composer Sachin Dev Burman. From the 1960s to the 1990s, RD Burman composed musical scores for 331 movies. He was mainly active in the Hindi film industry as a composer, and also provided vocals for a few of compositions. RD Burman did major work with Asha Bhosle (his wife) and Kishore Kumar, and scored many of the songs that made them singers famous. He served as an influence to the next generation of Indian music directors, and his songs continue to be popular in India even after his death. RD Burman was born to the Bollywood composer-singer Sachin Dev Burman and his lyricist wife Meera Dev Burman (née Dasgupta), in Calcutta. Initially, he was nicknamed Tublu by his maternal grandmother although he later became known by the nickname of Pancham. According to some stories, he was nicknamed as Pancham because, as a child, whenever he cried, it sounded in the fifth note (Pa) of the Indian musical scale. The word Pancham means five (or fifth) in Bengali, his mother's native language, as well as the language of court of the royal family to which his father belongs. Another theory says that the baby was nicknamed Pancham because he could cry in five different notes. Yet another version is that when the veteran Indian actor Ashok Kumar saw a newborn Rahul uttering the syllable Pa repeatedly, he nicknamed the boy Pancham. In Mumbai, RD Burman was trained by Ustad Ali Akbar Khan (sarod) and Samta Prasad (tabla).[9] He also considered Salil Chowdhury as his guru. He served as an assistant to his father, and often played harmonica in his orchestras. Some of the notable films in which RD Burman is credited as the music assistant include Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi (1958