TULIKA Ghosh, classical vocalist and niece of flautist Pannalal Ghosh, has this wonderful anecdote to narrate: ‘In 1968-69, we used to stay on 12th Road, Khar. My father, Pandit Nikhil Ghosh, was the ideal shagird of Ahmed Jan Thirakwa Khan sahab, the “Mount Everest of tabliyas” and one of the most influential percussionists of the country. One fine morning, when Khan sahab was resting in our garden, he heard a song playing on the radio somewhere near our house. He was fascinated by the song, and asked us to switch on the radio. Khan sahab listened to whatever was left of the song and was desperate to hear it again. Getting a 78 RPM record of an old film was not an easy task, and my father had to struggle to get a copy, after which Khan sahab heard the song over and over again. He also insisted that he wanted to meet the singer. S.D. Burman, the singer, was our neighbour. When Burman jethu [that’s what I used to call him] was told that Khan sahab was eager to meet him, he came to our place. Khan sahab was ecstatic and gave him a ten-rupee note. Jethu rubbed the currency note against his forehead as if he was worshipping it and said: “This is the greatest gift I have received ever and I shall treasure it for the rest of my life. I shall frame and hang it in my house.”’
The song that so moved Ahmed Jan Thirakwa Khan sahab was ‘Sunn mere bandhu re’, which marked S.D. Burman’s return to Hindi films as a vocalist.
‘Sunn mere bandhu re’ is the iconic ballad of the east. The visual of a boatman’s rhythmic rowing has a strong connect with rural Bengal. SD, who always harked back to the period of his childhood and adolescence in Comilla (now in Bangladesh), took recourse to his roots; he used the tune of a Bengali boat song ‘Dhanyeshswari nadi re’ and retrofitted the ethos to the context of the sequence outlined to him by director Bimal Roy.
The Dev Burmans belonged to the Bengali and Kokborok-speaking royal family of Tripura. Nabadwip Chandra Dev Burman, one of the claimants to the throne of the princely state of Tripura, played the sitar, sang Dhrupad, and sculpted and painted too. Not surprisingly, he was his son Sachin’s first music teacher as well. There were two servants – Madhav and Anwar – in the Burman household in Comilla. Madhav’s musical rendition of the Ramayana and Anwar’s delivery of the boatman’s traditional song, accompanied by the stringed musical instrument dotara, were two other early influences. A peripatetic bard called Saheb Ali came to Comilla with a bagful of Sufi fables, and became another of the unsung teachers of Kumar Shachindra Dev (better known as Sachin Dev Burman).
SD stepped in as the singer in ‘Sunn mere bandhu re’ almost after a decade in Hindi films, having previously sung in films like Eight Days (1946). ‘Bimal-da probably convinced Sachin-da to sing in a film again after such a long gap,’ says Debu Sen, the director of Do Dooni Char (1968) and former assistant to Bimal Roy. In spite of this, he managed to showcase great critical acumen as a music aesthete. He negotiated the lyrics, not only through singing, but also with his thoughtful rendering, relying on his childhood images of the solitary boatman.
Majrooh’s lyrics in this song deserve special mention as the sequence with Nutan and Sunil Dutt on the riverside does not have any dialogue. Their lips seem to be moving, but the sound is muted. The lyrics of the song do the talking. Though not expressed explicitly, the antaras (‘Hota tu peepal main/hotee amar lata teri/Tere gale mala ban ke/padi muskati re’ and ‘Diya kahe tu saagar main/hotee teri nadiya/lehar behar kar tu apne, piya chaman jaati re’) sound like Nutan’s desire for a relationship with Sunil Dutt, which is constrained by social norms.
‘The take was completed before the song was recorded. The lyrics were written at the time the scene was being shot. Song recording followed later and was used in the background,’ remembers Debu Sen. ‘Bimal Roy wanted to have a song for the situation of Nutan meeting Sunil Dutt at Gandhi Ghat, Barrackpore. The Gandhi Ghat and the Calcutta skyline were created by Sudhendhu Roy at Mohan Studios. And these were interspersed with the location shot of the steps at the Gandhi Ghat, the Ganga and the boatman at Barrackpore.’
Sujata’s music made it to the living rooms of connoisseurs of music as well as the dwellings of the lay music lover. It is remembered as a classic. ‘Jaltein hai jiske liye’, sung by Talat Mehmood, who, if reports are to be believed, was the second choice for the song, is another such classic. This piece of exquisite melody, drawing inspiration from Tagore’s ‘Ekoda tumi priye’, was sung over the phone as per the direction of S.D. Burman, who advised Bimal Roy accordingly. This number is arguably Talat’s most popular song and is also worthy of a slot in the Top 50.
S.D. Burman had mastered this technique of ‘voice breaking’ – probably learnt from Abassuddin Ahmed – and used it to great effect in almost all his solos. While other solos sung by SD – ‘Wahan kaun hai tera’ (Guide, 1965), ‘Mere sajan hai uspaar’ (Bandini, 1963), ‘Doli me bithai ke’ (Amar Prem, 1971), ‘Safal hogi teri aradhana’ (Aradhana, 1969), ‘Meri duniya hai maa’ (Talash,1969) – carry his inimitable touch, ‘Sunn mere bandhu re’ is probably the quintessential SD song, which he played out from his nostalgia for folk, his boyhood memories of the water, the boatman, the soil and the countryside.