A tribute to SD Burman on his 44th death anniversary with guest article by Moti Lalwani
(The month of October starts with SD Burman (b. 1 October 1906 – d. 31 October 1975) and ends with him. Around the time I was thinking of writing a review of HQ Chowdhury’s ‘Incomparable Sachin Dev Burman’, Moti Lalwani, a renowned authority on the maestro, sent me a number of his articles on him. Even though SD Burman is the most comprehensively covered artiste on the Songs of Yore, I decided to celebrate the month of October 2019 as the month of SD Burman, entirely with guest articles by Mr Lalwani. This is the fourth and the culminating article in the celebration, after his earlier articles on SD Burman’s role in the success of Hemant Kumar and Geeta Dutt, and his reputation as the pioneer of composing the tune first.
Mr Lalwani had long been passionate about the music of SD Burman, even when he was a Mechanical Engineer with L&T. After retiring from the company more than two decades ago, an octogenarian Mr Lalwani has since devoted his life to serious study and research on SD Burman. His channel on the YouTube has over 150 videos of interviews etc. of people associated with Burman Da. He manages a Facebook group on the maestro, which has about 7600 members. Mr Lalwani has been quoted a number of times in Mr Chowdhury’s book, and Sathya Saran’s ‘Sun Mere Bandhu Re’ is largely based on his material.
The Grand Finale of the series is a befitting article, a very poignant piece about Sachin Karta’s visit to Agartala in 1948-49, his ancestral Princely State, on the 12th day ritual of his elder brother’s shraddh. He had already given up his princely role and had surrendered himself to music. No more a royal, he nevertheless received a royal welcome as the King of Music. This turned out to be his last visit. – AK)
The news of a rare visit to Agartala by Kumar Sachin Dev Burman, aka Sachin Karta, used to spread like wild fire. After all, Sachin Karta was a scion of the royal family who had broken away from the mould to pursue his passion for music, a taboo in the royal family. The royals were supposed to encourage promotion of various arts including music, certainly not make a career out of it. In his case, Kumar Sachin Dev Burman had declined an offer to become a minister of education in the Tripura cabinet, where, once his late father was the Prime Minister.
