NEW DELHI: Legendary singer Lata Mangeshkar and Indian lyricist Javed Akhtar remembered late iconic music composer R.D. Burman popularly known as Pancham Da on his 82nd birth anniversary, on Sunday. Earlier in the day, megastar Amitabh Bachchan also remembered Pancham da and his song ‘Biti Na Bitai Raina’ starring his wife Jaya Bachchan.
Taking to her Twitter handle, Mangeshkar posted YouTube links of the songs on which the two legendary artists have worked together and wrote, “R D Burman ko kaun nahi jaanta. Wo janam se rajputra tha aur sangeet ka wo raja tha. Aaj uski jayanti hai. Main uski yaad ko aur uske sangeet ko vinamra abhivadan karti hun.” Javed also remembered the late icon and wrote on Twitter, “Today on 27th June it is RD Burman’s birth anniversary. Time is always kind to genuinely great people it keeps enlarging the image of a genius more and more. No surprise that his popularity among the gen-next and the young musicians is increasingly by the day.”
R.D. Burman and Lata Mangeshkar were relatives as Burman was married to Mangeshkar’s younger sister and legendary playback singer Asha Bhosle. R.D. Burman, the only son of famous music composer Sachin Dev Burman, is considered to be one of the greatest composers to have ever lived in the country.
Right from the 1960s to the 90s, Burman composed music for 331 films. He was mainly active in the Hindi film industry as a composer, who also provided vocals for a few compositions. Despite being the foundation for numerous budding Bollywood music directors, he only received three Filmfare Awards, one of which was awarded posthumously for 1942: A Love Story.
There are three interesting theories on why the celebrated musician was called Pancham da. As per one story, Burman apparently made some noise while crying as a kid and this reminded his parents of the fifth note (Pa), G scale of the music notation. According to another theory, veteran actor Ashok Kumar noticed Burman uttering the syllable “Pa” repeatedly and he named him Pancham.