Film transforms Pancham sceptics

Vintage music lovers with a dim view of R D Burman's music are moved by an extensively researched documentary on the composer's life and times

Film transforms Pancham sceptics

Vintage music lovers with a dim view of R D Burman's music are moved by an extensively researched documentary on the composer's life and times

Director Brahmanand Singh has interviewed 40 friends and colleagues of the composer for the film, and not one of them had a hard word to say about him. Industry luminaries such as Shammi Kapoor, Javed Akhtar, Gulzar, Asha Bhosle and Shankar-Loy-Ehsaan praise the unconventional brilliance of the composer.

Unmixed: The film shows some rare photos of R D Burman at work. He reigned in the '70s and '80s and is the most remixed composer today

"Someone said it's a film without the director's fingerprints," said Singh. "And I thought that was a good way of putting it."

Singh does not use a voiceover anywhere in the two-hour film, titled Pancham Unmixed, Mujhe Chalte Jaana Hai. He took nearly three years to make it.

The audience comprised RMIM-ers who had gathered from all over the world to discuss, sing and listen to vintage music. Being mostly fans of Naushad, Anil Biswas and other masters of the 1950s and '60s, they were hardly inclined to appreciate R D Burman, whose music sounded lacking in finesse to them.

But by the time the film ended, they had questions about the meteoric rise of Pancham, as R D Burman was called, and his fall. At the peak of his career, he was making music for 20-21 films a year, but by his own admission, towards the end, 27 of his films had flopped in a row, and he was jobless. He was shattered, and Singh's film captures the poignancy of his lonely last days. Pancham did come back with 1942 A Love Story, but he did not live to savour the success.

Earlier on Saturday, M A Parthasarathy, who headed Gemini Studios in Chennai and oversaw the production of some of yesteryear'su00a0 blockbusters, revealed intimate details about the life and times of the music composer C Ramachandra.

In the afternoon, dancer Maya Rao recalled the non-film work of Anil Biswas, and played some songs he had composed for her ballets. The Bengali composer had even sung Basavanna vachanas for a production on the 12th century Kannada poet and social reformer.

About 30 music lovers attended the meet, with members flying in from places as distant as Toronto and Dubai.
u00a0
The two-day meet concluded on Sunday with a session of quizzing and singing.

What's RMIM?
RMIM is short for rec.music.Indian.misc. It is a usernet group that bonds over vintage Hindi film music, its youngest member being 19. The group posts online, but also meets offline in cities across the world. They last met in Bangalore in 2006.

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