Today, 1 October 2026, marks 120 years since the birth of Sachin Dev Burman, the composer and singer known across South Asia as S. D. Burman. He was born on 1 October 1906 in Comilla, now Cumilla, in present-day Bangladesh, and the music of the eastern Bengal countryside stayed at the heart of his work throughout his life.

Childhood in Comilla

Burman belonged to the royal family of Tripura. His father was Nabadwipchandra Dev Burman. He grew up and studied in Comilla, attending local schools and then Victoria College, from which he graduated in 1924. He later began a master's degree at the University of Calcutta but left it to devote himself to music.

In Kolkata he trained with several masters, among them the singer K. C. Dey and the sarod player Ustad Allauddin Khan, who was himself from Brahmanbaria in present-day Bangladesh.

Folk tunes on the big screen

Burman worked as a singer and composer in Bengali before moving to Bombay, now Mumbai, where he became one of the leading composers of Hindi cinema. Over a career that ran from the early 1930s to 1975, he composed for about 100 films, roughly 20 in Bengali and the rest in Hindi. His films include Pyaasa, Guide and Aradhana.

Critics and reference works often point to one feature of his style: he blended Indian classical music with the folk music of Bengal and the northeast, which he had heard as a young man in Comilla and Tripura. He was also known for working out tunes with rhythm and clapping rather than at the harmonium.

He won Filmfare awards for best music director and India's National Film Awards, and was awarded the Padma Shri. Leading singers of the era, including Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar, Mohammed Rafi and Asha Bhosle, recorded his songs.

A family legacy

His only son, Rahul Dev Burman, known as R. D. Burman, became one of the most influential film composers of the next generation. S. D. Burman died in Mumbai on 31 October 1975.

For listeners in Bangladesh, including in Bikrampur, Burman's career is a reminder of how much of South Asia's popular music grew out of the riverine villages and towns of eastern Bengal. His birth anniversary is marked each year by music lovers on both sides of the border.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org, britannica.com