Overwhelmed

When I think of RD Burman I think of his music brilliance, his compositions, the singers he was associated with and mostly everything belonging to the golden era. I could never fathom in my wildest of dreams that someone born in late thirties could affect the musical choices of someone born in 2008. Separated not only by time and distance but also by different cultures, upbringing, socio-economic backgrounds and a thousand other things, the only thing that untied Pancham da with the four year old Aanya was his timeless music. 27th June- RD Burman’s birth anniversary. When the rest of the radio stations across the world tomtommed about, quote unquote the never heard trivia on RD Burman or touched base with musicians of the yesteryears to know a thing or two about the great music director, I turned the game all around by having the YOUNGEST Burman fan Aanya, all of four years old who could recognize Pancha Da compositions from the back of her frigging hand. To have a four year old sing ‘roz roz aankhon tale’ was a brilliant idea to break the monotony of Pancham da’s birthday celebrations. I was in the gym that it occurred to me that I should call my colleague John who once told me that his younger daughter was a huge Burman fan. He was a bit skeptical. Aanya is an unpredictable, moody child who has a mind of her own and would not talk if she doesn’t feel like. I assured him I was good with kids and it was my job to get the best out of her without much realizing what I was getting into. Aanya came to the office just before my show. Seeing too many people around overwhelmed her. She wore a colorful frock with pink sandals, carried a notepad with her and her hair was uncombed and every time anyone tried talking to her, she hid behind her father’s legs looking for protection. Gosh it was difficult to break ice with her. Ice creams, chips, chocolates, nothing worked with her. John and I walked her around the office to give her a sense of familiarity and make her feel home. It was getting close to my show and we hadn’t even exchanged our friendly hellos. I saw the notebook in her hand. I fished out a pen from my pocket and we both sat in the middle of the corridor, oblivion to the people passing by. She started doodling and she was bloody good at it. She made a couple of faces and instantly pointed out ‘eyes’ ‘ears’ and ‘lips’ when asked. I then drew a rough sketch of her on the notepad. Her eyes lit up the moment she recognized her face. She looked up, smiled at me and said pointing at the sketch- Aanya. That was the moment. We became friends. I escorted her to the studio. The song was about to end and I had good four minutes to prepare her. I told her I would ask her to sing the birthday song for RD Burman and a couple of his songs and she happily nodded to everything. She even told me she would sing ‘Dum maro Dum.’ The song ended. I pushed the faders up, switched on our mikes, introduced her and asked her to sing the birthday song. She twitched her lips, blinked her eyes, gave me a sheepish smile and said “Let’s play the cooking game.” I had no clue where that came from. The smart ass RJ in me said ‘pehle gana phir khana’ but she wasn’t willing to comply. She was too cute to be denied of her innocent demand. And hence we started cooking biryani on air. My hands formed the cooking gas and her rather creative ingredients were chocolate, sugar and salt. She then put the dish in the oven and when baked enough, she suggested we licked it. My heart tickled all pink at the cute, adorable attempt at cooking chocolate biryani, the one that we couldn’t eat but only lick. Aanya had opened up and how. She mentioned Chammak Challo when I asked her for favorite RD song. She complained how hot it was outside, talked about the ‘sleeping’ animals she saw in the zoo and black cows in the farm house the other day. “Do animals sing too” was my desperate attempt to bring her back on track and thankfully she said yes. I hit the jackpot there. I asked her which song cows would sing on RD’s birth anniversary and she happily started singing happy birthday to you RD B-r-u-m-a-n in her most endearing voice. That set the ball rolling. She sang Dum maro Dum and lakdi ki kathi. I played five seconds of RD’s tunes and she recognized them in a jiffy. My heart almost broke into a million pieces when I heard the youngest, cutest, almost lisp rendition of ‘roz roz aankhone tale.’ It was a jaw dropping moment for me to see a FOUR year old sing such an unfamiliar, rather somber tune of RD- his biggest achievement indeed.