Paintings of RD Burman on display at the exhibition. Picture by Pradip Sanyal

Mark my words, someday my belongings will be deemed souvenirs of great value,” Rahul Dev Burman had said years ago.

“He would tell this to my daughter when he came to stay with us in Calcutta,” said Mili Bhattacharya, wife of RD’s schoolmate Badal.

On June 27, the music director would have turned 72. To mark the occasion, Euphony, an organisation of RD and Kishore Kumar fans, put together an exhibition recently in association with Eisenstein Cine Club at Gorky Sadan. The exhibits on display were mostly from the collection of the Bhattacharyas.

A wealth of photographs bore witness to the golden era of Hindi film songs — RD recording with Kishore, Mohd Rafi or Lata Mangeshkar, in the music room with Dev Anand or Raj Kapoor, singing on stage with Asha Bhosle, rehearsing with his trusted musical hands Manohari Singh, Maruti Rao and Bhanu Gupta, a young Bappi Lahiri minus his trademark ornaments accepting an award from RD. An entire section chronicled RD’s growing-up years — playing the harmonica as a boy, working as assistant to father SD Burman, playing the tabla, with his first wife Rita.

Also on display were 75 paintings of RD in myriad moods, the work Debashish Mahapatra.

Some of RD’s clothes as well as audio cassettes with the recordings indexed in his own handwriting were showcased next to what looked like pages from a diary. He seemed to have recorded World Cup football matches on a video recorder and jotted down his comments on the match as the recording progressed.

“Visual dekhachchhey Brazil vs Algeria kintu sound track-ey Hungary-r commentary cholchhey. Ei jonye ami Bharatborshey TV coverage dekhi na (The visuals are of the Brazil vs Algeria match but the Hungary match commentary is running on the sound track. This is why I don’t watch TV coverage in India),” he writes at one point.

Some of his last letters show how keen he was to come to Calcutta. “He was very lonely, which is why he loved being with us, braving the sweltering heat, rather than putting up in air-conditioned hotels,” recalls Mili.

Taxi trouble

While many chose to stay at home to avoid getting soaked on June 17, those who ventured out couldn’t find transport. Around five in the evening, when the rain had slowed to a drizzle, office-goers in Dalhousie queued up for share-taxis to Gariahat. After standing around dejectedly, a man broke away from the queue to head to a taxi he saw idling at a distance. “Jaaben?” he asked the taxi driver.

“Ponchash taka per head (Rs 50 per head),” the taxi-driver answered belligerently, when the fare is Rs 20 per head on other days.

“Egiye ja, okhane note chhapano hocche. (Go ahead. They’re printing money there),” said the office-goer. A few metres away stood the RBI office.

(Contributed by Sudeshna Banerjee and Malini Banerjee)