Legendary musician and composer Sachin Dev Burman’s palatial home in Cumilla district of Bangladesh is all set to be transformed into a cultural complex, with the Sheikh Hasina government having sanctioned 1.10 crore taka (Rs 86 lakh) for the project.
Dev Burman, born in 1906, spent the first 18 years of his life in this South Chartha village rajbari (palace), said Golam Faruk, an advocate and writer who edited a 596-page book on the musician. “His musical talent was honed under the supervision of his father, who was a sitarist. Dev Burman completed his schooling from Cumilla Zilla School and graduated from Victoria Government College in 1924,” Faruk, also a historian, said.
His father, a descendant of Tripura royal family had moved to Cumilla to look after the princely estates. The palace, where the music maestro was born and raised, was listed as a protected monument on Nov 30, 2017, officials in Bangladesh said.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had visited Agartala to attend the convocation of Tripura University in 2012 and assured a delegation of writers and cultural activists there that the house would be preserved and converted into a cultural center and museum, officials said.
In May 2017, Hasina visited Cumilla to attend the 116th birth anniversary of poet Kazi Nazrul Islam, and laid the foundation stones of seven projects, one of which was for the ‘Sachin Dev Burman Cultural Complex’, they said.
Faruk pointed out that the palace was built on seven acres of land, but a major part of it was encroached upon, over the years, as it lay abandoned.
Dev Burman, popularly known as Sachin Karta’, lived in Cumilla until 1924, said Faruk. “He left for Kolkata that year to pursue higher education and then later to Mumbai in 1944. Those of the Dev Burman family, who lived in the Cumilla house, migrated to India after 1947,” he said. (Source: Free Press Journal)
