RD Burman's independent career coincided with the wave of early 70's Rajesh Khanna love stories. His first released movie as a music director was Mehmood's Chhote Nawab (1961) and his first hit movie was Teesri Manzil (1966). RD Burman was India's most popular composer in the 1970s, famous for his peppy tunes. The combinations with Kishore Kumar, Asha Bhonsle, Gulshan Bawra and Lata Mangeshkar made him the maker of ever-biggest hits in Bollywood music history. Burman scored music for a number of films in the 80s and 90s, among which most of them landed as musical hits. Some of his best music is associated with Gulzar's lyrics, like Parichay and Aandhi. Burman brought Hindi film music into the era of electronic rock with a series of enormously popular youth movies like Narendra Bedi's Jawani Diwani. He worked mostly with singers Asha Bhonsle and Kishore Kumar, providing much of the music that defines their reputations. He also produced independent albums, including one based on the samba and one with British pop star Boy George. After a 1988 heart-attack, he claimed to have composed 2,000 new tunes in his head while recuperating. He remained active in the early 1990s, composing music for several little-known films and bouncing back with one widely acclaimed masterpiece, the film 1942: A Love Story (1993). The movie won Burman's third Filmfare award, but sadly was not released until after his death on January 4, 1994. Burman witnessed many ups and downs in his career. Some of his films flopped at the box office. But he was composing until his death. Even after his death his songs are popular among the music lovers. Even today, most of the Indian remix songs are his tunes remixed. Burman had composed music for 331 films -- 292 were in Hindi, 31 in Bengali, three in Telugu, two each in Tamil and Oriya, and one in Marathi. One film, a 1980 Indo-Russian co-production of Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves, contained Russian-language songs. Burman also released five albums unconnected with films and wrote non-cinematic songs for other artists, mostly in the Bengali language. Indian-American director Mira Nair included Burman's "Chura liya hai" in her 2000 film Monsoon Wedding, an affectionate tribute to Indian cinema. Undoubtedly enough, the melodious compositions and the distinctive voice of R. D. Burman were adept at expressing the sentiments of any situation, mood and/or occasion. His continuous endeavour to shatter musical stereotypes and explore innovative potentials are evidently reflected in the music he created. The intense magic of RD is such that he remains alive even today in the hearts of billions of Indians (and non Indians) all over the world.