Rahul Dev Burman was born in Calcutta. According to stories, he was nicknamed Pancham because, as a child, whenever he cried, it sounded in the fifth note (Pa) of the Indian musical scale. The word Pancham means five (or fifth) in Bengali and Sanskrit. Another version is that when the veteran Indian actor Ashok Kumar saw a newborn Rahul Dev Burman uttering the syllable Pa repeatedly, he nicknamed the boy Pancham. After coming to Mumbai, he learnt sarod from Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. He received his early education at Ballygunge Government High School, Kolkata.
When he was nine years old, he composed his first song, Aye meri topi palat ke aa, which his father used in the film Funtoosh (1956). The tune of the song Sar jo tera chakraaye was composed by him as a child. His father loved the tune and included it in the soundtrack of Guru Dutt's Pyaasa. In 2004, the soundtrack for Pyaasa was chosen as one of "The Best Music in Film" by Sight & Sound, the British Film Institute magazine.
As a child, Pancham also played the mouth organ in the famous song Hai apna dil to aawara (from film Solva Saal - 1958, starring Dev Anand). Pancham began his music career as an assistant to his father.
Out of his 331 released movies 292 were in Hindi, 31 in Bangla, 3 in Telugu, 2 each in Tamil & Oriya and 1 in Marathi. RD also composed for 5 TV Serials in Hindi and Marathi. He also scored a large number of non-film songs in Bangla (also known as Pooja songs or modern songs), which are available in different albums.
R D Burman started his career as assistant to his father, Sachin Dev Burman. He assisted his father in Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi (1958) and Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959), and his first music interlude, in his father composition, was for the song, Jaane Kya Tune Kahi, sung by Geeta Dutt, for film Pyaasa (1957). His first film as a music director was Guru Dutt's Raaz (1959).