Here's an account of Friday's events at the 2008 RMIM meet held in New Jersey at Uma and Abhay Jain's place. I had been looking forward to this meet since a long time. I recall how keen Satish ji was for having a meet in the area. Many thanks to Uma ji,Abhay ji, Deepali and Nikhil for keeping the tradition alive. Having meets and sharing the passion for music is the least we can do to keep Satish ji's spirit alive.
I took a Friday afternoon flight into LGA and was treated to a stunning view of Manhattan. From LGA I took a shuttle to Newark and got stuck in the friday evening traffic. Ritu had kindly agreed to
pick me up and she was running late as well. She came a few minutes after I arrived at Newark airport, and Abhay's place was just a short drive away. jaane kahaan mera "naksha" gaya ji:
Historically folks who have given me rides to RMIM meets get lost, as I (unintentionally) engage them into engrossing conversation :) Worse was to happen here as the piece of paper having the driving directions got misplaced. Finally we were on our way but not before Abhay called.
By the time we arrived Dr. ML Kapoor, Saroj ji, Dr. Surjit Singh and Harmesh ji, Vish Krishnan, had already arrived and were having dinner. Abhay's neighbour Mr.Mehta was also present. Even before I could say hello to everyone Dr.Kapoor commented "I never understood the concept of desert island, aap hi samjhaiye". Seeing a lot sweets on the dinner table I remarked "aap ye saara desserts
island par le ke jaaiye, aur baat ban jaayegi". Vish pointed out that the concept of desert island should be changed in this era of 80 GB ipods. The emphasis should be on the songs that you would not want to carry along on your ipod and leave them behind. Soon Sanjeev, Armeen and Rikhav; Vijay Kumar (Satish ji's nephew who posts as ek bharateey) and his wife; Deepak Sabnis with his friends Mr
and Mrs Desai, arrived. We enjoyed the delicious dinner with a variety of items. My favorites
were beans ki sabzi and badam burfi.
Khana ke baad Gaana:
The scene was set for the singing session and we got to see the prodigious talent of Rikhav. Dhaai (2.5) saal ke umar men "baalam aayo baso more man men", "so jaa raakkumari" jaise gaanon ka sur
pakaD leta hai ! Sanjeev began with "mitwa laagi re ye kaisi" A soulful renedition of "aa jaa ri aa nindiya" by Armeen cudn't put Rikhav to sleep and he was running all around imitating the taans while Sanjeev was singing "madhuban men radhika naache re". Vijay Kumar (ek bharateey) played "rasik balma" and "mohe bhool gaye saanvariya" on flute. Karnika sang "tum na jaane kis jahaan men kho gaye". Surjit ji requested - ab ek "do gaana" ho jaaye; Sanjeev and Armeen sang "aa jaa ke intezaar men".
Songs not picturized on heroine: When Abhay announced on his radio show that "dhiire dhiire machal" was picturised on Surekha Pandit he got a phone call saying that this was the first time I heard the correct information. Most people would assume that being perhaps the most famous song of the movie it must have been picturised on Sharmila Tagore. Vish pointed that Vyjayantimala wanted "koii mere sapne men aaya" to be excluded from the film New Delhi as it was not picturised on her.
The lost luggage saga: One of the hot topics on Friday was Vish's missing luggage, which had
the inlay cards for the commemorative. While the air lines had promised to deliver the luggage at Abhay's house overnight, contingency plans of printing the inlay card were being discussed.
After Armeen sang "ye shaam ki tanhaiyaa", the topic came to the fore again as Saroj ji came up with a parody that had us in splits. US airways ki travel men, luggage khone ka gam CD's kahiin khoye, ? piike aaye rum
Shankar vs Jaikishan, Hasrat vs Shailendra: The interesting topic of which songs were composed by Shankar and which by Jaikishan as well as the lyricists involved came up. Vish pointed out that the song based on raag Kalyan gives us a hint that it was a Shankar composition and given that Shankar worked mostly with Shailendra, he is the likely lyricist. The likely lyricist of SJ's happy / wild songs was also explored.
Masters at work : This was the first time that both Sanjeev and Vish attended the same meet and their renditions and comments exploring the nuances of the songs gave us some unforgettable moments. (Shankar Jaikishan discussed above is one example) Without making too many requests, we
left them to their muse. Such informal settings, devoid of pressure and pattern, lets creative juices flow and it showed. When Vish asked Sanjeev, "do you like Mehdi Hassan", Sanjeev retorted
"yes (in capital letters with exclamation marks)" and gave a solulful rendition of "dekh to dil ke jaan se uthtaa hai". Sanjeev requested Vish to take the center stage. Vish began with meet favorities like "Dolaa rakh de musafir", "aaye kuch abr kuch sharaab aaye". He expressed his desire of hearing more of Dada Burmans in his own voice and hummed "khaai re ham ne qasam sang rehne ki". He also
rendered "dhiire se jaana bagiyan men". Focus then shifted to Noorjehan and Vish sang " vo kwaab suhana TuuT gayaa". By the time Vish finished "sitaaron merii raaton ke sahaaron", it was past midnight. As it was getting late we decided to call it a day.
The first thing on our minds after waking up was the missing luggage. We were eager to check if it had been delivered overnight, and to our relief we found it in porch. Abhay immediately called Vish to convey the good news. Abhay had to go to the grocery store and I accompanied him. When we
returned, Surjit ji and Dr. Kapoor were engaged in conversation and we joined them. Abhay was eager to know if the video of Parichay (1954) is available. He recalled seeing the movie as a kid. When Dr.Kapoor, pointed out that he has a Parichay in his collection, we joined in chorus "That must be the other Parichay!". Influence of movies was debated as well and Dr.Kapoor pointed out the
reason for choosing his profession. Dr. Kapoor's father was a huge fan of Dr.Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani and Pankaj Mullick's Doctor and wanted his son to become a doctor. I started imagining Dr.Kapoor singing "aayi bahaar aaj aai bahaar" in the train.
Saara shahar unhen "professor" ke naam se jaanta hai ! Surjit ji soon started checking his email and read out the contents. Most of the mails were song requests from visitors to his website. There was one mail from the granddaughter of an artist whose song was posted on the website. The rate at which his long lost relatives are growing, I wudn't be surprised if they soon outnumber RMIMers !
saara RMIM ek taraf, aur Surjit ji ka bichDa huaa parivaar ek taraf :) Surjit ji also pointed out that a TV channel was making a documentary on Sikandar and wanted to know all the movies in every language that had the name. They landed up on his website as well. Sikandar turned our attention to Sohrab Modi and his movies like Pukar. I pointed out that the movie was released in 1939 and suggested that we can confirm in Geet Kosh. Surjit ji took out his ipod, scrolled down the
movie list, and confirmed that its from 1939. For a minute I thought, "Surjit ji ne to ipod to pocket geet kosh bana liya with id3 tagging for each song". We continued to discuss about Sikandar, and I pointed out the striking similarity between the young Pritviraj Kapoor and the young Shahshi Kapoor.We moved onto Shahsi Kapoor and the year of release of Dharmaputra needed confirmation. I asked Surjit ji to check his ipod, but he mentioned that it only has pre 60's songs. Surjit ji also gave a tip to easily remeber his site; Hindi-movies- songs. The first letters of the site H-M-S are derived form Har Mandir singh. Music lovers started trickling in. Saroj Kalra, Ritu Kalra, Satish ji's sister, Satish ji's nephew and his wife, Vish(wanath) and his borther-in-law arrived. Surjit ji started asking each new arrival, "what is the first movie that you recall seeing in the theatre". As people were taking turns to answer , Dr.Kapoor interjected " Professor sahab has found a good way to estimate peoples age !"
Focus shifted to finding out the hometowns of the attendees. When Dr.Kapoor pointed out that he grew up near Peshawar, discussion drifted to partition and history of India. Vish(wanath) pointed out
that a recent book "The 20th wife" by Indu Sundaresan has depicted mughal era quite well.
Which Vish(wanath)?
We have been dealing with multiple Vandana's and Vijay Kumar's over the years. Time to add another V to the list. A couple of years back there was a post by Vish mentioning that he was looking for Dara Singh movies.
http://tinyurl.com/5ab86q
Reading that post, Abhay emailed Vish (Krishnan) and it turned out that the poster was a different Vish. Of late, he has been posting on RMIM as Vishwanath to avoid confusion. Vishwanath circulated the Dara Singh movies he got from India as well as couple of film booklets that he got in Kolkota in the early 70's. The booklets were amazing, and included movie ads from as far back as
40's. Vishwanath recounted his association with Satish ji. They first met around 2 decades back and Vishwanath mentioned that he sings "munna baDaa pyaara" whene ver his son cried and that made his son stop crying. After many years when he posted on RMIM, Satish ji emailed him asking whehter he was the same Vishwanath. Hearing this anecdote, Saroji ji requested Vishwanath to sing "munna baDaa pyaara" and he obliged. Meanwhile the living room was abuzz with a host of people. I could spot Ammie, Deepak, Vish, Ketan, Shalini, Karan, Medha, Khantha, Srinivasa Rao, Mr and Mrs. Ramaswami, Dr.Rajurkar, Ashok, Vinay, Ritu, Madhura. 3 year old Karan became the cynosure of all eyes as he sang "piya tose naina laage re"!
We became busy embracing old friends and making new ones. Animated discussions between attendees huddled into several groups ruled the roost when it was announced that we had to gather in the living room.
Introductions: The meet formally began with Dr.Kapoor handing over the statue of Goddess Saraswati to Uma and Abhay Jain. Attendees were asked to tell their name, place of residence, Favorite composer, favorite Lata song by the composer and last song (chronologically) of Lata that you like. Vinay mentioned his favorite composer as RDB. Shalini's favorite was Roshan and her favorite Lata song was from Roshan's last movie Anokhi Raat (mehlon ka raaja milaa). Sili hawaa
chuu gaye was her last favorite Lata song. GK Venkatesh was Ashok's favorite composer.
I mentioned my favorites as Anil Biswas, Roshan and SDB and the last Lata song I like was "rajanigandha phool tumhare". I forgot to mention where I stay and folks tried to pick on my international status. Are bhai, people have come from as far as California aur ham to bas "jheel
ke us paar" rehte hain. Anilda and Roshan were Vish's favorite composers. He picked the songs
of Shankar Hussain among the last Lata songs he likes. Medha pointed that she is a Maharashtrian and likes CR. Pat came the reply "You don't need to be a Maharashtrian to like CR". Medha also
mentioned Vanraj Bhatia among her favorites. Madhura pointed out that she is a Maharashtrian as well. Inspite of their best attempts chances of a Marathi take over are still remote ;) Ritu's opinion was that its not possible to choose a single favorite and if she is forced to pick one, it will be SDB.
Sanjeev and Armeen arrived just in time, to see "trouble maker" (Ashok) in full action. When Dr.Kapoor mentioned that his favorite composer is Pankaj Mullick, Ashok interjected "Your car name plate is still Naushad". Vishwanath noted that he had several favorites but chose his college
days obsession, OP Nayyar. When he thanked Deepak for sending a tape even though they hardly knew each other ; Ashok commented "was it a Spam Tape" ? That prompted Sanjeev to say "trouble maker!"
Abhay narrated a couple of hilarious animations; Himesh Reshamiya growing up with foxes and a tamil song with penguins dancing. Ashok had us in splits again when he retorted ``Those are not penguins but Tamil film heores!" Sanjeev mentioned that he posted on RMIM that SJ is unfairly bashed, which hints that he likes SJ and chose him for the ocassion. Both Sanjeev and Armeen had similar choices when it came to Lata's last favorites; dil huum huum kare (Rudali) and o palanhaare (Lagaan) As Ketan was busy with the camcorder, he was last one to do the introductions. Before choosing his favorite he turned back (expecting a prompt from Ritu) and picked SDB. Ashok was at it again " Oh! I thought you were looking for a prompt from your wife". After the introductions we had a hearty lunch that included Roti, Cholay, Gulab Jamoon, among other things and settled down in the living room. We were joined by Vijay Kumar (ISB wala) along with his wife and 2 kids.
Tribute to Satish ji: This meet was very special as we gathered to remember Satish Kalra ji. A commeomorative containing the songs of Shankar-jaikishan was released in his memory. Satish ji had expressed the desire to have an S-J commemorative over the last few years and it was a fitting tribute
to him. When Saroj ji and Ritu Kalra narrated some poignant moments in their lives, we had tears in our eyes. Madhura sang of his favorite Bhajans "sur ki gati main kyaa jaanu". Ashok, mentioned that several years back he used to bash SJ. On one ocassion Satish and Saroj Kalra invited him over to their place and pointed out that if someone gives you joy, that person should be criticised. Ashok went on to say that he learnt his lesson. Vish thanked the Kalra's for embracing us as their extended family. Several of us spoke about Satish ji and his qualities that made him
such an endearing personality.
Geet mera sulaaye jagaaye tujhe: It has been just over 40 years since the Roshanlal Nagrath passed
away. A decade has passed away since we had the commemorative on Roshan, jo RMIM ke itihaas ka ek eham panna hai.That was the first time cd format was used and commentary was interspersed with the songs. The musical journey of a couple of RMIMers began with that compilation as well.
It was time to revisit this composer and I made a short documentary on him drawing from various sources. Delhi Doordarshan tribute , Vividh Bharathi interview as well as various song videos were used. I would like to thank Anant Rege, Arunabha Roy, Gautam Chowdhury, Ramaswamy (Mumbai), Srinivas Rao (Mumbai), Surjit Singh for their contribution.
Guess the singer(quiz): Surjit ji and Dr.Kapoor complied a quiz containing songs from 30's and
40's. Surjit ji showed his Professor qualities as the quiz was like a true / false oral exam.
A song snippet would be played and Surjit singh would say " If you think the singer is Pahadi sanyal, raise your hands". When a few people did that he would retort "You are absolutely wrong" and move on to the next clue. A cd of the songs was distributed as well.
Sweepstakes: Surjt ji had shipped hunderds of tapes from Late Amarjit Anand's collection to Abhay's place prior to the meet. The tapes included compliations of film and gair filmi songs as well as classical music. A few from each lot were chosen to make a set of 13 tapes for each person to ensure a fair distribution. That didn't stop folks from going around to see what everyone else got and trying to exchange the freebies. I could even hear "ek ka do, ek da do" in the
background.
Conversations with Ameen Sayani: Abhay played a recording of his conversation with Ameen Sayani. The entire recording including Ameen sayani describing his meetings with
Kishore Kumar will be played by Abhay on dhoomfm.com.
Odd one out(quiz): Sanjeev did this wonderful quiz in which we had to choose the odd one out of a song set. There were 20 sets of songs and each set had 4 songs. 3 of those 4 had a common theme and we had to find the odd one out. I am not divulging more details as it will be posted online for those
who missed the meet.
Match the pairs (quiz): This was a two part quiz by yours truly. First part was for the participants to get the mukhda based on a snippet of antara. Second part was to pair the songs, the relationship being the movie name of one song is contained in the mukhda of the other.
Example:
hum ko tumhara hi aasra (Saajan)
pyaar ki rut do rangi saajan (Apni Izaat)
first song is from saajan which is in the mukhda of the second.
There were 15 clues of which there were 6 pairs and 3 odd ones. An additional clue was given to identify the common theme behind the 3 odd ones. All the 3 odd songs were picturised on Rajinder Kumar and this helped teams to match the paits after eliminating the odd ones. We took a break for dinner and it was around this time that Ramesh and Radhika Hariharan along with their 2 kids arrived.
Singing session: Sanjeev kicked off the singing session with several Rafi numbers.These included aanchal men sajaa lenaa kaliyaa (Phir wohii dil laaya huun), tuu ne mera yaar na milaaya (Shama Parwana), tum se kahuun ik baat (Dastak) and a song from Shirin Farhad. Chitragupta had the biggest share of the evening with atleast a couple of songs; kahiin se maut ko laao (Mera Qusuur Kya hai) is the only one I am able to recall. How could the meet be complete without the perrenial favorite maana mere hasiin sanam (Adventures of robinhood) ? That was the next song on the agenda.
Vishwanath sang kashti ka kamosh safar and aaj ki raat baDii shokh baDi nathkahat hai. Several OP Nayyar songs were also hummed. Ramesh sang a bhajan and Dr.Rajurkar sang a Talat number.
It was around midnight when Vish sang "chaai kaari badariya baraniya ho raam" and we called it a day. Most people left leaving behind a few of us who stayed overnight at Abhay's place.
We woke up quite early on Sunday morning as Surjit ji, Harmesh ji, Dr. kapoor and Dr.Rajurkar had a long drive to Virginia and I had to visit a friend. We had breakfast and looked at the pile of VCD's that Abhay got from his last trip to India. It was time to say good byes and Uma ji had tears in her eyes. Thank you Uma ji, Abhay ji, Deepali and Nikhil for the hospitality. While departing Surjit ji said "ham to milte rahenge". Certainly as RMIM and RMIM meets have been a constant amidst the dynamics of life.
Till we meet again, good bye and good luck.
I took a Friday afternoon flight into LGA and was treated to a stunning view of Manhattan. From LGA I took a shuttle to Newark and got stuck in the friday evening traffic. Ritu had kindly agreed to
pick me up and she was running late as well. She came a few minutes after I arrived at Newark airport, and Abhay's place was just a short drive away. jaane kahaan mera "naksha" gaya ji:
Historically folks who have given me rides to RMIM meets get lost, as I (unintentionally) engage them into engrossing conversation :) Worse was to happen here as the piece of paper having the driving directions got misplaced. Finally we were on our way but not before Abhay called.
By the time we arrived Dr. ML Kapoor, Saroj ji, Dr. Surjit Singh and Harmesh ji, Vish Krishnan, had already arrived and were having dinner. Abhay's neighbour Mr.Mehta was also present. Even before I could say hello to everyone Dr.Kapoor commented "I never understood the concept of desert island, aap hi samjhaiye". Seeing a lot sweets on the dinner table I remarked "aap ye saara desserts
island par le ke jaaiye, aur baat ban jaayegi". Vish pointed out that the concept of desert island should be changed in this era of 80 GB ipods. The emphasis should be on the songs that you would not want to carry along on your ipod and leave them behind. Soon Sanjeev, Armeen and Rikhav; Vijay Kumar (Satish ji's nephew who posts as ek bharateey) and his wife; Deepak Sabnis with his friends Mr
and Mrs Desai, arrived. We enjoyed the delicious dinner with a variety of items. My favorites
were beans ki sabzi and badam burfi.
Khana ke baad Gaana:
The scene was set for the singing session and we got to see the prodigious talent of Rikhav. Dhaai (2.5) saal ke umar men "baalam aayo baso more man men", "so jaa raakkumari" jaise gaanon ka sur
pakaD leta hai ! Sanjeev began with "mitwa laagi re ye kaisi" A soulful renedition of "aa jaa ri aa nindiya" by Armeen cudn't put Rikhav to sleep and he was running all around imitating the taans while Sanjeev was singing "madhuban men radhika naache re". Vijay Kumar (ek bharateey) played "rasik balma" and "mohe bhool gaye saanvariya" on flute. Karnika sang "tum na jaane kis jahaan men kho gaye". Surjit ji requested - ab ek "do gaana" ho jaaye; Sanjeev and Armeen sang "aa jaa ke intezaar men".
Songs not picturized on heroine: When Abhay announced on his radio show that "dhiire dhiire machal" was picturised on Surekha Pandit he got a phone call saying that this was the first time I heard the correct information. Most people would assume that being perhaps the most famous song of the movie it must have been picturised on Sharmila Tagore. Vish pointed that Vyjayantimala wanted "koii mere sapne men aaya" to be excluded from the film New Delhi as it was not picturised on her.
The lost luggage saga: One of the hot topics on Friday was Vish's missing luggage, which had
the inlay cards for the commemorative. While the air lines had promised to deliver the luggage at Abhay's house overnight, contingency plans of printing the inlay card were being discussed.
After Armeen sang "ye shaam ki tanhaiyaa", the topic came to the fore again as Saroj ji came up with a parody that had us in splits. US airways ki travel men, luggage khone ka gam CD's kahiin khoye, ? piike aaye rum
Shankar vs Jaikishan, Hasrat vs Shailendra: The interesting topic of which songs were composed by Shankar and which by Jaikishan as well as the lyricists involved came up. Vish pointed out that the song based on raag Kalyan gives us a hint that it was a Shankar composition and given that Shankar worked mostly with Shailendra, he is the likely lyricist. The likely lyricist of SJ's happy / wild songs was also explored.
Masters at work : This was the first time that both Sanjeev and Vish attended the same meet and their renditions and comments exploring the nuances of the songs gave us some unforgettable moments. (Shankar Jaikishan discussed above is one example) Without making too many requests, we
left them to their muse. Such informal settings, devoid of pressure and pattern, lets creative juices flow and it showed. When Vish asked Sanjeev, "do you like Mehdi Hassan", Sanjeev retorted
"yes (in capital letters with exclamation marks)" and gave a solulful rendition of "dekh to dil ke jaan se uthtaa hai". Sanjeev requested Vish to take the center stage. Vish began with meet favorities like "Dolaa rakh de musafir", "aaye kuch abr kuch sharaab aaye". He expressed his desire of hearing more of Dada Burmans in his own voice and hummed "khaai re ham ne qasam sang rehne ki". He also
rendered "dhiire se jaana bagiyan men". Focus then shifted to Noorjehan and Vish sang " vo kwaab suhana TuuT gayaa". By the time Vish finished "sitaaron merii raaton ke sahaaron", it was past midnight. As it was getting late we decided to call it a day.
The first thing on our minds after waking up was the missing luggage. We were eager to check if it had been delivered overnight, and to our relief we found it in porch. Abhay immediately called Vish to convey the good news. Abhay had to go to the grocery store and I accompanied him. When we
returned, Surjit ji and Dr. Kapoor were engaged in conversation and we joined them. Abhay was eager to know if the video of Parichay (1954) is available. He recalled seeing the movie as a kid. When Dr.Kapoor, pointed out that he has a Parichay in his collection, we joined in chorus "That must be the other Parichay!". Influence of movies was debated as well and Dr.Kapoor pointed out the
reason for choosing his profession. Dr. Kapoor's father was a huge fan of Dr.Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani and Pankaj Mullick's Doctor and wanted his son to become a doctor. I started imagining Dr.Kapoor singing "aayi bahaar aaj aai bahaar" in the train.
Saara shahar unhen "professor" ke naam se jaanta hai ! Surjit ji soon started checking his email and read out the contents. Most of the mails were song requests from visitors to his website. There was one mail from the granddaughter of an artist whose song was posted on the website. The rate at which his long lost relatives are growing, I wudn't be surprised if they soon outnumber RMIMers !
saara RMIM ek taraf, aur Surjit ji ka bichDa huaa parivaar ek taraf :) Surjit ji also pointed out that a TV channel was making a documentary on Sikandar and wanted to know all the movies in every language that had the name. They landed up on his website as well. Sikandar turned our attention to Sohrab Modi and his movies like Pukar. I pointed out that the movie was released in 1939 and suggested that we can confirm in Geet Kosh. Surjit ji took out his ipod, scrolled down the
movie list, and confirmed that its from 1939. For a minute I thought, "Surjit ji ne to ipod to pocket geet kosh bana liya with id3 tagging for each song". We continued to discuss about Sikandar, and I pointed out the striking similarity between the young Pritviraj Kapoor and the young Shahshi Kapoor.We moved onto Shahsi Kapoor and the year of release of Dharmaputra needed confirmation. I asked Surjit ji to check his ipod, but he mentioned that it only has pre 60's songs. Surjit ji also gave a tip to easily remeber his site; Hindi-movies- songs. The first letters of the site H-M-S are derived form Har Mandir singh. Music lovers started trickling in. Saroj Kalra, Ritu Kalra, Satish ji's sister, Satish ji's nephew and his wife, Vish(wanath) and his borther-in-law arrived. Surjit ji started asking each new arrival, "what is the first movie that you recall seeing in the theatre". As people were taking turns to answer , Dr.Kapoor interjected " Professor sahab has found a good way to estimate peoples age !"
Focus shifted to finding out the hometowns of the attendees. When Dr.Kapoor pointed out that he grew up near Peshawar, discussion drifted to partition and history of India. Vish(wanath) pointed out
that a recent book "The 20th wife" by Indu Sundaresan has depicted mughal era quite well.
Which Vish(wanath)?
We have been dealing with multiple Vandana's and Vijay Kumar's over the years. Time to add another V to the list. A couple of years back there was a post by Vish mentioning that he was looking for Dara Singh movies.
http://tinyurl.com/5ab86q
Reading that post, Abhay emailed Vish (Krishnan) and it turned out that the poster was a different Vish. Of late, he has been posting on RMIM as Vishwanath to avoid confusion. Vishwanath circulated the Dara Singh movies he got from India as well as couple of film booklets that he got in Kolkota in the early 70's. The booklets were amazing, and included movie ads from as far back as
40's. Vishwanath recounted his association with Satish ji. They first met around 2 decades back and Vishwanath mentioned that he sings "munna baDaa pyaara" whene ver his son cried and that made his son stop crying. After many years when he posted on RMIM, Satish ji emailed him asking whehter he was the same Vishwanath. Hearing this anecdote, Saroji ji requested Vishwanath to sing "munna baDaa pyaara" and he obliged. Meanwhile the living room was abuzz with a host of people. I could spot Ammie, Deepak, Vish, Ketan, Shalini, Karan, Medha, Khantha, Srinivasa Rao, Mr and Mrs. Ramaswami, Dr.Rajurkar, Ashok, Vinay, Ritu, Madhura. 3 year old Karan became the cynosure of all eyes as he sang "piya tose naina laage re"!
We became busy embracing old friends and making new ones. Animated discussions between attendees huddled into several groups ruled the roost when it was announced that we had to gather in the living room.
Introductions: The meet formally began with Dr.Kapoor handing over the statue of Goddess Saraswati to Uma and Abhay Jain. Attendees were asked to tell their name, place of residence, Favorite composer, favorite Lata song by the composer and last song (chronologically) of Lata that you like. Vinay mentioned his favorite composer as RDB. Shalini's favorite was Roshan and her favorite Lata song was from Roshan's last movie Anokhi Raat (mehlon ka raaja milaa). Sili hawaa
chuu gaye was her last favorite Lata song. GK Venkatesh was Ashok's favorite composer.
I mentioned my favorites as Anil Biswas, Roshan and SDB and the last Lata song I like was "rajanigandha phool tumhare". I forgot to mention where I stay and folks tried to pick on my international status. Are bhai, people have come from as far as California aur ham to bas "jheel
ke us paar" rehte hain. Anilda and Roshan were Vish's favorite composers. He picked the songs
of Shankar Hussain among the last Lata songs he likes. Medha pointed that she is a Maharashtrian and likes CR. Pat came the reply "You don't need to be a Maharashtrian to like CR". Medha also
mentioned Vanraj Bhatia among her favorites. Madhura pointed out that she is a Maharashtrian as well. Inspite of their best attempts chances of a Marathi take over are still remote ;) Ritu's opinion was that its not possible to choose a single favorite and if she is forced to pick one, it will be SDB.
Sanjeev and Armeen arrived just in time, to see "trouble maker" (Ashok) in full action. When Dr.Kapoor mentioned that his favorite composer is Pankaj Mullick, Ashok interjected "Your car name plate is still Naushad". Vishwanath noted that he had several favorites but chose his college
days obsession, OP Nayyar. When he thanked Deepak for sending a tape even though they hardly knew each other ; Ashok commented "was it a Spam Tape" ? That prompted Sanjeev to say "trouble maker!"
Abhay narrated a couple of hilarious animations; Himesh Reshamiya growing up with foxes and a tamil song with penguins dancing. Ashok had us in splits again when he retorted ``Those are not penguins but Tamil film heores!" Sanjeev mentioned that he posted on RMIM that SJ is unfairly bashed, which hints that he likes SJ and chose him for the ocassion. Both Sanjeev and Armeen had similar choices when it came to Lata's last favorites; dil huum huum kare (Rudali) and o palanhaare (Lagaan) As Ketan was busy with the camcorder, he was last one to do the introductions. Before choosing his favorite he turned back (expecting a prompt from Ritu) and picked SDB. Ashok was at it again " Oh! I thought you were looking for a prompt from your wife". After the introductions we had a hearty lunch that included Roti, Cholay, Gulab Jamoon, among other things and settled down in the living room. We were joined by Vijay Kumar (ISB wala) along with his wife and 2 kids.
Tribute to Satish ji: This meet was very special as we gathered to remember Satish Kalra ji. A commeomorative containing the songs of Shankar-jaikishan was released in his memory. Satish ji had expressed the desire to have an S-J commemorative over the last few years and it was a fitting tribute
to him. When Saroj ji and Ritu Kalra narrated some poignant moments in their lives, we had tears in our eyes. Madhura sang of his favorite Bhajans "sur ki gati main kyaa jaanu". Ashok, mentioned that several years back he used to bash SJ. On one ocassion Satish and Saroj Kalra invited him over to their place and pointed out that if someone gives you joy, that person should be criticised. Ashok went on to say that he learnt his lesson. Vish thanked the Kalra's for embracing us as their extended family. Several of us spoke about Satish ji and his qualities that made him
such an endearing personality.
Geet mera sulaaye jagaaye tujhe: It has been just over 40 years since the Roshanlal Nagrath passed
away. A decade has passed away since we had the commemorative on Roshan, jo RMIM ke itihaas ka ek eham panna hai.That was the first time cd format was used and commentary was interspersed with the songs. The musical journey of a couple of RMIMers began with that compilation as well.
It was time to revisit this composer and I made a short documentary on him drawing from various sources. Delhi Doordarshan tribute , Vividh Bharathi interview as well as various song videos were used. I would like to thank Anant Rege, Arunabha Roy, Gautam Chowdhury, Ramaswamy (Mumbai), Srinivas Rao (Mumbai), Surjit Singh for their contribution.
Guess the singer(quiz): Surjit ji and Dr.Kapoor complied a quiz containing songs from 30's and
40's. Surjit ji showed his Professor qualities as the quiz was like a true / false oral exam.
A song snippet would be played and Surjit singh would say " If you think the singer is Pahadi sanyal, raise your hands". When a few people did that he would retort "You are absolutely wrong" and move on to the next clue. A cd of the songs was distributed as well.
Sweepstakes: Surjt ji had shipped hunderds of tapes from Late Amarjit Anand's collection to Abhay's place prior to the meet. The tapes included compliations of film and gair filmi songs as well as classical music. A few from each lot were chosen to make a set of 13 tapes for each person to ensure a fair distribution. That didn't stop folks from going around to see what everyone else got and trying to exchange the freebies. I could even hear "ek ka do, ek da do" in the
background.
Conversations with Ameen Sayani: Abhay played a recording of his conversation with Ameen Sayani. The entire recording including Ameen sayani describing his meetings with
Kishore Kumar will be played by Abhay on dhoomfm.com.
Odd one out(quiz): Sanjeev did this wonderful quiz in which we had to choose the odd one out of a song set. There were 20 sets of songs and each set had 4 songs. 3 of those 4 had a common theme and we had to find the odd one out. I am not divulging more details as it will be posted online for those
who missed the meet.
Match the pairs (quiz): This was a two part quiz by yours truly. First part was for the participants to get the mukhda based on a snippet of antara. Second part was to pair the songs, the relationship being the movie name of one song is contained in the mukhda of the other.
Example:
hum ko tumhara hi aasra (Saajan)
pyaar ki rut do rangi saajan (Apni Izaat)
first song is from saajan which is in the mukhda of the second.
There were 15 clues of which there were 6 pairs and 3 odd ones. An additional clue was given to identify the common theme behind the 3 odd ones. All the 3 odd songs were picturised on Rajinder Kumar and this helped teams to match the paits after eliminating the odd ones. We took a break for dinner and it was around this time that Ramesh and Radhika Hariharan along with their 2 kids arrived.
Singing session: Sanjeev kicked off the singing session with several Rafi numbers.These included aanchal men sajaa lenaa kaliyaa (Phir wohii dil laaya huun), tuu ne mera yaar na milaaya (Shama Parwana), tum se kahuun ik baat (Dastak) and a song from Shirin Farhad. Chitragupta had the biggest share of the evening with atleast a couple of songs; kahiin se maut ko laao (Mera Qusuur Kya hai) is the only one I am able to recall. How could the meet be complete without the perrenial favorite maana mere hasiin sanam (Adventures of robinhood) ? That was the next song on the agenda.
Vishwanath sang kashti ka kamosh safar and aaj ki raat baDii shokh baDi nathkahat hai. Several OP Nayyar songs were also hummed. Ramesh sang a bhajan and Dr.Rajurkar sang a Talat number.
It was around midnight when Vish sang "chaai kaari badariya baraniya ho raam" and we called it a day. Most people left leaving behind a few of us who stayed overnight at Abhay's place.
We woke up quite early on Sunday morning as Surjit ji, Harmesh ji, Dr. kapoor and Dr.Rajurkar had a long drive to Virginia and I had to visit a friend. We had breakfast and looked at the pile of VCD's that Abhay got from his last trip to India. It was time to say good byes and Uma ji had tears in her eyes. Thank you Uma ji, Abhay ji, Deepali and Nikhil for the hospitality. While departing Surjit ji said "ham to milte rahenge". Certainly as RMIM and RMIM meets have been a constant amidst the dynamics of life.
Till we meet again, good bye and good luck.
