NIRALA nagmon ka NAMOONA pesh hua is mehfil men
SARGAM ka KHAZANA pesh hua is mehfil men
HUNGAMA aur JHAMELA ki jhalak bhii thi is mehfil men..
The RMIM silver jubilee meet was held in Bangalore on April 8, 9. On behalf of the organizers, I would like to thank all the attendees for making the meet a grand success.
Prologue: The winds of change are blowing across the world, and RMIM is no exception. To put it succinctly, adapt to change or loose your relevance. The veteran RMIMers were at the helm but embraced the record collectors as well as members of other music groups to ensure an eclectic mix of audience. Social media and technology played a major part in the success. Centenary of CR and Silver Jubilee of the group meant that we had a wider canvas to paint within the limited time. So we collectively decided to adopt a more structured approach, and a schedule was published.
When 50 plus "music nuts" gather together there are bound to be controversies and difference of opinions. However it didn't really turn out to the "boxing day" that a friend predicted. There was enough breathing space for everyone.
Saturday proceedings:
Inauguration and tribute to CR:
We started at 11:00 am sharp VAK Ranga Rao ji lighting the lamp. A rarely heard version of "ai mere watan ke logon" sung by CR himself was played. What a beginning !
Srinivasn Chari ji introduced VAK, and VAK took over. He mentioned his meetings with PL Santoshi and recalled one instance where PLS was involved in a dubbed Telugu movie. The music director was Satyam. VAK added that PLS wanted to make a movie Radha Krishna with Ranjan and Rehana with music by CR. The movie was scrapped but "tum kya jaano" originally meant for this movie was used for their next association; Shin Shinaki Bubla Boo. VAK went on to mention the different types of songs that were composed for the film.
VAK mentioned that he designs his own shirts. In a meeting with CR, he was asked if he was wearing "chiragh din" brand and his reply was "main hoon alladin". VAK saw "Navrang" in a matinee show in Vishakapatnam. He mentioned how he was captivated by the film and especially the title song "rang de". VAK things that this was the best indian film in which Music, Dance,Lyric and Singing had come together.
VAK mentioned that music of Anarkali & Sargam, both great, cannot be more different. He also added that CR had a testy relationship with Filmistaan. Insite of giving several hits, he wasn't the first choice for Anarkali. Ravi was supposed to be the first choice and composed "ai baad-e-sabaa". This was news to me as I thought Basant Prakash was the first choice. VAK said that he was the second choice.
VAK mentioned "What is it that impresses me, draws me to his music. Most of the songs have an easy cadence. They delude me into thinking that even i can sing it. That ease." He added that he saw CR compose music for the Telugu film Nijam Cheppite Nammaru. The tune gelled with the writer and CR said "lets not refine it any further as it would loose its spontaneity".
VAK also dispelled a misconception that CR was an assistant to Anil Biswas in Girls school. Both of them worked together. He added that CR assisted Mir Saheb in "Laal Haveli". When asked about his favorite singers, his response was "Geeta Dutt and Chitalkar". CR's response was" You have poor taste". VAK added that Chitalkar songs are sung to the optimum limit of the requirement of the song.
Wile discussing music of Albela, "dheere se aaja ri" came up."That's the second best film lori" was VAK's response. CR was curious to know which was the first best and when VAK said Salil's "aa ja ri nindiya", CR responsed "you have good taste".
A few minutes of silence was observed for Naqsh Lyallpuri ji and Veena Solomon ji (composer Vinod's daughter). But of them were guests at the last Bangalore meet in 2012 and passed away recently.
In Search of Producer, Actor and Singer C.Ramchandra:
Suresh Chandvankar started by saying that CR was born and died in the same month. There is one more composer who shares this. I immediately exclaimed "SD Burman". Guri added " If Ganti didn't know that he is in trouble" :) Another common thing noted by Suresh ji was that both the composers were good singers, which added an extra dimension to their songs.
CR was very versatile and sang a variety of genres in Marathi including, Bhav Geet, Bal Geet, Bhakti Geet. We heard several songs but the one that stuck to my mind was a live rendition of
"Pahate Pahate Mala jaag aali
tujhi reshamanchi meethi sail jhaali"
I was almost tempted to go to Nishant and say that he should stop watching as there was no sarangi accompaniment. Soon enough we had malkauns piece by Lata Mangeshkar, with Pandit Ram Narayan on Sarangi. It wasn't just musical talent on display. One of the slides in the presentation had a record number 62500. Chetan exclaimed "That's a very special record number. Its 250 Square".
Suresh ji's added that CR was active for more than 4 decades in Marathi and continued to be popular even though he faded away in Hindi. He added that his devotional albums deserved more success but were overshadowed by Sudhir Phadke's Geet Ramayan. Album "Sri Sai Darbaar" was specifically mentioned as CR had high regard for Sai Baba.
Collectors panel discussion:
This had Suresh Chandvankar, Chiranjeev Singh, Giridhari Lal, Nand Kishore, Srinivasan Chari, Rajesh Singh as participants and Gajendra moderated it. Suresh ji talked about preservation of records and briefly mentioned Michael Kinnear's work. Rajesh Kumar Singh talked about his passion for collecting posters, lobby cards and magazines. Nand Kihsore ji recalled his contribution to geet kosh and shared his memories of watching obscure movies. Chiranjeev ji summed up very well saying that it should be a collective effort of individuals and organisations. He also added that vintage film music should be treated seriously just like classical. This started a debate on whether post 60's hindi film music is inferior and we had a lively discussion.
Lata - CR presentation:
Lata-CR tribute by Parthasarathy ji covered several favorites including "ai aankh ab na rona", "tum kya jaano", "aisi muhabbat se ham baaz aaye". When a song from Patanga was played Kalyan asked a trivia question about the significance. It was the first time Lata sang for a heroine under CR.
Meet Commemorative:
Ashok and Chetan then took center stage and talked about the tradition of commemorative in RMIM meets. They briefly mentioned the criteria for song selection and the CR commemorative was distributed.
Guri's quiz :
As usual, we had Guri's video quiz with a mismatch between audio and video sequence. Even after multiple watching's, neither of he teams could get the sequence correctly but managed to crack a few clues. It all came to guessing the theme and scoring the 100 points to win the quiz. We had Vibhendu on our side but i surprised myself by Cracking the anagram. As there were 19 clues, I rightly guessed it as Ramchandra Chitalkar and that was I said to myself that hanging with IIT'ans like Arunabha, Chetan and Kalyan seems to have rubbed off onto me.
RMIM Silver Jubilee :
A book on the 25 years of RMIM complied by Prof. Surjit Singh was distributed and this surprise gift was steeped in nostalgia.
It was followed by video clips from old timers who talked about what RMIM meant to them. The clips were sent in advance and Chetan amalgamated them. Ketan, Ramesh Hariharan, Arun Sampath, Gautam Choudhury,Neha Desai, Vijay & Pragya, Abhay Avachat and Vish Krishnan had all contributed. Additionally there was clip from Sanjeev Ramabhadran. Some of the RMIMers joined through google hangout at this point. Many thanks to Pavan Jha for make this possible.
Ketan started by talking about history of RMIM meets and everyone pitched in about how RMIM played a bg role in their lives. One has to be careful before make sweeping statements with RMIMers :) A conversation that hapenned between me and Vijay 15 years back, was used to anchor Vijay and Pragya's segment. Vijay mentioned about my fascination for bachelors as Pragya joined in to say "and then i happened". Similarly Sushmita happened to me and it was a timely reminder that I had to leave soon. Although Chetan tried to persuade me to stay back, my householder duties got the better of me. My wife returned the favor by joining me at the meet on Sunday. That precisely meant that my attention on Sunday was divided and any omissions & digressions in the report should be taken in stride.
Sunday:
I woke up early and noticed that Arunabha had posted a note about the late night session at Chetan's place. I was very happy as the tradition of late night session was revived. I was soon alerted by a message from Pradeep Dubey enquiring if the directions from airport were correct. I was delighted as Pradeep's constant wit has been a big source of entertainment over the years.
We arrived before 11 am and caught up with Pradeep. Our early arrival also gave me an opportunity to interact with VAK Ranga Rao. This year happens to be centenary of legendary composer KV Mahadevan. In fact I wanted to do a tribute to him but we had such a packed agenda that Shailendra and I dropped our events. KVM was our family composer while I was growing up and I explained the significance to VAK. On one had my parents and uncle adored KVM's 60's output. The highpoint was mooga manasulu which was also cherished for its locales in and around river Godavari, where they grew up. It was a constant in the house along with contemporary Mahadevan hits of that time like Shankarabharanam. While agreeing that KVM brought classical music into our houses, VAK emphasized that he wasn't the only one. He recounted his interactions with KVM and his assistant Puhalendi.
Social Themes in Film Songs:
When i started working on setting the event schedule for the meet, one item that caught my eye was Sushrut's presentation. We had to deal with several parameters while finalising the agenda and Sushrut's couldn't be accommodated on Saturday. Given that it was discussion I slotted it for prime time, and I am glad it generated lot of discussion. It started "dilli tere kile par" 1857 and ended with "zameen bhi vohii...magar dilli ki galiyan kahaan" from Chandi Chowk. This Delhi nostalgia and Patriotic undercurrents showcased through "door hato" (Kismat), "ab darne ki koii baat nahiin" (Shaheed), " vande mataram" (multiple versions) meant that Sushmita also enjoyed the presentation.
The stature of Women in Bengak and Maharashtra was debated. Iconic movies like Devdas, Aurat and Prabhat's Manus was well received. The conflict of devdas torn between Paro and family duty was well illustrated with KC Deys "mat bhool musafir tujhe jaana hi padega". The high hopes post independence and the later disillusionment was also well captured. Dilip Kumar as torch bearer of Nehruvian ideals and the socialist themes of Raj Kapoor films was demonstrated. There was an interesting debate as to " vo surah kabhi to aayegi" was more of hope or caution. Lunch with bisibelle bath, gulab jamoon was the perfect way to take a break. Special thanks to Shailendra and his wife for taking care of the food section.
Prelude song quiz:
Abhay Phadnis quiz was very entertaining and it was the prefect way to energize us after a heavy lunch. It had 3 different sections.
sun to sahii (5 points each) – 2 rounds:
The prelude will be played as an audio clue
Expected answer: The first line of the mukha.Daa of the song
zaraa sii baat (10 points each):
Just 3 words from the prelude (not necessarily the first three!) will form the clue
Expected answer: The first line of the prelude and the first line of the mukha.Daa of the song
de mujhko zubaa.N aur (10 points each): An English translation of the prelude will be given
Expected answer: the first line of the prelude and the first line of the mukha.Daa of the song
There were 2 teams and Guri conspired to get several of the veterans to his side. Thanks to that and
the self goals comitted by our team, they won hands down. Our team was just happy that they won
Guri's quiz.
I am not going to give more details as Arunabha had posted the clues for non attendees to participate.
Anmol Geet:
Gajendra's anmol geet was similar to his recent quizzes. He would play lesser know songs mostly from pre 50s and we need to guess singers, composers etc. This was in record collector territory and went above the head of many. Pradeep Dubey sitting next to me was equally clueless and started cracking jokes at every opportunity which kept Sushmita entertained. Gajendra announced that correct guess would be awarded with postal stamp. First clue was to name a Ghulam Mohd movie that did not have shamshad as singer. Several wrong guesses and a hint later, Kalyan got it as Do Gunde and asked his son Vedant to collect the stamps. And Gajendra cudnt find them promoting the crowd to say that Do Gunde have stolen them. Kalyan ensured that many stamps stay in CV Raman Nagar by cracking several questions including a Geeta Dutt song by V. Balsara. One of the clues was to guess name of an unreleased. It promoted Pradeep to say "How can an unreleased film have a name ?" Babies don't get named during ultra sound scan. In the middle of this humor I managed a "Jai Santoshi Maa" moment by guessing Kalyani as a singer for a Jagmohan duet.
We enjoyed Sandwiches and mirchi bajji during tea break.
PL Santoshi:
Pavan Jha presented a talk on PL Santoshi. He recalled that even though PLS had some big hits he was not given his due recognition. His mastery over using english in songs as far back as 40's was emphasised. PLS association with CR and their jubilee hits like Shehnai, Khidki and Sargam was recalled. Santoshi's heartbreak over Rehana and his subsequent downfall was discussed. Pavan
pointed out that just the one song "tum kya jaano" from Shin Shinaki Bublaa Boo was enough to
put PLS among elite club of lyricists.It was also mnetioned that Santoshi had a brief return to
success in 60's with Barsaat ki Raat and Dil Hi To Hai. The presentation ended with "ye ishq ishq".
Nand Kishore ji showed a slideshow of his meetings with celebrities and distributed a CD of rare songs of Lata Mangeshkar.
We then took group photograph of the attendees.
The next event was a compilation of video songs by Mr. Kulkarni. I was happy to see full version of "badly men chhupe chaand". "mere man ka baanwara panchi", " jab dil ko sataave gam", "dil lagaa kar ham ye samjhe", "vo chaand Jahaan vo jaaye", "Jap jap jap re" were among the other songs.
A dvd sent by Vijay Nafde that had clips from CR's BBC interview including his rendition of "aadha
hai chandrama" was presented. Final item was singing. Gauri Diwan sang a Lata-CR song followed by Ram Nagraj's "aa chal ke tujhe". It was now time to say Goodbyes and we all left with a flood of fond memories.
Quizzes, free flowing night session, and the more serious discussions meant that there was something for everyone and I was delighted to see that all the attendees had a good time.
On that note I signing off with a few links on the press coverage of the meet. There were a few attendees who saw the announcement in news papers, and turned out to the meet.
1. Article in Deccan Herald by DHNS on 05-Apr-2017:
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/604730/worldwide-group-vintage-music-buffs.html
2. Article in The Hindu by Ranjani Govind on 08-Apr-2017:
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/vintage-music-made-available-to-public/article17881943.ece
3. Article in The Hindu by Namrata Joshi on 09-Apr-2017:
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-sundaymagazine/play-it-again/article17896679.ece
4. Article in Deccan Herald by DHNS on 10-Apr-2017:
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/605629/fabled-collectors-vintage-records-discuss.html
SARGAM ka KHAZANA pesh hua is mehfil men
HUNGAMA aur JHAMELA ki jhalak bhii thi is mehfil men..
The RMIM silver jubilee meet was held in Bangalore on April 8, 9. On behalf of the organizers, I would like to thank all the attendees for making the meet a grand success.
Prologue: The winds of change are blowing across the world, and RMIM is no exception. To put it succinctly, adapt to change or loose your relevance. The veteran RMIMers were at the helm but embraced the record collectors as well as members of other music groups to ensure an eclectic mix of audience. Social media and technology played a major part in the success. Centenary of CR and Silver Jubilee of the group meant that we had a wider canvas to paint within the limited time. So we collectively decided to adopt a more structured approach, and a schedule was published.
When 50 plus "music nuts" gather together there are bound to be controversies and difference of opinions. However it didn't really turn out to the "boxing day" that a friend predicted. There was enough breathing space for everyone.
Saturday proceedings:
Inauguration and tribute to CR:
We started at 11:00 am sharp VAK Ranga Rao ji lighting the lamp. A rarely heard version of "ai mere watan ke logon" sung by CR himself was played. What a beginning !
Srinivasn Chari ji introduced VAK, and VAK took over. He mentioned his meetings with PL Santoshi and recalled one instance where PLS was involved in a dubbed Telugu movie. The music director was Satyam. VAK added that PLS wanted to make a movie Radha Krishna with Ranjan and Rehana with music by CR. The movie was scrapped but "tum kya jaano" originally meant for this movie was used for their next association; Shin Shinaki Bubla Boo. VAK went on to mention the different types of songs that were composed for the film.
VAK mentioned that he designs his own shirts. In a meeting with CR, he was asked if he was wearing "chiragh din" brand and his reply was "main hoon alladin". VAK saw "Navrang" in a matinee show in Vishakapatnam. He mentioned how he was captivated by the film and especially the title song "rang de". VAK things that this was the best indian film in which Music, Dance,Lyric and Singing had come together.
VAK mentioned that music of Anarkali & Sargam, both great, cannot be more different. He also added that CR had a testy relationship with Filmistaan. Insite of giving several hits, he wasn't the first choice for Anarkali. Ravi was supposed to be the first choice and composed "ai baad-e-sabaa". This was news to me as I thought Basant Prakash was the first choice. VAK said that he was the second choice.
VAK mentioned "What is it that impresses me, draws me to his music. Most of the songs have an easy cadence. They delude me into thinking that even i can sing it. That ease." He added that he saw CR compose music for the Telugu film Nijam Cheppite Nammaru. The tune gelled with the writer and CR said "lets not refine it any further as it would loose its spontaneity".
VAK also dispelled a misconception that CR was an assistant to Anil Biswas in Girls school. Both of them worked together. He added that CR assisted Mir Saheb in "Laal Haveli". When asked about his favorite singers, his response was "Geeta Dutt and Chitalkar". CR's response was" You have poor taste". VAK added that Chitalkar songs are sung to the optimum limit of the requirement of the song.
Wile discussing music of Albela, "dheere se aaja ri" came up."That's the second best film lori" was VAK's response. CR was curious to know which was the first best and when VAK said Salil's "aa ja ri nindiya", CR responsed "you have good taste".
A few minutes of silence was observed for Naqsh Lyallpuri ji and Veena Solomon ji (composer Vinod's daughter). But of them were guests at the last Bangalore meet in 2012 and passed away recently.
In Search of Producer, Actor and Singer C.Ramchandra:
Suresh Chandvankar started by saying that CR was born and died in the same month. There is one more composer who shares this. I immediately exclaimed "SD Burman". Guri added " If Ganti didn't know that he is in trouble" :) Another common thing noted by Suresh ji was that both the composers were good singers, which added an extra dimension to their songs.
CR was very versatile and sang a variety of genres in Marathi including, Bhav Geet, Bal Geet, Bhakti Geet. We heard several songs but the one that stuck to my mind was a live rendition of
"Pahate Pahate Mala jaag aali
tujhi reshamanchi meethi sail jhaali"
I was almost tempted to go to Nishant and say that he should stop watching as there was no sarangi accompaniment. Soon enough we had malkauns piece by Lata Mangeshkar, with Pandit Ram Narayan on Sarangi. It wasn't just musical talent on display. One of the slides in the presentation had a record number 62500. Chetan exclaimed "That's a very special record number. Its 250 Square".
Suresh ji's added that CR was active for more than 4 decades in Marathi and continued to be popular even though he faded away in Hindi. He added that his devotional albums deserved more success but were overshadowed by Sudhir Phadke's Geet Ramayan. Album "Sri Sai Darbaar" was specifically mentioned as CR had high regard for Sai Baba.
Collectors panel discussion:
This had Suresh Chandvankar, Chiranjeev Singh, Giridhari Lal, Nand Kishore, Srinivasan Chari, Rajesh Singh as participants and Gajendra moderated it. Suresh ji talked about preservation of records and briefly mentioned Michael Kinnear's work. Rajesh Kumar Singh talked about his passion for collecting posters, lobby cards and magazines. Nand Kihsore ji recalled his contribution to geet kosh and shared his memories of watching obscure movies. Chiranjeev ji summed up very well saying that it should be a collective effort of individuals and organisations. He also added that vintage film music should be treated seriously just like classical. This started a debate on whether post 60's hindi film music is inferior and we had a lively discussion.
Lata - CR presentation:
Lata-CR tribute by Parthasarathy ji covered several favorites including "ai aankh ab na rona", "tum kya jaano", "aisi muhabbat se ham baaz aaye". When a song from Patanga was played Kalyan asked a trivia question about the significance. It was the first time Lata sang for a heroine under CR.
Meet Commemorative:
Ashok and Chetan then took center stage and talked about the tradition of commemorative in RMIM meets. They briefly mentioned the criteria for song selection and the CR commemorative was distributed.
Guri's quiz :
As usual, we had Guri's video quiz with a mismatch between audio and video sequence. Even after multiple watching's, neither of he teams could get the sequence correctly but managed to crack a few clues. It all came to guessing the theme and scoring the 100 points to win the quiz. We had Vibhendu on our side but i surprised myself by Cracking the anagram. As there were 19 clues, I rightly guessed it as Ramchandra Chitalkar and that was I said to myself that hanging with IIT'ans like Arunabha, Chetan and Kalyan seems to have rubbed off onto me.
RMIM Silver Jubilee :
A book on the 25 years of RMIM complied by Prof. Surjit Singh was distributed and this surprise gift was steeped in nostalgia.
It was followed by video clips from old timers who talked about what RMIM meant to them. The clips were sent in advance and Chetan amalgamated them. Ketan, Ramesh Hariharan, Arun Sampath, Gautam Choudhury,Neha Desai, Vijay & Pragya, Abhay Avachat and Vish Krishnan had all contributed. Additionally there was clip from Sanjeev Ramabhadran. Some of the RMIMers joined through google hangout at this point. Many thanks to Pavan Jha for make this possible.
Ketan started by talking about history of RMIM meets and everyone pitched in about how RMIM played a bg role in their lives. One has to be careful before make sweeping statements with RMIMers :) A conversation that hapenned between me and Vijay 15 years back, was used to anchor Vijay and Pragya's segment. Vijay mentioned about my fascination for bachelors as Pragya joined in to say "and then i happened". Similarly Sushmita happened to me and it was a timely reminder that I had to leave soon. Although Chetan tried to persuade me to stay back, my householder duties got the better of me. My wife returned the favor by joining me at the meet on Sunday. That precisely meant that my attention on Sunday was divided and any omissions & digressions in the report should be taken in stride.
Sunday:
I woke up early and noticed that Arunabha had posted a note about the late night session at Chetan's place. I was very happy as the tradition of late night session was revived. I was soon alerted by a message from Pradeep Dubey enquiring if the directions from airport were correct. I was delighted as Pradeep's constant wit has been a big source of entertainment over the years.
We arrived before 11 am and caught up with Pradeep. Our early arrival also gave me an opportunity to interact with VAK Ranga Rao. This year happens to be centenary of legendary composer KV Mahadevan. In fact I wanted to do a tribute to him but we had such a packed agenda that Shailendra and I dropped our events. KVM was our family composer while I was growing up and I explained the significance to VAK. On one had my parents and uncle adored KVM's 60's output. The highpoint was mooga manasulu which was also cherished for its locales in and around river Godavari, where they grew up. It was a constant in the house along with contemporary Mahadevan hits of that time like Shankarabharanam. While agreeing that KVM brought classical music into our houses, VAK emphasized that he wasn't the only one. He recounted his interactions with KVM and his assistant Puhalendi.
Social Themes in Film Songs:
When i started working on setting the event schedule for the meet, one item that caught my eye was Sushrut's presentation. We had to deal with several parameters while finalising the agenda and Sushrut's couldn't be accommodated on Saturday. Given that it was discussion I slotted it for prime time, and I am glad it generated lot of discussion. It started "dilli tere kile par" 1857 and ended with "zameen bhi vohii...magar dilli ki galiyan kahaan" from Chandi Chowk. This Delhi nostalgia and Patriotic undercurrents showcased through "door hato" (Kismat), "ab darne ki koii baat nahiin" (Shaheed), " vande mataram" (multiple versions) meant that Sushmita also enjoyed the presentation.
The stature of Women in Bengak and Maharashtra was debated. Iconic movies like Devdas, Aurat and Prabhat's Manus was well received. The conflict of devdas torn between Paro and family duty was well illustrated with KC Deys "mat bhool musafir tujhe jaana hi padega". The high hopes post independence and the later disillusionment was also well captured. Dilip Kumar as torch bearer of Nehruvian ideals and the socialist themes of Raj Kapoor films was demonstrated. There was an interesting debate as to " vo surah kabhi to aayegi" was more of hope or caution. Lunch with bisibelle bath, gulab jamoon was the perfect way to take a break. Special thanks to Shailendra and his wife for taking care of the food section.
Prelude song quiz:
Abhay Phadnis quiz was very entertaining and it was the prefect way to energize us after a heavy lunch. It had 3 different sections.
sun to sahii (5 points each) – 2 rounds:
The prelude will be played as an audio clue
Expected answer: The first line of the mukha.Daa of the song
zaraa sii baat (10 points each):
Just 3 words from the prelude (not necessarily the first three!) will form the clue
Expected answer: The first line of the prelude and the first line of the mukha.Daa of the song
de mujhko zubaa.N aur (10 points each): An English translation of the prelude will be given
Expected answer: the first line of the prelude and the first line of the mukha.Daa of the song
There were 2 teams and Guri conspired to get several of the veterans to his side. Thanks to that and
the self goals comitted by our team, they won hands down. Our team was just happy that they won
Guri's quiz.
I am not going to give more details as Arunabha had posted the clues for non attendees to participate.
Anmol Geet:
Gajendra's anmol geet was similar to his recent quizzes. He would play lesser know songs mostly from pre 50s and we need to guess singers, composers etc. This was in record collector territory and went above the head of many. Pradeep Dubey sitting next to me was equally clueless and started cracking jokes at every opportunity which kept Sushmita entertained. Gajendra announced that correct guess would be awarded with postal stamp. First clue was to name a Ghulam Mohd movie that did not have shamshad as singer. Several wrong guesses and a hint later, Kalyan got it as Do Gunde and asked his son Vedant to collect the stamps. And Gajendra cudnt find them promoting the crowd to say that Do Gunde have stolen them. Kalyan ensured that many stamps stay in CV Raman Nagar by cracking several questions including a Geeta Dutt song by V. Balsara. One of the clues was to guess name of an unreleased. It promoted Pradeep to say "How can an unreleased film have a name ?" Babies don't get named during ultra sound scan. In the middle of this humor I managed a "Jai Santoshi Maa" moment by guessing Kalyani as a singer for a Jagmohan duet.
We enjoyed Sandwiches and mirchi bajji during tea break.
PL Santoshi:
Pavan Jha presented a talk on PL Santoshi. He recalled that even though PLS had some big hits he was not given his due recognition. His mastery over using english in songs as far back as 40's was emphasised. PLS association with CR and their jubilee hits like Shehnai, Khidki and Sargam was recalled. Santoshi's heartbreak over Rehana and his subsequent downfall was discussed. Pavan
pointed out that just the one song "tum kya jaano" from Shin Shinaki Bublaa Boo was enough to
put PLS among elite club of lyricists.It was also mnetioned that Santoshi had a brief return to
success in 60's with Barsaat ki Raat and Dil Hi To Hai. The presentation ended with "ye ishq ishq".
Nand Kishore ji showed a slideshow of his meetings with celebrities and distributed a CD of rare songs of Lata Mangeshkar.
We then took group photograph of the attendees.
The next event was a compilation of video songs by Mr. Kulkarni. I was happy to see full version of "badly men chhupe chaand". "mere man ka baanwara panchi", " jab dil ko sataave gam", "dil lagaa kar ham ye samjhe", "vo chaand Jahaan vo jaaye", "Jap jap jap re" were among the other songs.
A dvd sent by Vijay Nafde that had clips from CR's BBC interview including his rendition of "aadha
hai chandrama" was presented. Final item was singing. Gauri Diwan sang a Lata-CR song followed by Ram Nagraj's "aa chal ke tujhe". It was now time to say Goodbyes and we all left with a flood of fond memories.
Quizzes, free flowing night session, and the more serious discussions meant that there was something for everyone and I was delighted to see that all the attendees had a good time.
On that note I signing off with a few links on the press coverage of the meet. There were a few attendees who saw the announcement in news papers, and turned out to the meet.
1. Article in Deccan Herald by DHNS on 05-Apr-2017:
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/604730/worldwide-group-vintage-music-buffs.html
2. Article in The Hindu by Ranjani Govind on 08-Apr-2017:
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/vintage-music-made-available-to-public/article17881943.ece
3. Article in The Hindu by Namrata Joshi on 09-Apr-2017:
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-sundaymagazine/play-it-again/article17896679.ece
4. Article in Deccan Herald by DHNS on 10-Apr-2017:
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/605629/fabled-collectors-vintage-records-discuss.html
