RMIM meet report - Bangalore (2009)

Prologue: May 16, 2009 - India was in the grip of election fever. Party offices were bustling with activity as the counting began. As the evening dawned, results started trickling in,and open discussions gave way to close door meetings. Veteran members of the ruling coalition started trickling into the residence of General Secretary, Kalyanji Kolachalaji. The hopes were high and the stakes higher. Hardliner, Chetan Vinchhi, was among the first arrivals. He had mellowed down over the years, but the intensity in his eyes and sincerity in his voice was as striking as ever. Game changer, Arunabha Roy, was the most sought after member. His vote has always been crucuial, given his history of switching sides at the drop of a coin. Central observer Anup Pandey flew in from Delhi with special instructions from the high command. Dissident leader Ashok Dhareshwar moved the motion to have the RMIM meet on June 26,27,28 and it was unanimously adopted.

Yours truly got wind of the developments and was relieved. With my india trip already finalised I was hoping that the meet will coincide with my visit. It just did.

Thanks to Kalyan, Sushmita, Sirisha, Moloy, Kanchan, Chetan, Arunabha, Ashok for their tireless

efforts in organising the meet.

June 25, 2009 - I took an evening flight from Hyderabad to Bangalore. My return was delayed due to friday evening traffic. Bangalore folks attributed the delay to me getting kidnapped on the way.(One RMIMer threatened to hijack the plane since I was not visiting mumbai during my india trip!) I finally arrived at Kastle Grace and knocked on the door. Arunabha greeted me

"Chalo grocery karne chalte hain !".

We let Kalyan know about my arrival. He wanted to stop by since we had some hawala transactions to perform. We went downstairs and spotted Kalyan's car. I was tempted to say "Kalyanji, aap se milke bahut aanand mila", but realized that Chiranjeevi Singh was in the car. After exchanging pleasentaries and DVD's they left. Arunabha said "why dont we have dinner first ? We can get groceries later". I said to myself " I didn't expect nawabi tehzeeb, but atleast I am not being mistreated".

June 26, 2009 - "are ye kya kiyaa tuu ne": Although an NRB (non-resident bong) since birth, Arunabha's laid back approach has bhadralok written all over it. On top of that Kalyan assigned him the task of picking up Chiranjeevi Singh on the way.The next hour was spent with Arunabha calling several cab companies with little luck. Meanwhile Pavan called to inform that he is in mumbai but his flight from there has been delayed. After several near misses, Pavan's excitement was understandable and he asked Arunabha for periodic updates. Arunabha made calls to Moloy and Kanchan's residence and finds that Ashok; Chetan, Purvi and their kids; "Cool dude" Saksham; Abhay Phadnis; Manjari Dhamankar, have already arrived.

"intezaar aur abhii, aur abhii": After a wait of one and a half hours the cab company finally sent one.

We picked Chiranjeevi singh and reached the venue around 9:30. Attendees started speculating if the Bangalore folks would arrive later than the Jaipur / Mumbai folks but we managed to beat them by a whisker. Most of the attendees had already arrived. Apart from the ones mentioned above; I could spot

Kalyan, Sushmita, Sirisha, Sirisha's friend, Vivek Dhareshwar, and his daughter, Anup Pandey, Dr.Khaitan,

Dr.Shekhar, his wife, his mother; Dr.Mohan and his wife.

We were having a scrumtuous dinner when two gentlemen arrived; Vibhendu Tiwari and Pavan Jha.

To take a cue from Ashok "God and Gulzar finally relented" and we were thrilled to have Pavan. Ashok had already warmed up, and started reeling quotable quotes. He quipped "Ganti's reports are like Gulzar's writing!"

Introductions: A new dimension was added here with RMIMers providing insights about their fellow members.

Cool dude's introduction had us in splits. "My name is Saksham. I am 19 years old" Moloy shared Saksham's confession "In his good old days, he was a non-vegetarian". Kanchan mentioned that her first meet was in New Jersey and Chetan added that she was the co-host for her first meet ! When Dr.Sekhar's mother introduced herself, Ashok added that she won the second prize during a world space quiz and he will reveal later as to who won the first prize.

After Abhay's introduction, Chetan added that Abhay is a big fan of Begum Akhtar. Chiranjeevi Singh mentioned that he got the oppurnity to see her in person thrice. Abhay recalled that in the Chennai meet he saw two Sardarji's and wasn't sure who was Dr.Hamraaz till one of them talked in Kannada. Chiranjeevi Singh's command over various languages is well known. Ashok also mentioned that it was Mr. Singh

who won the first prize in the world space contest Manjiri mentioned that she is not all part of the new group online but has been attending meets. At the last Arunabha and myself mentioned to her that we Marathi songs but dont understand the language well. Manjari mentioned that this motivated her to translate

a few Marathi songs into Hindi.

Lata or Asha: Aruanbha complemented RMIMers and noted that it has been a great experience for him to meet lovers of vintage music in the meets. Chetan mentioned that Arunabha started out as an Asha fan and switched to Lata. Arunabha retorted that he now likes both equally well.

Sushmita Kalyanam:When Sushmita talked about her interest in old songs, Kalyan interjected and mentioned their pre-wedding exchanges. When Kalyan asked her what kind of music she liked, Bhajans was her reply and quoted that Comics are her favorite books. Kalyan noted that she tried her best not to marry him :)

Chetan mentioned a little bit about the history of RMIM meets and Anup chipped in as well.

It was my turn and I spoke Hindustani...

" mujhe is mehfil men baar-baar shaamil hone ka mauqka mila hai, lekin,

is mehfil men chand lamhe bitaane ka shauq abhii baaqi hai

is aalam ka lutf uThaane ka junoon abhii baaqi hai

"

Kalyan compared my meet reports to Sanjay narrating events of Mahabharata and Ashok quipped that I even write reports of meets that I don't attend.

"How to miss an RMIM meet" by Pavan Jha: His two near misses when he had to cancel his tickets at last minute have attained legedndary status.Pavan's talked about the art of missing and his thrill at finally

attending a meet. He introduced in Hindustani as well. Vibhendu's intrduction was followed by several people mentioning about his participation in Quiz competitions. Ashok introduced himself in Kannada. We were about to call it a day when Ashok had the last laugh with his comment to me "Your Hindi has improved since you moved to Toronto"!

Arunabha, Pavan, Chiranjeevi Singh and Your's truly left in Dr.Khaitan's car. During the drive I talked about the famous poet from Hyderabad, Maqdoom Mohinuddin, whose sher with the beher "abhii baaqi hai" inspired mine. Some of the film songs of Maqdoom were discussed. Dr.Khaitan dropped us at Arunabha's residence and went on to drop Chiranjeevi Singh. Pavan worked on the audio visual introduction on VK Murthy and was awake most of the night. Arunabha and I also looked at several books that Pavan got.

It was a memorable evening to Savor and this was only the warmup to the formal events on Saturday and Sunday !

The cloudy skies gave way to bright sun shine as the clock struck ten. It was a quiet morning with the ocassional cooing of the doves. The silence was interrupted by a phone call. A familiar voice said " When are you guys planning to come".
It was Chetan. I sensed that we were running late and alerted Arunabha and Pavan. They woke up and continued in the vein of the previous night; talk, browse books, and did i say talk ! We took turns to answer Chetan's followp up phone calls and blame the delay on the other person till Chetan announced "I will be at the door in 10 minutes".The procrastination invetably led to change of plans, and Chetan got assigned to other pick up duties leaving place for only one of us in his car. Arunabha managed to convince Pavan "You have a lot of books which won't fit in auto.You shud go in the car" We accompanied Pavan till the car and saw Saksham besides Chetan. Arunabha greeted him "Will you be singing a song spanning 3 octaves" and the cool dude shoot back "Are you Crazy. Its 2 and half at most".

As we walked back into the appartment Arunabha heaved a sigh of relief; and eased into the sofa by saying "Now I can get ready at my own pace". The delay in getting ready was more than made up by the fact that we had much better luck with the auto and we were at the venue almost on time. By the time we arrived, the auditorium was packed. We sat in a corner besides Saksham. The first event had just begun and M.A Parthasarathy, former production head at Gemini Studios, was talking about C Ramchandra. Meanwhile Kalyan came by and said that my seat was  needed to put a music system and pointed to another empty seat, right at the tail of the long rectangular table. This was a much more visible spot, and the moment I was noticed, several hands and mouths swung into action. No, it wasn't a greeting! Some were passing sheets of paper, and others were enquiring if i needed a pen. Before I could realize what was happenning Srisha came by and said "No need to take notes for the meet report. We are recording the proceedings"

Thanks to Srisha, Pavan and Anant Rege, the recording will soon be available at rmim.in.  This post is just a trailer with juicy tid-bits.

M.A Parthasarathy and the Gemini music room: Parthasarathy mentioned that, after song recording was complete, Ramchandra always wanted to see the final version of the film. But films typically needed editing, and Parthasarathy used to show him the rought cut. Several interesting aspects were revealed ; including Lata refusing to sing for Ramchandra after 6:00 pm any given day ! Parthasarathy also mentioned about a recording by Emani Sankara Sastry called "aadarsha shikara aarohanam" - the ideal progress of a musical expression, and that Ramchandra loved it. He went on to talk about Chandralekha (1948) and its composer Saluri Rajeswara Rao. During the ensuing discussion, Dr. Sekhar enquired about the picturisation of a dance sequence from Raj Tilak in which Vyjayanthimala and Padmini had a competition. Parthasarathy mentioned that the producer, S.S vassan realised that making either actress win the dance sequence would have repercussions. So he devised the scene such that the chandeliers would crash and disrupt the dance, leaving it inconclusive.

Maya Rao and the music for dance ballets: Dr Maya Rao, internationally reputed dancer, choreographer and founder of Natya Institute of Kathak & Choreography, was the next guest. She talked at length about her association with Anil Biswas. She began by giving a brief background of Anida's tryst with AIR, her introducton with him and a delightful account of his personality, which sounds plain in a report. The recording is worth listening to just for this! Maya Rao returned from Moscow after studying in Theatre Arts. She also played a couple of songs fron her dance drama on Amir Khusrau, composed by Anil Biswas.

"Gori sovay sej par, mukh par daaray kes,
Chal Khusrau ghar aapnay, rain bhaii chahu des " and

" Ai chehara-e zeba-e-tu rashk-e butaan-e-azari "

She went on to mention that Anilda also composed carnatic styles on Vishnuvardhana and Venkateshwara Vilasam for TTD (Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam) She also touched upon a Kathak number whose lyrics were by Narendra Sharma and was sung by Anilda himself. A clip of the song was played as well. An interesting anecdote on Anilda driving his car in reverse direction was also recalled. She recalled an interesting incidentg where where she hummed a Jhinjhoti tarana to Anilda that she had heard and asked him to compose something similar. Anilda retorted" tum to Bageshri gaa rahii ho" We were in splits when she shared Anilda's comments to out of tune cheoreographers, with us. He apparently said "tum sab asur ho".

It was time to wind up the discussions with chief guests and break for lunch. This was perfect time to catch up with old friends and meet new people. Apart from the attendees on Saturday; I could spot Animesh, PreetRanjan, Sushrut, Sathya and his wife. I was also introduced to Samik Dasgupa's mother, sister and brother-in-law.

Introductions: As Arunabha and Preeti mentioned; Kalyan's father's introduction was special. The remark by Kalyan's father speaking of Kalyan "Given our music preferences, I sometimes wonder if he is the father " was received with smiles all around. We all mentioned about our favorite singers and composers. Preeti's introduction was "My favorite singers are Mukesh and Anup Pandey" When a comment was made about having visibility ? Vibehndu stood up on the stage in order to be visible !

Sense of humor was displayed in abundance duing the intros.

Quiz: Kalyan was planning to do an event but had to pick up V.K Murthy. I jumped in with my quiz which Preeti has already mentioned in his report It was fun to watch IIT Profs Animesh and Preeti solving problems. While most RMImers are by now aware of the theme (matching pairs of songs with movie name of one contained in the mukhda of the other); having a subtheme for the odd clues was a more recent introduction. I gave a clue that the odd songs had the same composer. Both teams latched on when i mentioned that he was a golden era composer who was still alive I could see them rejoice when I announced that both guessed the name correctly as Ravi. I wonder if that really helped in the final analysis or people got distracted into focussing too much on finding which songs were by Ravi instead of matching the pairs.

The quiz brought out the best of Anup Pandey. Anup and Pradeep Dubey were two RMImers that I always wanted to meet, especially because of their sense of humor. Unfortunately they went back to India around the same
time I became active on RMIM and started attending meets. I finally met Pradeep a few years back and now Anup.Soon after the quiz ended, one attendee wanted to leave and Anup looked at me and said "tumhara quiz ka pehla shikaar".

V.K Murthy: Pavan Jha presented a nice audio visual about his cinematography. Murthy saab talked at techinques he used for various song picturizations. He talked about how the specific beam of light was achieved in "waqt ne kiya" from Kaagaz Ke Phool by a unique mirror arrangement. Preeti has summed this up nicely. The discussion about "saaqiya aaj mujhe" has to be heard to be savoured! Murthy saab also talked about his understading with Guru Dutt as well his work with other producers / directors like Kamaal Amrohi, Pramod Chakravarthy .

When asked about the picturisation skills of other directors and specifically Vijay Anand, he mentioned that having a good sense of music and dance helps and Vijay Anand had that. He also mentioned about his work on TV serials with Govind Nihlani, his contemporaries in India and abroad. It was a very interesting and informative session

Film on RD Burman: A lot has been written on RMIM about the film itself, whether it was appropriate to showit at an RMIM meet, and so on. I will leave it at that.

The Cigar Club: As we came out for dinner I could spot a member of this club wandering around with a Cigar and looking for the others. In earlier meets I used to see them take short breaks from meet proceedings to go out and smoke.Now they seem to take short breaks to come in and attend the meet :)

Singing session: At the Bangalore meet 2 years back, Arunabha and myself mentioned about our interest about Marathi music but our limited lyrical understanding. Manjari decided to translate a few Marathi songs in Hindi and sing for us in this meet. I can only recall "nava vadhu priya mi" right now. Actually Arunabha, by virtue of beig brought up in Bombay can understand conversational Marathi well and has much more exposure to Marathi music than me. So he shud be able to fill in the others. Manjari also mentioned that she translated some Ghazals into Marathi for the benefit of non-urdu knowing folks. This was followed by Antakshari which not surprisingly had lot of SDB sungs. There were a couple of LP songs too including "Gam ka fasana, ban gayaa accha" and Manjari even went to the extent of immitating "accha jii". We wound up the antakshari session around midnight and it was time to say goodbyes since several of us weren't going to be there on Sunday.

The meet presented a perfect oppurtunity for Arunabha and myself to relive grad school times in Chicago. We weren't the only ones having that feeling. "Bay Area Bonding" was well evident with Anup, Kalyan and Preeti getting nostalgic as well. While the get together was primarily for music lovers to come together and share their passion; it wudn't have been as lively; without the wit and repartee. It ensured the right balance.