As Pavan Jha announced about the plans of a mini-meet in Jaipur during the mehfil,
Sundeep ji said" ek gaaDi dilli se niklegi" and before everyone could catch their breath Preeti said "Have you started taking the bookings ?"
Professor saab has given us so many gems over the years that I said to myself "How could I think of not inviting Preeti to the meet in the first place ?".
But when thoughts of this meet started 2 months back it was supposed to be just a very limited gathering. A few of us got together in CP for Lata ji's birthday, and I casually asked Anand the next time weekend was going to be in town. When Anand replied with Nov 16, I realized that it coincided with Roshan Sahab's death anniversary and we decided to meet again.
Anand, '"Do you time your week end NCR stay's with Birth and Death days of your favorite artists ? If so you should stay back on Jan 5 ! Even Jan 12 will do "
Brainstorming with Pavan and Naresh and Pavan's visit to my place earlier this week made me realise that with a little bit of re-arrangement I can easily host a much bigger gathering and the invite list grew by the day and reached climax on the day of the meet.
Sundeep ji had just liked my post in sks and I added him as a fb friend, realised he is from Delhi and sent him a message saying there's a mehfil in a few hours and pat came his reply that he will come. Of course Sundeep ji is no stranger, is well know in Delhi music circles and has been to Naresh's place.
Meanwhile Pavan was juggling with his weekend work and called me to say that he will come late to the mehfil but will help me with some last minute shopping.
So I made a quick trip to Pavan's office and he came down with a huge bag !!
Namkeen and Samosas were next on the agenda but it was already 2:30 pm. We went to the narest shop and Pavan couldn't find Sprite there. In his usual style he said " thoDa aage chalte hain. aur kuchh options milenge" and by now I was in scrambling
mode. Pavan almost got onto my nerves "Log thoDi hi bolenge ki ganTi hamen ghar bulaake bhaag gaya" and added " We are walking in the direction of your house !".With the last purchases now finished, Pavan handed me that huge bag saying it has "WiFi speakers, mike, recorder, and GAJAK's" and went back to work.
I should count myself very lucky that Pavan comes to Noida often and his office is a stone's throw from my place. Of course its not the easiest of jobs to control the way the "wind" blows, so I will try to make the most of it as long as it has a natural drift
towards Noida Naresh also called me saying he will be getting "Rewari" and other snacks. By the time I reached home it was almost 3 pm and the phone started ringing.
A saying goes " duur vaale sab se pehle pahunch jaate hain" but Aditya pant who is closest to my place came first shortly followed by Bakshi ji. Sandeep Pahwa and Preeti Ranjan joined soon after.
While introducing himself Sundeep ji mentioned that his father produced a couple of films and "Bahu (1955)" was among them. For years the only memorabilia from the film his family had were the two Talat-Geeta duets. of course they eventually got the other songs including "ang ang men umang" but Sundeep ji's prized possession was a booklet of the film which he ordered for a handsome price of $100 and was delighted to find some pictures from the film in it.
Meanwhile Anand Juvekar called and mentioned that he was near the Sagar Ratna hotel and has entered D block. I wondered why he was coming from that side but gave him the directions.
I prepared a playlist of Roshan songs taken mostly from his earlier films and started playing while we started talking about his music. "kyun ji scent lagaya hai" from Neki Aur Badi kicked off the proceedings and Bakshish Singh ji pointed out that there is a third singer who joins the song right at the end and its Mukesh. All of us including Aditya were stumped ! Baksish ji also pointed out that Kidar Sharma found Roshan to be a lacking confidence and asked the famous classical singer and composer of Alam Ara, Feroz Datoor, to help Roshan. Feroz was responsible for introducing the "aiii~~~" refrain.
Anand Juvekar walked in and told me that he was able to locate the place easily and we left it at that.
Sundeep Ji circulated a news paper article on Roshan and an old outlook magazine which had a poll conducted on the all time best HFM songs. Roshan's "man re tuu kaahe na dhiir dhare" was picked as the all the time best song..
Soon Pradeep arrived and we also got the message that Naresh will be reaching shortly. My first instinct was to give Naresh a call but everyone said "he must have just started" !!
We enjoyed several other Roshan numbers from my playlist including "chun chun chun baaje payal mori", "dhiire dhiire chhaD gaya nadi men paani", "falak milega tujhe kya hamen miTaane se". I also included a few samples of Vish Krishnan's commentary from 1998 RMIM West Coast commemorative and pointed out that Dr.Preeti Ranjan was present at that meet. Baksish Singh ji as well as Anand Juvekar have been reading RMIM for a long time and Anand Juvekar mentioned that he almost made it to the 2003 east coast meet and had spoken to Arun Sampath at that time!
Sandeep Pahwa casually asked if we knew Sanjeev Ramabhadran and the answer was of course an overwhelming yes. We all narrated our experiences and Sandeep ji as the an organizer of a show in Delhi recounted his experience ; standing with a red rose (in filmi style) so that Sanjeev could identify him.
Soon a gentleman with a suitcase and a bag walked in, and Sundeep ji gazed at him as if he recognised the person. On asking his name the gentleman said "naam se kya lena dena hai"and when Sundeep ji insisted he mentioned " I am Ripudaman from Jaipur". Ofcourse that was Pavan trying some old RMIM tricks.
Pavan's arrival also meant that everyone started recounting their experiences of visiting Jaipur. A common experience shared was the watching of movies at Raj Mandir theatre. Several people expressed surprise that even flop movies got an extended run there and some used to play for months together. "Bin Phere Hum Tere" was one of the movies discussed.
Since no one was in a mood to eat and I cudn't eat without feeding the guests I thought I will get Pavan to accompany me so that the others will be enticed to join. But Pavan had better ideas and went straight to the kitchen and said "lets make Chaa".
I thought to myself "chaa ka chahne waale abhi tak nahiin aaye" (thinking of Naresh). I stepped out of the Kitchen and asked "sugar kitno ko" and practically everyone raised their hands and it took time for me to realize that they all have "sugar" while I meant to ask "how many want sugar in the tea" ! The adrak + elachi tea
rocked and the Samosa's, Namkeen and Gajaks were grabbed with glee.
We went back to the Roshan play list and as "jhoom jhoom ke jaam choom ke aa dil ki mehfil men aa" from Coffe House was being enjoyed Naresh comes in ! What a perfect timing on more than one count as Sundeep ji was about to leave and wanted to take a group picture.
Soon Naresh narrated his adventure of how a 5 min walk to my place turned into 30 minutes ! Naresh got "chikki", "Rewri" and "Groundnuts" and we soon got ready for a second serving.
By now the Roshan playlist came to an end and discussion moved to arrangers. We recalled several names including Sebastian, Chic Cholate, The Lords, Sonik, Anothny Gonsalves and Babla. For no particular reason focus turned to Babla and it was pointed out that his arrangement in "Johny Mera Naam" was a turning point for Kalyanji Anandji. We ended up recalling several KA scores like Don, Mohra, Tridev. We briefly talked about the songs of Gupt and Pradeep Sharma mentioned how a vendor he knew used to sell music systems by playing songs of Gupt !
A few controversial topics including how SJ allegedly played politics to ensure some other composers wouldn't get work were discussed.
It was now time for the music session and Pradeep Sharma cast a magic spell with "hamen ai dil kahin le chal baDa tera karam hoga". We are very lucky to have him in NCR. Preeti Ranjan showed that just like his sense of humor his singing is as fresh as his california days with "Woh Chand Chamka Woh Noor Chhalka". It was Pradeep's turn again and he sang "bahut diya dene waale ne". We then digressed awat from Roshan as Pavan chipped in with a few Rajasthani folk songs followed by "ye dil na hota bechara". Pradeep sang "ye mera diwana pan hai" and "kaise manauun piyava" and they were extremely well rendered. Preeti then sang a non-filmi malkauns piece which impressed Pradeep so much that he asked for Preeti's contact information and Preeti pointed to me. A witty Pradeep retorted "Is he your manager" and after a host of back and forth tradeoffs and the utterance of the word mafia it was concluded that we are not the "sand mafia" but the "song mafia" ! Pradeep then sang the
swan song of Roshan "oh re taal mile nadi ke jal men" and we decided to take a break.
A cd of 1000 rare songs courtesy Surinder Dhall, was presented to the attendees. Although he had to cancel coming to the mehfil at the last minute, Pradeep Sharma ensured that the CD's are handed over to everyone.
Pradeep and Bakshish ji had to leave and the rest of us decided to accompany them on the way to Sagar Ratna. Although both were in opposite directions I thought it will be a good idea for everyone to know both the gates from which our sector can be reached. This was the perfect time to debate about why my directions misled Naresh we concluded that a mehfil isn't fun without some adventure
Anand, Naresh, Pavan and Preeti joined me for Dinner and we enjoyed Uttappam and Dosa at Sagar Ratna. Naresh and Preeti then left and Anand, Pavan came back to my place.
We had another listening session of Roshan and as I was playing "kahaan kho gaii hai
bahaar aate aate" Anand pointed out how "kabhi to milegi kahin to milegi" has a similarity to it. We heard several other Roshan numbers including "ye surkhi aur ye shaam", "batado koi kaun gali gaye shaam", "geet mera jagaaye sulaye tujhe" and "prem lagan man men basaale".
It was quite a memorable evening and I hope everyone enjoyed as much as I did.
Thanks friends for coming and I look forward to having all of you over for another mehfil very soon!
