Re: June 2008 RMIM meet: Report - Part I

On Jul 6, 3:37 pm, Srinivas Ganti <sga...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jul 1, 6:52 pm, Srinivas Ganti <sga...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Here's an account of Friday's events at the 2008 RMIM meet held in New
Jersey at Uma and Abhay Jain's place.

Here's the concluding part of the report. This chronicles Saturday's
events at the meet.

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 !

The long-forgotten (but not by me!) artist of Gujrati and Hindi
theater and Hindi films is Ashraf Khan.


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 ...

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