Ameen Sayani, the most prolific broadcaster in India returned to IAR last Sunday with the resurrected Binaca Geetmala now christened Colgate Cibaca Geetmala. In the new format Sayani hopes to take his 40 year old radio tradition to the new generation and achieve "a fusion of the past and the present". A chat with the unmatched voice.
How does it feel re-starting Colgate Cibaca Geetmala after eight years? Geetmala is coming back, yes. But I've never left radio. There are two reasons that people are not aware of this. One is that I've been recording programmes mainly for expatriate audiences everywhere from Radio Tarana in New Zealand to Radio Truro in Swaziland. The second reason is that my programmes on All India Radio (AIR) are mainly for the primary channel which goes into the interiors whereas city slickers like you and me listen to Vividh Bharati.
So what d'you have on AIR and how come we haven't heard of it? I've done a two-year programme called Colgate Sangeet Sitare where I profile music directors, a programme on AIDS called Swanash and a series on career guidance called Opportunities Today. The problem is that AIR has never been careful about promoting its own prograrmmes. The organisation lacks internal as well as inter-channel promotion. So naturally it suffers.
Your one-hour Cibaca Geetmala is now a 20 minute Colgate Cibaca Geetmala programme. Don't you feel restricted?
Yes, of course. But the sponsors have promised to increase the duration to half an hour soon and then if all goes well, to an hour. Right now it's certainly not an ideal situation for me. The 16 songs that we showcased on the original programme have now been whittle down to five. The chatting to listeners, which I used to do on any topic under the sun, is out. I have to be brief, the songs have to be brief, but it's still a countdown show.
What's the format like now, for the 20-minute show? There are excerpts of songs from the 1940s,'50s and '60s which in my estimation was the golden age of Hindi music, as well as current songs. Since there's not much time, we showcase the current five top hits one week and the runners-up the next week.
What according to you was the most memorable period for the original Binaca Geet Mala? Would say from the mid-1950s to the '70s. The popularity was unimaginable. A few months into the programme, we started receiving 60,000 letters a week and each letter would be scrutinised. There was no competition. In newspapers, magazines, novels and films Geetmala was everywhere. In Abhimaan I remember there's a scene where Asrani, secretary to Amitabh measures his boss' success by the number of his songs being played on Geetmala. In small towns like Jalgaon, community radio sets were set up in parks with loudspeakers and the crowds would spill onto the streets. I believe that the salaries of music directors would be fixed according to the popularity of their songs on the programme. It was the only public barometer of the popularity of Hindi film music in its time.
Nobody bought a radio set unless Geetmala could be played on it. But apparently AIR banned it for over 35 years...! That's true. From 1952 to 1990 Geetmala was available only on Radio Ceylon because AIR had banned Hindi film music in the early '50s when Geetmala started. Radio Ceylon, on the other hand encouraged Hindi film music and it had a fantastic following in those times. It was only in 1990 after our endeavours that AIR agreed to take us on on the condition that we changed the name to Cibaca Sangeet Mala
Tell us about how you arrived at the ratings of the songs for Geetmala. There was a dual system in place to begin with. The most important indicator was the record sales in various cities and to that we added the number of requests from listeners. But as time went by we realised that basing a countdown show on listeners' requests allowed for a lot of manipulation by vested interests. So we eventually formed radio clubs in the cities and hired men interested in music, whose sole function was to listen to Hindi film songs and send us song lists. I myself was involved in the process of setting up the system to arrive at the final list.
There's an entire generation that's grown up not listening to Ameen Sayani in the last eight years. How are you preparing to tackle them? The younger generation which watches TV shows like Antakshari and Sa Re Ga Ma is exposed to both old and current songs on them. On Colgate Cibaca Geetmala I cater to both. I start with a blast from the past, move onto the new and then go back to the old. So people get the best of both worlds. I'm trying to achieve a fusion of the past and the present which I believe is the basis for all progress.
Is your voice the same as it was 20 years ago – hasn't age made a difference? My voice today is better than it was 20 years ago. In the interim period I've given up smoking two or three times, and I haven't smoked for the last five years. But I've never thought of myself as a good voice. In my Radio Ceylon days we were all 'stylemasters like the Hindi film heroes of old and tried to pep up our broadcasting. People who imitate me use my style - I no longer do. I don't even shout anymore, which I had to do once out of compulsion because the studios weren't adequately soundproofed.
But nobody doubts that no one in this country can intone quite so perfectly as Ameen Sayani... My intonation came from my background, and my Hindi was a mix of Gujarati, English and Bombay Hindi. When I started Hindi broadcasting there was English and Gujarati in my speech, and I had to create a style so that I could get away with it. The fact is that if if you ask me to communicate in the simplest Hindi to the largest number of people, I'm very good at it.
D'you think satellite television has killed radio? I've traveled all over the world and I say that nowhere in the world has radio died due to television. The fact is that unlike in television, In radio one half of the work is done by the viewer. And that is the power of visulasation which lies with the individual when the radio is playing. It's also a very powerful reason why radio will survive.
Edited by s.priya - 19 years ago
Pati Patni Aur Panga
Jaane Anjaane Hum Mile
Tum Se Tum Tak
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
Mannat Har Khushi Paane Ki
Vasudha
