Rise, Shine and Spring - Champako Jaago Jaago

Many suns, moons, springs and falls ago, I was in school and we had to write essays. They were a staple of the growing up years. As I lazily finger dust off random spots of memory on this languid Saturday afternoon, the gentle revelation is that not all memories around these essays are pleasant.

Writing was not one of my preoccupations in childhood and these essays - they were all over the place. You had to write them in English, you had to write them in Hindi and horror of horrors you had to write them in Sanskrit too! Since I never got around to learning how to construct a straight sentence in Sanskrit that part of my education basically contributed to honing my 'ratafication' skills.

The Gods who defined curricula and set exam papers in those days believed that an essay was a critical component which contributed to making the future citizens of India informed, opinionated and articulate. No wonder essay writing accounted for atleast 20% of the total marks for the paper. For someone who wanted to be an astronaut, explorer, architect or sometimes just a person who could read Enid Blytons for a living, writing essays was a fundamental distraction from mission life. At that point in time, it was the preciseness and unambiguity of the science subjects that appealed. After all you could write what you considered the best ever piece on 'Cleanliness is Godliness' or 'Festivals of India' or 'My Summer Vacation', the teacher could still strike off and give you a 2/10. It was too whimsical and I just got by it.

I know what runs in your mind at this moment. You are wondering, why in the good world, upon surfacing after two years of hibernation, I would want to dwell on a topic as dry as elementary school curriculum. We all know that I threw away any intellectual pretensions very early in the game of blogging. This is not even a 'sunshine ' childhood memory that makes a good nostalgic blog post. Then why?

Well, my dear friend everything happens for a reason. Let me help you understand by revealing an intimate moment to you. Today morning as I sat over my morning cuppa browsing over musical tributes to SD Burman in the born-again Facebook avtaar of my old hangout Sangeet Ke Sitare, a sudden well of inspiration sprung from God knows which crevice of my being. It was this strong and now almost alien urge to write something. I had a laundry list of chores and activities sitting and waiting to get going but somehow they all went flying out of the window as I rummaged through my long neglected blog links to get to this blog composition page trying to start a new post. And immediately following it I was with struck a stab of introspection - when did this writing become such an intimate part of the being that it could turn up unannounced one fine day and consume my attention quite like a childhood friend turning up on facebook after years. How did this happen?

Rewinding to early life only reveals a strong disdain for essays and any form of 'creative writing'. The only sojourn I had as a writer in school was for a class magazine imaginatively named 'Bang' where I wrote a Spook Corner which was a collection of all the ghost stories we exchanged on dark summer nights lying on the terrace. That effort is best relegated to the 'dark room' from where those ghost stories first originated. Very forgettable. After that there was no writing. I remember getting through the essays one has to write for B-School and and other post-grad courses with less than passing marks. They were quite uninspiring and even while writing them I knew I could not count on them for getting me anywhere!

Then suddenly about seven eight years ago life took a turn. I got deeply involved in an interest which was on the side-burner till then - music! Slowly this interest flowered into a strong passion. As I started frequenting music forums, exploring musical opinions, discovering musical Gods and fighting battles for them, something happened. What was once a chore became a pleasure. I actually started to enjoy writing! In the early days it was just about writing posts on newsgroups. But one fine day I nervously toyed with the idea of writing a full-fledged article. I started writing a series on the Music in Navketan films and posting it on SKS. The first few chapters got favourable response, but that effort petered out somewhere. Even now I have it lying unfinished somewhere in my files.

The first full fledged article that saw the light of the day was this one : Bondhu Rangila -Inimitable

It was a tribute to SD Burman, which wonder of wonders actually got accepted by an online music magazine. It was a gushing tribute from a totally besotted fan and carries long term appeal only to die-hard SDB fans. But it was a beginning, that saw me grow into this new passion.

And here I am today, consumed by the same urge to put pen to paper all over again (or maybe I should say finger to keyboard, since I never put pen to paper successfully). I believe it is more than co-incidence that it is SD Burman's birth anniversary today.. his hundred and fifth!

To commemorate the occasion, let me leave you with a song that talks of awakening in more ways than one and holds special significance to the moment. This is a beautiful Bengali song, sung by the Dada in the 1935-1945 timeframe - Champaka Jaago Jaago. It is a song where spring gently cajoles the fragrant champaka flower to rise, shine and flower.

Thank you Burman Dada for this lovely meldody. It has brought a beautiful feeling back into my life today, I feel all fragrant....

The Symphony of Nature

Do you sometimes have those moments? Moments when a general feeling of well-being suddenly whips up into something more potent. Quite like an ecstacy that completely engulfs the being. These are those moments when there was no yesterday, there is no tomorrow, there is just that moment and the luminous beauty of the moment.... I have those moments once in a while. Born mostly out of appreciation for music or nature, sometimes of both and sometimes of things far placed from either. Something like that happened to me a couple of months back.

Now, in retrospect it seems that whole 3 minutes and 31 seconds of experience was the scripted by a divine hand.

It was Sunday and a brilliant day in my part of the world. Spring was in the air, the breeze was fresh, and crisp. It felt that everything in the atmosphere had devoured a mouthful of breath freshner. The day was painted using a palette that never fails to stir - azure sky dotted with brilliant woolly whites, lush green on the ground, pastel pink on the trees and yellows in the crevices. A vigourous breeze had charged the atmosphere with an electric optimism. It is always that way in spring. Everything seems upbeat and ready for a new beginning. As providence would have it the AC in my car gave away and I had to do something I do rarely - open the sun roof. So there I was trundling down in my car with the windows all down, playful breeze in the hair, lung full of fresh spring air and music for accompaniment . With a setting like that even the most sullen of God's creations would find it difficult to escape the feeling of good cheer. I being of a fairly 'unsullen' disposition was feeling quite kicked and content.

The music that I was playing is a collection of SD Burman's songs, that I greatly cherish. It is cherished not so much for my love for the old monk brand of music, but more for the way the CD has been compiled. There are about ten songs, placed in such a sequence that with a little help from the ambience they can create a delectable mood that lingers long after the music stops playing. By themselves the songs are great but when played together they are magic. This post, however, is not about that sequence. It is about one of the most lumniscent songs in that sequence -'Phaili hui hain sapno ki baahen'.

I had stopped at a traffic signal when the initial low notes of this gorgeous composition started streaming. At that very moment a stray plastic bag caught the corner of my eye. It had come into my eye-view sliding up the road pushed by the light breeze. As the vigourous sitar strings in the prelude picked up tempo, a sudden gust swept the bag into the air and took it on a merry dance across the road and into the greens. There it was, the plastic bag, waltzing away in the breeze in absolute synch to the music playing my car! And that was the moment. Suddenly everything in the universe snapped into a perfect symphony. The music playing in my car, the plastic bag, the birds, the trees, the breeze outside and along with all of them - me. We all fused into a single rhythm, the divine rhythm of life.

The breeze took a momentory lull and then renewed vigour gave the waltzing bag a last nudge and like a seasoned gymnast it took a final somersault and bowed out of view, just as Lata's voice started picking up the first few notes of the alaap. My eyes having lost the plastic bag, ran up the branches of a tree that stood where I had lost sight of it. Lata finshed her alaap right at the moment my vision touched the tree tops. There they were, swaying away in the breeze. The spring green of the trees caressed the brilliant of the blue sky as nightingale's dew soft voice sang 'Phaili hui hain sapno ki baahen, aaja chal den kahin door'. The voice siezed me and took me along - far far away on the wings of ecstacy. It was sheer magic and almost an out of body experience that lasted for all of the 3 odd minutes the song lasted. An exhilarating flight, up to magical lands beyond the clouds, swinging on rainbows, playing hide and seek in the mist..... and then as if on pre-ordained cue, the last notes of the song faded away just as the wheels of my car rolled to a stop at my destination.

I have heard this song many times before and many times since and many a time the song has lifted me off the ground into a merry flight but never has the experience reached the lofty heights it reached that day. As an ode to that magic I present this song as a part of the 'Song of the Day' series.

Eloquence falls short in supply when one ventures out to describe the beauty of this song. What should one describe? The restlessness sitar prelude fluttering like a bird ready to take flight? The enigmatic 'dhundhli fiza mein kuch khoyen kuch paayen' ? The gentle of rhythm of life in 'sanson ki laye par koi aisi dhun gaayen'? Or the final burst of nirvanic energy in the alaap before 'jhoola dhanak ka' ? And then there is Lata's voice -pristine, pure like a drop of fresh rain. The moments are so many and that one feels stunted. I would suggest that you click on the link below and discover your own.

A philospoher had once opined, music is the only innocent and unpunished passion. The ecstacy that people search for in LSD, Ecstasy and other stimulants, is right there, within easy reach and with a power of rejuvenation that is in many multitudes higher than the power destruction all these external stimulants hold. All it requires is a moment of tuning your inner-self with the greatest symphony of all - the symphony of the nature. I am sure Sahir, Lata, SD Burman and all the accompanying musicians were tuned in when they created this song and I am eternally grateful to them for tuning me into the same magical frequency on that lovely spring afternoon.

.. aaja chal den kahin door...

A Year in Flight - MPA Turns One

On May 30th, the flight of my fancy flew past it's first landmark - one whole year of flapping it's wings in cyberspace.

When I had started blogging last year, it was one of those sudden whims that suddenly consumed me and lo behold a blog was born with just 24 hours of gestation. It was hurriedly (and may I add sloppily) put together. The temporary name was a convoluted one - 'In the footsteps of my wanderlust'. Wanderlust, or the quest for the exotic, the mystic and the unknown has accompanied me ever since I remember. Nature, music, astronomy, religion, history, geology- the topics that I wish to discover this nectar in are diverse. The blog was meant to be a vehicle to explore all those and more. It came at a phase in my life, where I was going through a period of intense introspection and there were a lot of questions, thoughts, emotions and equations circling in my head. I wanted to sort them out using the method that works the wonders for me - putting it down on paper.

But then as our friend Robert Burns had observed a few centuries ago, the best laid plans don't always follow the road map they had set out with. And my blog like my mind just went wandering off its own path. A year later it looks nothing like I had intended it to look. The name is now 'Man Panchhi Albela' and it has been living up to it's new name with vigour. It is airy and flighty and talks about whatever whim has caught my fancy for long enough to generate a post. The equations and questions of last year have resolved themselves and new thoughts buzz in my head now. In some small way all those thoughts have found a place in my writings during the past year though they never managed to corner a complete post as I thought they would.

A one year landmark is a good excuse to indulge in the activity that comes rather naturally to me and I have been doing it consistently on this blog - analysis/paralysis. So then here are some observations and discoveries.

• 41 posts in a year, 38 of which were in 2008. 2009 has been a fallow year. The main reason is that I am off a job and have been travelling etc. Blogging is a guilty pleasure in the current state of affairs.
  

• Much as I would like to believe otherwise, I just have to accept the fact that music is the most motivating of my fancies. Most of my posts are on either music or cinema and it is of little surprise that those are also the posts that attract maximum feedback.
  

• The most popular posts, based on the number of hits and comments are

1. A New 'Bond'
   
2. Dev Anand at 85 - Triumphant!

As is apparent, in this universe, there is James Bond and then there is Dev Anand!

• The posts closest to my heart are on the subjects that I had intended to explore in the first place. Predictably, they haven't got much feedback. That is a woe that is common to most regular bloggers. The writings that attract most attention aren't usually the ones that they value greatly themselves. These are my ignored but cherished droppings.
  

1. The God in Small Things
   
2. The Heat, The Mosquitoes and New York Times
   

• The post where I expected a good discussion, but it did not happen was the series on Guru Dutt. This was probably the most serious, focused and academic writing I did last year. Given the proclivities of the people who visit my blog regularly, that surprised me, albeit only mildly. Remember I told you it was academic? : Guru Dutt: Genius?

• Search statistics tell me that most people who land on this blog are searching for mp3 of songs or for information on musical personalities - Geeta Dutt and Manna Dey, SD Burman etc. all have fair representation. But the real star of search related hits on MPA has been a candidate who appeared on this blog for her virtue of being a non-entity - Kalpana Kartik. She has grandly proved my notion of her being forgotten by history absolutely wrong. Ever since I did the article on her - there are a minimum of 5 hits a day on her name(with or without Dev Anand). Yesterday an optimistic soul reached my blog searching for 'Kalpana Kartik new film'! I must say Dev Saab has a solid reason to feel kicked with life. Even at 85 years the juicy details of his love life have so many seekers!
  

• Two series have been introduced here on MPA. The first is the List series that comprises of lists on a common theme(mainly of songs!) and the other is the Song of the Day series that highlights a song that has caught my fancy.
  

• MPA introduced a new feature of creating a reader's community. Please click on the 'Follow' section on the left bar to become a part of the community and recieve notifications.
  

• When I started out, I knew who exactly would visit my blog (they were all people known to me). But MPA has been in auto-pilot mode for a while now. Most people who visit the blog are now from places where I have no acquaintences and I am also getting used to the fact that unknown people are actuallly reading my thoughts. I would invite my regular reader to drop me a line so that I can get acquainted with them (and their blogs). Blogging is afterall nothing but connecting with kindred souls all over the world.
  

As I start Year 2 in flight, I am quite optimistic about continuing this blog, despite the lull in activity. The whole thing was certainly not a passing fancy the urge to write always returns. I thank all my readers and friends who have written in to the blog or to me personally with their valuable suggestions. I continue to look forward to their visits and comments.

As I set my sights on new horizons to span in Year 2, I leave you with another addition to the Song of the Day series. It is the song that inspired the title of this blog - 'Man Panchhi Albela'. The nightingale Lata Mangeshkar does the honours here to a sprighty and flighty tune created by the maestro who was as sprighty as this composition - Sachin Dev Burman. The lyrics by Sahir Ludhianvi speak the language of all the dreamers in this world. -Paon mere dharti par meri nazar chaand ko choome (पांव मेरे धरती पर मेरी नज़र चांद कॊ चूमे). For the poetry enthusiasts, I would like to turn your attention towards the meter of the song. It is quite imaginative and unusual.

Lyrics

man panchhi albela taaron ki nagari mein jaaye

mat poocho kisi laaye khabariya

man panchhi albela...

nayi nayi pehechaan hai uska naam na jaana maine

mein kaise kahun mera kaun sanwariya

man panchhi albela...

paanv mere dharti par meri nazar chaand ko chuume

nazar chaand ko chuume

paanv mere dharti par meri nazar chaand ko chuume

mera aancha ude hawaon mein mera tan jhume man jhume

kaisi uljhi najariya

man panchhi albela...

kya jaadu yeh kaisa tona yeh to samajh na aaye

yeh to samajh na aaye

kya jaadu yeh kaisa tona yeh to samajh na aaye

itna jaanu uski dhun par thumke naache gaaye

yeh man pii ki gujariya

man panchhi albela...

man panchhi albela taaron ki nagari mein jaaye

mat poocho kisi laaye khabariya

man panchhi albela...

nayi nayi pehechaan hai uska naam na jaana maine

mein kaise kahun mera kaun sanwariya

man panchhi albela...

हिन्दी

मन पंछी अल्बेला तारॊं की नगरी में जाए

मत पूछॊ किसकी लाऎ खबरिया

मन पंछी अल्बेला...

नई नई पहचान है उसका नाम ना जाना मैने

मैं कैसे कहुं मेरा कौन सांवरिया

मन पंछी अल्बेला..

पांव मेरे धरती पर मेरी नज़र चांद को चूमे

नज़र चांद को चूमे

पांव मेरे धरती पर मेरी नज़र चांद को चूमे

मेरा आंचल उड़े हवाऒं मे, मेरा तन झूमे मन झूमे

कैसी उलझी नज़रिया

मन पंछी अल्बेला...

क्या जादू यह कैसा टोना यह तो समझ ना आए

यह तो समझ ना आए

क्या जादू यह कैसा टोना यह तो समझ ना आए

इतना जानू उसकी धुन पर ठुमके नाचे गाये

यह मन पी की गुजरिया

मन पंछी अल्बेला...

मन पंछी अल्बेला तारॊं की नगरी में जाए

मत पूछॊ किसकी लाऎ खबरिया

मन पंछी अल्बेला...

नई नई पहचान है उसका नाम ना जाना मैने

मैं कैसे कहुं मेरा कौन सांवरिया

मन पंछी अल्बेला...

Lyrics courtesy

http://thaxi.hsc.usc.edu/rmim/giitaayan/files/rmim0400.isb

Dev Anand at 85 - Triumphant!

September 26, 2008

The day marks 85 years of an incredible life. A life filled with glory, glamour, grit and guts. The guts to take risks, the guts to follow convictions and most importantly the guts to believe in the self long after the world stopped believing in it. Today is the 85th Birthday of the irrepressible phenomena, the matinee idol of the past and the tireless maker of the turkeys our times - Dev Anand.

For those who have known me over the years have known that I have been a hyperventilating 'pankha' of the man in the past. It was undoubtedly an unusual fixation for the brat of the eighties and nineties, but then I have always enjoyed the unusual over the accepted and more than that I have enjoyed the sense of exclusivity of my choice. After all every Meeta, Geeta and Seeta or should I say Anya, Tanya and Manya (to keep it contemporary) was a fan of Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt, I stood apart with my fascination for Dev Anand, a man older than my grandfather! I have idolised Dev Anand, watched his films, gone weak in the knees and run the whole nine yards of emotions typical to 'fanship'.

I finally got over him after I had a chance to meet him two years back. It was inevitable, one because I had grown far beyond the gamut of sensibilities he had to offer and more importantly, the man is after all human and the imagination of a fan - super human, he really did not have a chance to live up to it even if I had not outgrown him.

But Dev Anand is not going away from my schema of things so soon. Now with the idol worship firmly put to rest, a new admiration for the spirit of the man is slowly finding root. I idolised the Dev Anand of the pre seventies, but it is the Dev Anand of the post seventies that I admire. Because this was when his films starting tanking and his true spirit started to manifest. And that just thrives with time.

Anyone who has been down and out or faced failure at any point in their life knows that it takes some amount of effort to get up and get on. The older a human being gets, the more difficult it is to recover. Which probably explains why people take a backseat in their autumn years. It is partially due to diminishing drive and partially due to a need to protect themselves from disappointments and downfalls. And that is what sets Dev Anand apart. Not because he has a drive to deliver at 85, but because he has the drive to deliver in the face of continuing failure. The last film which did some kind of business was 'Des Pardes'. The year was 1978. Exactly thirty years ago. Since then Dev Anand has made 15 films each a colder turkey than the previous. Yet he persists and delivers.

Film production is a business that has seen the ruin of great a many people. Filmy lore is choc-a-bloc-full with such stories. If the producer doubled as an artist the chance of doom became higher. Artists are sensitive people and are likely to take failure more personally than others. Guru Dutt is a classic example of that syndrome. The inability to cope with the uncertainties of the film business cost him his life. Dev Anand's own brother, the brilliant Vijay Anand could not get his swan song 'Jaana Na Dil se Door' released. A sure shot would-have-been classic today lies sadly rotting in the cans. On the other hand, Dev Anand with his admittedly lesser products not only manages to get a release but sufficient publicity as well. He has not let the business rule him, his entrepreneur skills have conquered the system. That by itself calls for a round of applause.

Don't judge Dev Anand by the quality of his films or the depth of his acting talent. That was never much to begin with. His USP was a winning persona, an ability to spot and nurture talent around him and use them to his benefit. Dev Anand films are popular not only because of his persona but also because the entire package is attractive. Good music, good lyrics, thought provoking story and outstanding direction. His good run lasted from Baazi in 1951 to Tere Mere Sapne in 1971 about twenty years. In a career spanning sixty years Dev Anand has seen more years of failure than success. But the truth is that the day commercial success abandoned him his true success began it's journey.

The wise men and the sages over the years have spoken of the art of detachment. The technique of conquering the self by conquering the desire for the fruits of labour and the concept of single minded Karma. Whether it is through delusion or through detachment it is apparent that Dev Anand has discovered that secret of separating the effort from the fruits. His tireless journey bears testimony to that.

I end off with poetry by Shailendra from his film Guide in the voice of the great Sachin Dev Burman. This song plays around with these deep truths of life.

Kehte hain gyaani

duniya hai faani

paani pe likhi likhai

hai sabki dekhi

hai sabki jaani

haath kisike na aayi

However Dev Saab it seems has found the grasp to this capricious duniya- it lies in mastering the art of letting go!. An easy to preach but difficult to acheive state of being. Congrats to Dev Anand for having done it and shown that it can be done.

Happy birthday Dev Saab. May your spirit thrive. You will continue to remain an inspiration for generations to come!

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Watch the song 'Wahan Kaun Hai Tera' by clicking on the link.

Snapshot of SKS - By Arunabha Roy

This is a snapshot of SKS (Sangeet Ke Sitare) that Dr Arunabha Roy had created. It makes a delightful and nostalgic read for those who interacted on the forum in those days. Arunabha, you being my friend, I have taken the liberty to post this without asking for your permission. I hope you do not mind.

This links to the tribute to Priya
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "asroyus"
Date: Thu May 8, 2003 8:23 pm
Subject: Snapshot of SKS


No, this isn't one of those literal adobe-acrobat-doctored "snapshots"
that are so common on SKS nowadays. Just thought to myself: amidst the
smorgasbord of topics discussed on SKS, certain patterns emerge and
repeat at regular intervals to the point where they remain entrenched
in one's mind. I've put together a typical sequence of SKS posts which
in my mind forms a representative sample of what SKS is all about. No
offence is intended to anyone, just take it lightly.

- Arunabha

------------------------------------------------------------------
Everybody, please vote for your favorite male singer.

Kishore is the best - why even ask ?

You must be kidding -Kishore sings loud songs. He is not even in the
golden era.

No. Just listen to Kishore's songs for Husnalal Bhagatram and Anil
Biswas and you will revise your opinion. Here is a clip.

Oooh ! What a song by the master ! AB rules !

I like Talat.

Ya, but only when you want to go to sleep. If you want to charm the
women, get Hemanta. No woman I have met has been unmoved by his singing.

I don't follow Hindi but this Hemanta song is so nice. I
wish I could spend the entire day just listening to these songs. But
then I wouldn't accomplish any work, sigh. Anyway, got to stop
listening now, the people around me are giving me strange looks.
Anyway it is raining now and ....

I am willing to jump off the second storey if I can have access to all
of Kishore's work. (Really, I did this in college, so don't challenge me)

Where is Sathya ?

Hi everyone, just uploaded a rare NJ song.

THANKSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS !!!!!

FYI, that song was composed by Khwaja Khurshid Anwar, composer of
immortal melodies for Noor Jehan during her post-partition stint in
Pakistan. It was composed on May 12, 1961. Recently these feckless
companies have come out with jhankaar beats-enhanced remix versions of
Madam's songs.

New wallpaper of NJ uploaded.

Another wallpaper uploaded.

And one more !

Really, what beautiful photos ! Which software did you use ?

Guys, have you heard this song at www.musicindiaonline.com/blah/blah
? It's awesome. Rafi rocks !

LOL ! It's actually Mahendra Kapoor singing.

You call Mahendra Kapoor's "singing" singing ?!!

Naushad replaced the dogs of the Tamil original with Mahendra
Kapoor. Wonder why ?

Terrible song, but Mukesh shines.

Mukesh degraded beyond recognition in the 70s. It didn't help that LP
composed songs to drown out the melody in raucous dholak beats.

Yes, the bridge over Godavari suffered permanent damage during the
filming of the Milan songs. Appeared in the TOI.

Guys, what are you talking about ? LP and raucous ? I guess it has
become fashionable to diss L-P at every available opportunity. They
were the uncrowned masters at their game. Even with Asha who was never
their mainstay they have 200 gems !

LP were single-handedly responsible for the degradation of Hindi film
music as we know it today. Compare them with Jaidev or Khaiyyaam, who
showed that it was stil possible to compose quality music in the 70s.

Jaidev ? Pshaw. He composed for a mere 23 films. LP did 1000 !

Yes, but we are talking of quality here, not quantity. LP always
catered to the masses.

Sigh. So it's the classes-versus masses argument again, isn't it ? A
specious argument if I ever saw one. If for every song Jaidev composed
LP composed 50 in the same time, doesn't it stand to reason that
Jaidev could create a better tune ?

Yes, but that's the point ! Jaidev's tunes ARE better !

But LP have composed 10,000 songs !

Jaidev made great use of classical and folk tunes. Talking of catering
to the classes and to the masses, there is one and only one composer
who managed to straddle the two effectively - SDB.

We have the SDB mantra available for free download, at
www.sdburman.com Download it and cure your schizophrenia and all other
ailments. Madeline O Brien take note.

What does SDB say in that song ?

I don't know, it sounds like Bengali.

Even Bengalis don't follow what SDB sings in Bengali. SDB Rules !

Was SDB Bengali ? I thought he was from Tripura.

No, MDB was from Bengal. She composed all his songs.

Guys !!!!!!!!! You won't believe this ! Did you know that it was
actually RDB who composed "ruup teraa mastaanaa ? What a revelation !

SDB won the most votes in the recently concluded poll. Take a look !
Three cheers for Old Man !

That's only because he is in the top five of everyone's list ,
aged 10-100. And no one's No. 1 choice. Just combining the various
people's votes, he gets the first spot. The average is always a
misleading measure of the sample.

Bandini is superb. He deserved the Filmfare award for that rather than
the tepid Abhimaan.

Abhimaan is my favorite SDB soundtrack !!!

These awards don't mean anything. Anilda didn't get even one and LP
got eight ! Do we then understand that they are 8 times superior to
Anilda ? And don't even get me started on CR ....

Well, but even Lata, when she selected her ten best songs on her
silver jubilee of singing in films, chose zero AB songs, one by LP,
and two by Madan Mohan.

See, I told you. In the final reckoning, Madan Mohan is the
best. Classical, ghazal, qawalli, fun song, cabaret, you name it ....

Returning to Abhimaan, I must take back what I said earlier. While
"meet na milaa re man kaa" sucks, "piyaa binaa" and "ab to hai tum se
" are actually quite good.

Lata was way past her prime in Abhimaan. He should have got Asha.

"Way past her prime". What do you mean by "past one's prime" ? After
her so-called primes she sang .... (list of twenty-five 80s and 90s
songs, ending with "so gaye hain") If after this you claim she is past
her prime, I have no more argument.

Lata's voice has soul, Asha's voice has body.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Do you mean to say Asha's singing lacks soul ?

Here's an easy quiz : an extra in film f1 utters a bit of dialogue.
This dialogue becomes a title of an extremely popular song in the 2003
film f2, picturized on the son of the actor who played the villain in
film f3.Film f3 has a heroine who is related to the real-life father
of the bride in film f1, as well as to the stunt-director of film f4.
film f4 and film f2 share a common phrase in their titles.

Got it ! Solved it in 0.3 seconds ! It is blah and blah-blah and
blah-blah and blah. Waiting to crack the next quiz :-)

is newsgroup me.n ko_ii ghazal me.n dilchaspii rakhataa hai ? agar ho
to mai.n kuchh arz karuu.n ? mere aziiz ghazal gaayako.n me.n Ghulam
AliKhan saahab aur Jagjit Singh-ji hai.n

Mehdi Hassan beats Ghulam Ali by a mile.

No, I think Ghulam Ali is more mellow.

Here are the top ten romantic songs of all time. (Long list and
descriptions)

I amazed that there are some non-Noor Jehan songs you have included in
the list !

Just yesterday they had a program on NJ and they said she sang for
five years and then went to Pakistan. As if she did nothing after
that, sat at home, you know ?!. What an insult to the greatest singer!
Really, meraa khuun khaul rahaa thaa.

Relax, those announcers are lazy, ignorant bozos, and are just
indulging in self-fulfilling prophecies. Madam sang this disco song in
91, just listen to it !

In ghazals, Lata-Madan Mohan were the best. Better than your Anil
Biswas, CR, Jaidev and everyone else. Madan Mohan was an excellent
cook -whether in the matter of tunes or songs. Lata sez ! (in this clip)

Yes, but he did not use Asha at all.

Or Geeta ! She was the singer with the most expressive voice. What
fabulous bass ! And a lilt all-too-endearing. According to me, she was
better than Lata, Asha, and everyone else. Literally clear-as-bells
quality to her singing. Lata and Asha's singing is so studied, dry and
academic in comparison.

Let us compare Geeta Dutt and Noor Jehan. Both emoted so well in their
singing.

Emote ? Asha mentioned in the legends tape that Geeta Dutt couldn't
laugh while singing. So SDB made her sing instead for both of them.
Asha's comment is in such poor taste. Couldn't she find anything good
to say about Geeta Dutt ? These legends tributes really suck.

Humanity sucks. I am going to Mars.

After listening to this song, I am beginning to feel that Martians
have good taste.

Oh, they have excellent taste !

Check out the photo of the do jasoos together with Naushad.

I could not see the photo - where is it ?

It's at the SKS main website. Click away and go crazy !

Why does Naushad look petrified ?

It's because I have CR's paw around his neck.

Dev Anand is off to make his hundredth film based in Chicago "Love at
Sears Tower" He says it's going to be a very "different" romantic
film, with a totally modern feel. It's a historical moment in the
timescape of Hindi film cinema, folks. Please celebrate the great man
and his achievments!

Sheeesh ! Will he never cease being an embarrassment to his fans ?

Dev Anand has fans ? That's news to me. Who are these people ?

Dev Anand was the most dapper and well-dressed person of his times.
Always young at heart and always a thorough gentleman. Like SDB. Any
woman would love to have him !

And countless guys idolize him, too. He is a role model. What style,
what charisma, what consummate suaveness ? Who cares if he dons red
frilled shirts and blue tweed trousers ? Or even blue frilled shirts
and red tweed trousers ?

Please vote for the ten best songs of Anilda.

I refuse to vote as I cannot choose only ten representative songs for
Anilda.

"jaa mai.n tose nahiin boluu.N" is missing in your list of ten songs.
How could you !

My word, to my utter chagrin I discover that you are right. How COULD
I ? Anyway, please do vote.

"jaa main tose" deserves to be ranked among the best classical songs
in Hindi films. Lata was unparalleled in her classical singing. And
Manna De among the males.

No, I think Kishore Kumar was without a doubt the best male singer
when it came to classical. And ghazal. And bhajan. And qawali. And
chhe.D chhaa.D. And romantic song. And sad song. And...

Kishore and classical !! Well I never ! Name even one song. Can he
even compare with "man taDapat" or "duniyaa ke rakhwaale" . Did you
know Rafi's throat bled while recording the latter ?

On the subject of classical songs, does any one happen to have the
beaut "baa.Ndh preeti phul Dor" by Lata ? Lata sang it before Bade
Ghulam Ali Khan was to appear on stage at a concert. Such was the
effect, even after BGAK took the stage, people were clamoring for Lata
to sing instead of him.

If I want to listen to classical, I'll listen to Kishori or Bhimsen
Joshi or Amir Khan.Not hindi film music !

So you don't care for HFM, is it ? Too low-brow ?

Oh no ! It's all a matter of mood- you see, on day 1, Kishori Amonkar
and Amir Khan. On day 2, Mehdi Hassan and Iqbal Bano.on Day 3, SDB and
SDB,.On day 4, Jaidev, Roshan and Nadeem Shravan. On Day 5, Bappi
Lahiri and RDB. See that way I emerge feeling happy at the end of the
week. Music of all moods, that's the key.

Kishore is the best. No one says that you need to be able to sing
classical in order to be a film singer. dono.n apanii apanii jagah
kaayam hai.n

PSmith says the following on the subject of work :
....

Oh, I love PG Wodehouse. Do you ?

What, you haven't gone to sleep, yet ! It must be 4 am there, naa ?

Please send me the source of your article on Khaiyyaam,, i.e. which
website did you cut and paste from , i.e. which site did you point
your mouse and double click, wait for it to load, then copy the
selected text, go to SKS, and click on paste ?

Grrrr. I know what you mean by the "source of the article" !

Sahir was the best.

But Shailendra is the man after my heart. Shailendra's writing had the
mysticism of a Sufi poet.

But everyone recites Sahir's poetry at parties. Think of any romantic
song and it's likely to be Sahir's.

True, but Sahir appealed to a very select high-brow intellectual
cross-section of the public.

Here's a slightly more difficult quiz this time .... this singer sang
only once with this singer (OK, I'm almost sure of that)....blah-blah
singer...blah-blah ... film..blah.... director...blah....singer ...
and this actor and actress were paired only once ever in hindi films
(OK, I'm reasonably sure of that) ...film...blah..singer...Sharda...
blah......

All your clues were wrong! X also starred with Y in the Z-grade film
"Samundar Aur Ek Machhli" A sang the duet with C in 1958 P-grade film,
"Bijli Ki Sansanahat" Anyway I have still cracked the quiz. Here are
the answers !

Damn. Those were red herrings intended to throw you off the track.
Didn't work, I guess :-(

C also sang in this film with A !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and so on .....

"chalataa rahe ye kaaravaa.N,
umr\-e\-ravaa.N kaa kaaravaa.N"

Seasons in the Sun - Goodbye my Dear P

It is sobering to know the true value of a moment sometimes. The difference that a mere moment can make to your sense of equilibrium is mortifying. It it gets demonstrated time and again in life, yet nothing prepares us for those moments when they come on. It is only a sense of deja vu that runs through the veins when the mind and body go numb. I ask the same question I have asked many times. Why doesn't nature prepare us for these moments. Why isn't a tolerance hard-wired into our beings? Why does it hurt as much every time?

Shocking News, was the title of the e-mail that peered out from the mail preview window on the google home page. It was morning time, the mad rush and the usual hazaar chores dancing in the head. I had paused by the computer to pick up my charging iPod. Suddenly the whirl paused. Shocking News - looking at the mail I knew that this was not some random forward but real news... and bad news. My heart thumping loud in the chest, I clicked on the link. The wait till the mail loaded seemed to be like eternity... and then it showed up.

"I am not sure if you are aware of this. I have been informed of this tragic news by a friend of Priya Gainneo's. Priya met with an accident last week and passed away."
And there it happened. The moment that shatters your sense of equilibrium. I sat down with a thump, my breakfast, bus all forgotten. Priya Gainneos? Priya? my friend P? Dead?. No this cannot be true. It has to be a mistake, a miscommunication. Priya cannot pass away. Maybe she's met with an accident, is critical, but she has to be still around. Priya... come on, she cannot just go away.
What followed was a whirlpool of emotions shock, anger, denial, sorrow, trying to understand what happened, how it happened, befuddlement at the lack of any information anywhere. Priya had been away from e-groups for a while. But is public memory this short that there would be no mention of hers anywhere? Life on all e-forums seemed to have been conducting itself merrily completely oblivious to this tragedy.

Cyber relationships are such, that your handle to it is nothing but a couple of electronic switches, a couple of bits and bytes in form of of an email id or a profile_id. Phone numbers are exchanged, but seldom used and rarely updated. It is difficult then to accept and come to terms with things like death. It is surreal. The email exists, the profile exists, how can the person be gone? I pinged Priya's email, found her id on Orkut and Facebook and even send friend requests! Hoping from somewhere that a rumour that no one could confirm was false and she would accept the friend request.
But, nothing of that sort obviously happened, gradually as we got in touch with folks from her real life, the truth finally dawned. Priya was truly gone. She had met with an accident. She slipped and fell into the backwaters of Cochin. The same beautiful backwaters that she has promised to show me when I visited Cochin...
Priya! I had been out of touch with her for a while. She had moved on to Hamara Forums and I was consumed by work and real life related activities and seldom went to groups, our days together on SKS were long over. SKS - Sangeet Ke Sitare, a motley online gathering of passionate music lovers that once flourished on Yahoo Groups. Even though it was a forum to discuss music, off-topic conversations thrived in merry abundance. It was a vibrant, warm and friendly group. An easy camaraderie prevailed amongst it's members and unlike most newsgroups people were not just a profile_id with a musical opinion but real people. Most active members on the forum came with their musical Gods and had much fun defending and ribbing each other about their idols. Yours truly was present there with Dev Anand(DA) and SD Burman(SDB) and Priya held the flag high for Asha Bhosle and Noor Jahen(NJ). We teased and pulled each other about our favourites much like school friends rib each other over their crushes. SKS was a fertile ground on which many online friendships took seed.

That fertile ground is now barren land. The old group and the many people that inhabited it have moved on, the group itself has moved on to swankier locales on Orkut. The old SKS on yahoo lies like an old abandoned house, falling apart, desolate, its archives an aching reminder of it's past. A few stragglers post there once in a while, but its glory is long gone.

In a virtual world with virtual friends there are no pictures, letters or real tangible things through which you can seek solace when grieving a death. The only thing that remains are the same bits and bytes stored on some remote server. In my quest to connect to Priya I had no other place to go but to my emails and the SKS archive.
A strange feeling enveloped me when I navigated to SKS. One has been so busy moving ahead, that one barely looked back upon this time. There was a time when I was here everyday, five times a day. Sometimes after every 10 minutes discussing, teasing, fighting, gushing and bonding. The portals of SKS seem to reveal a faint strain of music....a song....Asha Bhosle.

Yehi woh jagah hai, yehi wo fizaayen yehin pe kabhi aap hum ko mile the"

The voices get louder

"Look P, I chose an Asha Bhosle song"
"Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so you have finally realised what good taste is all about" "Only for you P"
.......... "P? P? Priya?"
Priya is gone..... she is only in the archives now.
I type 'Priya' in the archives search box. A bunch of posts come up. mostly from the recent past. I don't find anything I can connect to. Priya loved Noor Jahen (NJ ). I type NJ this time. I get a series of posts talking about New Jersey. Useless. How do I get the key to those days? The archives are vast, navigating through them will get me nowhere. I try again "NJ SDB". I start seeing the posts now, voices start filtering in from the past, I am back to the old SKS....
There seems to be some commotion, a thread titled 'Geeta Dutt Jaimala' has seen a series of Noor jahen uploads from P. When Priya would start uploading NJ songs, she did atleast ten together (and this was from her slow dial-up connection in Cochin)
Me: P dear, what is this, you entice us with a mail titled Geeta Dutt and torture us with NJ? This is taking undue advantage of your moderator position.
Priya: Jealousy the green eyed monster--we all know what would happen to SKS if you took charge..... it would become Do Buddhe.[two old men]
Another thread

Me: Waise.. I am on an SDB sabbatical these days. I will hear anything but him..so you can initiate a session on anyone else you want.
Priya:
Ok am dispatching some NJ songs at once.
P_helpful

P and I were both Virgos and typical ones at that. We loved our battles of wit. She would rib me incessantly for my interest in two old men (SDB and Dev Anand). "Atleast they are men", I would retort. "P your obsession for two old women is not healthy at all, find your self a male idol" . Ofcourse I love Sachin Tendulakar!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, she would protest [any communication with her came with a minimum of 50 exclamation marks]
I had once defended Dev Anand's diminishing charm with the gallant argument. "He is not old, real men don't age, they mature like fine wine". Well that was it. After that Dev Anand came to be christened as "Wine Anand" and thereon referred to as 'Wineji' by P. I navigate to the SKS Photo Folders and see a Album titled 'Wineji'. I never got down to telling Priya that I finally realised my dream of meeting 'Wineji' in Bombay. Neither did I tell her that the 'wine' turned out to be more like 'sour vinegar'. She would have squealed with mirth at that one. "See I told you....". She had gone out of her way to get Dev Anand's rendezvous with Simi Garewal recorded for me by a friend since I could not see it in the US. When I asked her how it was, her answer 'Quite intolerable, but a fan like you still might find some value'. That was P for you.
You know the song that is twirling in my head now P?
We had joy we had fun
we had seasons in the sun
but the wine and the song,
like the seasons have all gone.

Priya always dreamt of meeting her idol Asha Bhosle someday. A dream that went away with her. Maybe she was spared of a great disappointment. After all our idols are humans at the end of the day, they can never live up to the elevated image we fans build in our minds...
Back on SKS, in another thread, Priya and I seem to be making truce on some NJ, SDB battle (now you would ask what our old monk from Tripura has in common with Mallika-e-Tarranum? In the SKS of those days, everything would find a connection.)

Priya: I think SDB and NJ must be laughing over a cup of coffee in the grand place over us dumbos.
Me: NJ and SDB enjoying coffee together! Unimaginable. Not even up there. First.. SDB and coffee is unimaginable then NJ and coffee is unimaginable and then SDB and NJ completely off mark.!
Priya: Oh but then they might sample paan together. That will bond them. And then SDB will compose a tune and NJ will sing it. Oh but Meera may not allow such fraternising with beauties.
Me: P Dear Please do not corrupt my Old Man. Let him be happy running after Kishore in the celestial woods singing 'Jhingala ho'!
Priya : Yeh sab kya hai Ritu? Once someone said DA is not straight and now U say SDB runs after men in woods!!!! People in glass houses should not throw stones. ;)))

aha.. P wins this round. We were such kids. Some more searches, some more posts...There is one post where I am defending P against someone who has attacked her for uploading too many Noor Jahen songs! "I don't generally download the songs she uploads, but she has all right to upload them and it is very generous of her to do so" I defend.
In another post P is defending me. Someone has insinuated that my contribution to SKS is basically begging for songs with a beggar bowl :). "Ritu does ask for songs sometimes but her contribution to SKS is not limited only asking for uploads, even though she likes to write about only particular artists(read DA and SDB), her posts are well-researched"
I chuckle. The only kind of compliments we Virgos can disburse are back-handed ones. We were like peas in a pod in that respect. Priya used to have a comrade-in-arms in Pulkit, another Noor Jahan fan. They were referred to as P & P on SKS. P & P loved to upload NJ songs regularly and every else loved to pull their legs. We have compared NJ to all singers possible during those days. Imagine an evaluation of NJ Vs Geeta Dutt!
I usually called her 'P Dear', especially when we were having our fun moments. I type 'P Dear' in the search. Another few posts come up.

Ganti: The way both of u fight, I wonder if you were sisters in pichla janam. Or maybe saas and bahu :)
Me: Well I like the latter. I would love to be P Dear's Mom in law. ....... P Dear if you had some male idols I would have even adopted whoever you fancied. But the idea of mothering NJ or Asha is so horrific that I shall abdicate from MILship.
Priya : Ya and the thought of having DA as surrogate sasur!!!!! Enough to send one fleeing to a nunnery!

Priya would love to make wall-papers for the SKS Marquee (a couple of them are in the photos section below). She would good-naturedly put up with all the leg pulling regarding her choices of singers and photographs. She had a strongly impish streak. She once got back at Samik for ragging her on NJ, by morphing his photograph with that of Madam Noor Jahan in a 40s style romantic pose. Poor Samik. As a birthday gift, she once sent me morphed pictures of myself with SDB and DA. Her mirth knew no bounds when I fumed that the picture in which she juxtaposed my head on a rotund RD Burman's body was mistaken for a true picture of mine! Knowing how much of an allergy Robin Bhai had for Asha Parekh, she made a nice romantic picture of his with Ms 'Choti-si-Aas' Parekh and labeled it Sharma Na Yoon. I managed to find a couple of those pictures tucked away in a corner of my inbox. They are in the photos section at the bottom of the post. Some of those pictures like the one of NJ and Samik are lost in cyberspace now.
Priya and I used to chat on a lot of non-musical topics and a lot of them on SKS itself. One such topic pops out from a thread.

Priya: Everyone here (In Kerala) thinks I have such outlandish tastes
Me : Don't worry anyone with a music taste like yours will be considered outlandish anywhere. Kerela ho ya US :)
Priya: [continuing, ignoring my barb] They keep asking me, why do you like Hindi songs, are you a North Indian, how silly na?

Despite the barb I understood where she was coming from. We were kindred souls in the respect. Both of us were attracted to a culture and art that was far placed from our immediate context . She a Malayali, whose soul connected with the Punjabi robustness of Noor Jahan and I a Delhite of UP origin who was fascinated with the sweet strains of Bengal. To a certain degree we were both outsiders in our own surroundings and were often niggled for it. For me, given my inherent sense of elitism, all the niggling was water off a duck's back. But she would get hassled sometimes.
We would chat about many things. I was always fascinated with her life in a sprawling colonial bunglow in the beautiful Kerala backwaters and she with all my travelling and the life I lived here. She loved travelling too and was a great animal lover. She had a couple of cats. We always made plans when I would visit her we would explore the backwaters of Cochin and she would visit me in Delhi and we would see the Delhi that Dalrymple wrote about in the 'City of Djinns'. We had a common favourite in William Dalryample. She was doing her PhD in English at that time and had even written to and received a response from Dalyrmple.
She would talk about getting a job and moving into her own little place once her parents retired and she finished her PhD. Later, I was told that she did finish it and got a job as a lecturer in the university.
I search for some more snippets on SKS
We have moved from the old SKS to the new SKS, members are ribbing that we leave the NJ wallpapers behind.
Arunabha: Since we have two SKS's running concurrently, how about all the NJ stuff occupying one forum. In that case, we can safely steer clear of it and carry on at the old one :-) Oh, that some government would ban NJ forums ! :-(
Shakeel: I have a suggestion, if all members of the new group agrees to it. Why don't we change the name of this group to DNA Group?????
D for Dev Anand
N for Noor Jehan
A for Asha Bhonsley
Priya: Or maybe SAND?
S-SDB
A-Asha
N-NJ
D-DA
But see --remove NJ and the grp will be SAD!!!! :))
Another unrelated thread.

Samik : Its good that Madame P. is back after such a long absence.We were almost tempted to sing: 'P been suna jee '
[it was a joke then, a poignant reality now]

A couple of posts down we discover that P has been missing from SKS for a while because her computer crashed. No, it was not a virus, but ants.
Priya: My Pc is gone for several days--most ridiculous :((( Ants got into my hard disc!!!!! Howbizarre. :(((. .... I found these creatures travelling inside. They laid their eggs in the hard disk.
There is much mirth around the forum on this revelation.

Ajit : "Is it because of the sweet Noor Jahan songs"
Sajjad: It has an opposite effect on my PC. I keepNJ/Saigal's MP3 to keep the bugs away from Rafi collections
Sathya: Generations of ants to come would scarce believe that such a one as Priya existed in flesh blood. Who so generously provided her computer for new generations of ants to spring forth into this world. So what if a little hard disk became non-functional. Look at the larger picture ! You have so nobly, perhaps unconciously, aided in the Cycle of Ant Life to continue.
Priya: Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Grrrrrrrr. How could I forget that. Priya loved to er... Grrrrrrr. She used it when she was happy, when she was excited, when she was annoyed and when she lost a point. She had come to be known as 'Ms Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr' on the forum.
I search for 'Grrrrrr'. Many many posts come up. As I had expected all the posts have Priya in her element. I randomly pick one thread. There are peals of laughter going around the group. A little digging in reveals that an earnest post in which Priya was exploring love, marriage and parental decision through the prism of NJ (who else?) and her film Anmol Ghadi, she has made a killer faux pax. Instead of Anmol Ghadi (Priceless watch), she has typed 'Anmol Gadhi (priceless she-donkey). Everyone is rolling over laughing and P is protesting vehemently. The truth is that Atul, aka Atku Miyan has played a trick. Priya had typed it correctly but he changed it just to get some laughs.
Priya: Nahin Nahin....Our creepy friend changed the words. I checked with my sent folder. Catch me doing that to my beloved NJ
Jurm-e-typo ki hamein log saza dete hain
Kaise nadan hai yeh GRRRRR ko hawa dete hain....
P_in Dharam paaji swearing mode baying for Aktu mian's blood ;)

I laugh out loud reading this thread. The fun and camaradarie of SKS spills over with this exchange. Everyone around had their own idiosyncrasies. There was Kiriko Fukuyama a dutch woman who adopted Japan as her home country and loved Indian music. She loved SDB's singing and thought 'Sun Mere Bandhu Re' was 'Ullu Mere Bandhu Re' (I thought Dada was an animal lover she explained), there was Robin Bhai, with his number crunching and wondrous posts on LP and Anand Bakshi, KCP, Sathya, Samik, Ummer, Ganti, Nimmi, Kamaal, Arunabha, Ajit, Pulkit, Satish Uncle, Atku Miyan, Sajjad, Tadatmya, Naresh,..... many different people with their own choices and opinions all bound through a common love for music. And there was Priya ofcourse, funny, witty, generous, nutty, impish and very sweet.
I suddenly snap out of the reverie. The stark reality stares straight in the face. Those days are past, P is gone, she is never going to come back and Grrrrrrr again. It is all over. These archives are nothing but an illusion. The realisation still does not quite seep in somehow. After all how different is it to read the archives today or to have read it when the a post was originally made? You read it then, you read it now. It is not as if you were interacting with a flesh and blood group then and it is not the same now. Everytime you read the archives those times instantly spring to life. Yet it is not the same. It was a different point in time and different 'me' that was there.
Online friendships are such, they have a sinusoidal wave of activity. We get busy with the concerns of our real life and the virtual life takes a back seat and then suddenly out of nowhere the people pop up come back again in your life. Somehow the only feeling I can summon is that Priya has taken a sabbatical. She is still there somewhere floating in the realm of cyberspace, busy with her life but connected. She will be back soon. The ants got my hard disk.. I am not going anywhere... grrrrrrr
P do come back. Do tell me that the ants really got your hard disk. P, please.....
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Links

I am putting up some links of a couple of threads from SKS that these reminiscences are culled from (I have taken the liberty to edit and proof read some of the exchanges, to get the gist of the conversation). If you scroll to the bottom of the page you can follow the thread and the various sub-threads it takes.
Thread1, Thread2, Thread3, thread4, thread5, thread6, thread7, thread8
Arunabha's famous snapshot of SKS

Some Pictures


The only pictures of Priya that could be located. If you have any please do share them

[Updated: 09/22/2008 - A small video tribute to Priya was put together by Srinivas Ganti with input from all her friends. You can view it on youTube ]

Tribute to Priya - Video

Here are some of the wall-papers P excelled in creating. Do note, the letting-my-hair-down picture of Asha. I would rib her incessantly about Asha's propensity to wear flashy clothes




















The rest are in the archives and can be found here
Here are some of P's naughty tricks.










Sharma Na Yun - Robin Bhai with Asha Parekh













Oh my God.. is there no escape? - Dev Saab with Madsji










Yours Truly with Uncle Dev

















Made for each other!
















Pyara Parivar - I as Asha's MIL




The wine and the song like the seasons have all gone........
Good-bye to you my trusted friend!

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