The Second RMIM "Net-together" --Ketan Dholakia ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A very big greeting to all of y'all out there. Here is (I hope) the much awaited report on the second rmim meeting, held at my place on the 30th of Sept.(Hah, managed not to write Sept 30th). First of all let me apologize for the delay. The initial story was that the Lehigh gang being "bekaar" was supposed to write it up, but then they suddenly developed dyslexia, and forgot their writing skills, so the buck has ended up here. The people who turned up for this were: Sami, Vinay and Hemlata Mishra, Angela, Satish and Seema Mohapatra, Pradeep Dubey, Ramesh Hariharan, Sandeep Joshi(SanJoe), Nuts, Vivek Vohra, Chetan Vinchhi, Preetham Gopalaswamy, Ajay Divekar, Ashok Dhareshwar, Mohan Rathore Anurag Shankar (ITRANS), Charu Varshney, Anil, Sheama (readers of RMIM), yours truly, and some friends. All in all we had 24-25 people. Needless to say we had a great time. My thanks to everyone who came here, but the biggest thanks go to Nuts, who came form Virginia, Sandeep Joshi who drove 12 straight hrs from Detroit. Some people who were sorely missed were Surendra Rajak, and Kedar. Hope they can make it for the next one. Sorry if I have forgotten to mention anyone. Well the first to arrive was Sandeep, since he landed up the previous night(well, close to 1:30 am to be precise). We went to an all night diner and grabbed a bite, me playing Gulzar songs(Clemsonwallah hai na). Came back and since I was watching a movie when he came in, sat down to watch it again. We saw House no 44, and marvelled at "Phaili hui hai sapnon ki baahen". What music and what a music director. The greatest ever. :))) Slept at 5 am, and was awakened by someone at 8:30 asking for directions. I am sure I gave him the wrong directions in my sleep. Before I could brush away the cobwebs of sleep, Anuraag had landed up, with his laptop, keyboard, tabla, guitar etc. Sandeep, Anuraag, and me started fiddling around with some of the instruments, me exposing my limited talents bare. Soon after came in, Sami, Angela, Vinay and Hemlata. Sandeep then played a beautiful piece on the mouth organ "Yaad kiya dil ne kahan ho tum". Anuraag then played some demo tapes that he had got from Surendra. Then Mohan called asking if we could pick him up, and Sandepe and Sami left to get him. Soon after came in the DC gang of Preetham, Chetan, Ajay & Ashok, alongwith a Sardarji whom I did not recognize at first since he lowered his eyes while introducing himself as Balwinder. He had the most unkempt, untrimmed beard. I wondered if he had got the wrong address, but then he asked if this was Ketan's house, and I said yes. Moments later, I recognized him as Ramesh. He knew he had been spotted, so he dragged me to the kitchen and asked me to shut up. Outside everybody was busy introducing himself/herself, so I asked Ramesh, "what if they ask what do u do"? His answer "Oy, idhar New Jersey main mera gas station hai re". After the introductions were over, we ere settling down to some good songs, when all of a sudden Balwinder(Ramesh) pipes in with "let's sing some Bhangra songs or some Kumar Sanu's remix or Bally Saggoo" The collective gasps that were emitted were heard all the way into the next county. People stared at him as if they could not believe their ears. Some of them who were standing tottered and reeled. I myself clutched at a passing chair. Staring at Balwinder, all I got was a wink. He in turn got 14 swear words, and about 10-12 dirty looks. Undaunted he continued ans asked again, if we could sing Kumar Sanu. I asked him to shut up, and he did a passable job of looking offended. People who had recovered from the shokc had started muttering something about keeping members of the current generation away from such meetings, and ideas were floated to start a screening process, or a mini quiz before people were henceforth invited. The conversation was soon, terminated, by people impatient to start the musical process going again. Forgive my memory here, but I was kinda busy fielding requests for coke-shoke etc and generally being the good host, so I do not remember exactly which songs were sung, and what exactly was going on. All I remember was Ramesh coming upto me, quite a few times in the kitchen and asking me, if he could remove the beard. I reminded him that I had not asked him to put it on in the first place. He was beefing that it was itching. After asking me if he could remove it, he would quickly say "No let Sami and Pradeep come". Soon Pradeep came. We (Ramesh and me) met him in the parking lot, to ask him to keep quiet re Ramesh, and he looked and walked straight by Ramesh. Even when I told him who it was Pradeep would not believe it. Soon after Pradeep came in, ramesh grumbled for one final time. His outburst this time was, "I am taking this damn thing off. I can't even scratch in peace, and all the hair is going in my mouth". With that we went outside and the official unmasking took place. Preetham scolded me, since I had initially urged Balwinder(Ramesh) to sing, and Preetham said that he wanted to hit me for encouraging this Kumar Sanu fan. Soon after Sami, Mohan and Sandeep came back. Pradeep seemed to have some grudges against Sami, since within minutes they had started one of our now famous net wars. If you guys have guessed KK-Rafi then you are wrong. Although a brief mention was made of the two fo them, this time, the reason for the outbreak of hostilites was RMIM's next most controversial topic, Sahir-Gulzar. Pradeep, Sandeep were for Gulzar, and Sami, Preetham were for Sahir. They asked me to choose a camp, but I sidestepped that by picking Majrooh as my favourite, and also mentioned Rajinder Kishan, Raja Mehdi Ali Khan. Sami seemed disappointed, that I had not sided with him, but here I must admit, that I like both Sahir and Gulzar, since both gave quite a few good songs for both the Burmans. Ok, Sami you win--I like Sahir more. In the meantime both the teams had come up with previously unknown deficiences in the two artistes, and were busy ripping them apart. Sami kept referring to Gulzar as "khali bartan" while Pradeep picked a Sahir song and completely tore it apart, as regards, poetry, rhyme, structure, meaning, fluency, depth etc. The others wore bemused expressions on their faces. This lasted for about 5 minutes. I was just debating the need for UN peacekeepers, when both sides took a deep breath, no doubt to marshall their thoughts. Seizing the opportunity, Anuraag and Vinay once again, started singing some songs. Somebody, I forget whom, produced a karaoke CD of old(thank GOD) songs, and they started with "sawan ka mahina". The ladies were encouraged to do the "sor/shor" bit. The next song on the list was "Musafir hoon yaaron" which was sung by the entire gang assembled. I was sure the roof was going to come down. BTW, Sami, why were you yelling a KK song the loudest? :)) Pradeep came up with some innovative lyrics, from another song and made them neatly fit into the metre of the song. Tributes were paid to Salilda, after which Pradeep felt that now his time was worth spent. He then sang the KK-Mukesh duet from Mere Apne "Haal chal theek thaak hai" . Yours truly provided a token contribution. (No applause please). Anxious eyes were now scanning the clock. For some time I had been hearing a low rumbling. What I had thought, was a low flying aircraft, on closer inspection proved to be more than a dozen stomachs rumbling. I promptly dispatched two underlings to get the food. They ofcourse took their own sweet time, no doubt sampling some things, before bringing them over. After a good half an hour's wait the food arrived. All assembled gave a good impression of wildebeest running towards a watering hole. Upon reaching the oasis, they promptly filled their plates, and got down to getting their daily dose of the starches and carbohydrates. Thankfully there was no revolution and the junta liked the food, or at least that's what they told me. Well, considering that they all came back for second's and third's, I am sure the food was palatable. After a good hour at the trough, (Ramesh refusing to leave the table), the public trooped back towards the music theme. Stomachs were a couple of inches bigger than what they were a few minutes back, and everyone had a quiet smile of satisfaction on their faces. In this mood, we decided to have the quiz, which I had set up for the occasion. Now I thought the food would have dulled their senses, and that they would be slow on the uptake. Remind me never to make that mistake again. Ajay probably never got to the food table, so still being a bit hungry and annoyed at the missed food, he was out breathing fire and vengeance. The teams were split up, and surprisingly Sami and Pradeep ended up in the same team. The teams were: Team A : Sami, Pradeep, Ramesh, Chetan, Ashok, Vivek, Charu, Anil(who is fundoo in Pstats), Anuraa, Mohan , Satish, Sandeep Joshi. Team B: Preetham, Ajay, Vinay, Hemlata, Nuts, Seema, Angela. Quiz master: Me, Scorer : Sheama Now on paper Team B looks weaker. How wrong I was. As I mentioned Ajay was in Team B, and Pradeep was in Team A, for whenever Ajay hit a sixer, invariable Pradeep made a hit wicket. Since everyone was expecting a predominance of Burman songs in my house, in a quiz set by me, I had decided to disappoint them. I stated that the Burmans did not constitute the majority of the questions, merely 49%. There were 2 songs which I thought were particularly tough, the interlude of "piya tose naina" and the prelude of "Saiya Beimaan". Tough because the pieces I had picked up are only found in the movie and are not there on any released tape/CD. But both teams got it right away. The questions were by no means easy, but the way the teams were answering them, showed well they listened since the question would barely be asked, and the answer would be out. In Team A, this was more of a joint effort with initially everyone giving multiple answers and whoever was loudest prevailed. In Team B there was a much better organized effort, with everyone consulting and the answer coming out of their captain Preetham's mouth only. Pradeep was the captain of Team A, and maybe the food had made him exuberant, for he was in good form. The moment the question was asked, he would blurt out the answer, even if the question was addressed to Team B. When it was addressed to him, he would again jump up and down, and even if someone in his team knew the correct answer would have managed to shove his answer in. This was the funniest part, since he earned the wrath of everyone in his team. Finallly orders were issued to clamp Pradeep's mouth shut till everyone had got a chance to atleast think of the answer. As a result of this infighting, team A was sooon far behiind Team B. Team B was gallopping away at a merry pace, Ajay doing the major contribution. Seeing this Team A began taking potshots at Team B, led ofcourse by Pradeep. They first accused me of giving them all the easy questions. When I disproved that theory, Pradeep then accused Nuts from Team B, that since he was sitting the closest to me he was getting a peek at the answers. Team B protested loudly, and for a moment I thought WW III had broken out. When the plaster had stopped falling and calm had been restored, Nuts who had to have the last word, said "Anyway Ketan's handwriting is very small" , which was quickly retorted by a "How do you know?", and we were in Round 2 of WW III. Overall the quiz was won by Team B. Team A made a valiant effort to catch up, but they were too far behind, and besides they just lost to a better team. :)) The participation was enthusiastic, with the women also doing their fair share of the guessing work. Sami got quite a few Shanky - J tunes, and then called it cheap music, and them cheap music directors, and then faltered on "Madhuban main radhika naache re's" music. Pradeep faltered on "Saathi re, tujh bin jiya udaas". Sami missed Rafi's "Aise to na dekho", and got KK's "Zindagi ke safar main guzar". Well, well, what a turning point it has been for our fallen heroes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yo everybody, frankly I don't remember much of what happened after the quiz, so I will need all of you to give input to whatever any of you remembers after the quiz. Please send in your responses to Sami, who can then complete the writeup, and then post it. Thanks , guys. really enjoyed it. Please feel free to make any suggestions, changes, additions, deletions, in case I have forgotten anything or said anything wrongly. Ketan