------------------------------------------------------------------ A Report on the Washington D.C. RMIM-Meet by Ajay Divekar ------------------------------------------------------------------ From: Chetan Vinchhi Subject: (from Ajay Divekar) RMIMeet '97 - A report Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 17:04:02 -0400 Posting this on behalf of Ajay Divekar. Please post your comments right here or keep them to yourselves :) Ajay is off email at this time. C ------------------------------------------------------------------ Meet Date: 27-28th June '97 Sab Kuch Seekha Humne, Na Seekhi Hosheaari.... Everything seemed to be going right that day till Suneeta called me up at work. 'Hi Ajay. You have been chosen as one of the hosts for the RMIM-Meet' were her words. In probably the same tone, I replied almost immediately -OK. That set the ball rolling for me to attune to the idiosyncrasies and the whims of my fellow RMIMers not to mention myself (already this is sounding like a Ketan-post !) in a subsequent weekend to come. She briefed me very briefly on the dates, and was polite in reminding me that I might have to work ! Saathi (7) Haath Badhaanaa.... Well.....so be it. Actually this idea of a new meet was floating around for quite a few months. Chetan/Ashok and later Ketan were more than just too keen to have another meet here in the DC metropolitan area since early March. Surendra had volunteered for the venue as his house, as early as the last meet. So I guess only the impetus of an initiative was essential, and that is where Suneeta came in. She definitely took upon her to coordinate this events along with the other successful RMIMers mentioned above. And so formed SADSACKS (yuk!) the scourge of the names yet the boon of our virtual-space group. Ham Honge Kaamyab..... It would be interesting to archive some of the SADSACKS (hereafter referred to as SS (a much cooler name)), e.mail exchanges. Right from the smallest slot in the prime time of 1000-1700hrs on the meet day, to the menu of each meal involved was discussed. Suneeta proposed, Ketan disposed; Ashok insisted, Suneeta complied; Surendra enforced, Chetan retorted; I heard, I kept quiet, and so on and so forth.... By the end of it all, Ashok's house was to have a Friday part of the meet, while Surendra's house would host us on Saturday. Invitations were painstakingly sent without any deliberate attempt to miss anyone. An 'excel' list of dos/don'ts was put on the common circulation list. Maps and details were posted on the web site for the prospective attendees. I guess, all that SS could do was done to the hilt. Aaiye Padhariye.... And so within no time came the eventful Friday. Some dozen of us were expected to converge at Ashok's. Chetan had already come down 2 days before with his wife Purvi, and was staying over at Ashok's. Ashok's friend Moloy Bannerjee from Bangalore, a silent RMIM admirer had also been around for a few days now. Anup Pandey had surprised us by coming over on the previous day at Ashok's place, ironical considering that he was probably our farthermost attendee. Chetan picked up Kalyan Kolachala and Surajit Bose on Friday. Surajit had to go through many of us impersonating as Ashok before he could finally find his true one. Ashok's house as usual never ceased to amaze the first-time visitors for his immense audio and cellulose collection. Ho Yoon Hee Gaatey Raho..... The plan for the day was -NO PLAN. Just interact and get some time to settle down. Surendra came in after picking up Hema Khemani. Saroj and Satish Kalra joined us from Pennsylvania to complete the SS group. Helen Abadzi, Pankaj Kakkar, Mr. and Mrs. Agnihotri (a curious, interested couple) joined us to get the critical mass start the chain reaction. A session of songs notably by Pankaj and Mrs. Agnihotri were started. In the meantime we picked up Nita Awatramani, Guri Bagga and Veena Nayak to add three more to the group. Anand Tiwari from Illinois, the sole RAMLI representation at the RMIMeet was picked up by Suneeta. Pankaj's 'Jyoti Kalash Chalakey...' struck some immemorable notes with many of those present there. At this time Pradeep Dubey and his guitar, Vijay Kumar and Nitin Sharma turned up. As usual Ashok / Suneeta / Purvi had prepared a small feast for dutifully feeding our stomachs. This was relished amidst some discussion on the Burmans and some Greek information from Helen. Ashok's backyard attracted the smokers and some interesting 'raag' based song information from Surajit. Helen joined in later singing a couple of Greek songs adapted from Hindi films. At the same time Mrs. Agnihotri had stated a medley of songs with some choral singing by the others present. Samay O Dheere Chalo..... Soon it was 2 a.m. and reality of the incipient day's schedule dawned onto us. The folks present split for the night between Ashok, Suneeta, Ketan and Surendra's house. The curiosity of meeting people commonly encountered on the RMIM network is always a great force towards the organizing and participating in these meets. Ye Kahaan Aa Gaye Hum...... It was decided to meet at Surendra's place at 10 a.m. on Saturday. For one, punctuality was important since Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia, was expected to grace the occasion. However due to various reasons Ketan, Ashok and their respective RMIM guests including me reached late, and only a part of Hariprasadji's interaction was achieved. However we all heard his golden words on Kumar Sanu - 'Woh industry mein aae aur hum door bhaagey....'. The day was made and everybody at the meet attained nirvana ! He turned out to be quite a down-to-earth person curious about the gathering. A copy of the commemorative tape (read on !) was presented to Hariprasadji, before he bid us all adieu. Gaana Na Aaya Bajaana Na Aaya..... Left to ourselves, I don't have to elaborate how pepped up all of us were due to the inherent excitement of the meet. Lot more new faces had turned up by now at Surendra's place. Alpana Pandey, Asha, Pawan Kumar Desikan, UVR, Mr. and Mrs. Raj Mishra. We all went down to Surendra's basement. Surendra had his setup already in place for a long jam session. A keyboard, hooked up to the computer for some interactive playing of songs, a mike for all the KK / Rafi / Mukesh / Talat sing-alike aspirants. Notably, Nita joined in for seconds for 'all' the songs sung that day (!) We started here, with a round of introductions passing on the mike around the room. Already the introductions revealed the Asha/Lata fan club inside the room. The 'berserk' fan had a large following in terms of KK, Burman bhakts. However the Rafians were equally well distributed. Amongst the notable non-cliched comments passed here was by Surajit during his introduction - 'My favourite singer is Madhubala Jhaveri'. Mrs Kalra's 'I like to combine music with some exercise - so I like music which makes me do that' was also received with loud laughter. Right from this point efforts were made by many to find Ashok's likes and dislikes. However our World Bank diplomat never revealed his biases and prejudices. Yaad Rakhna Chand Taaron..... At the end of these introductions, Ashok announced of a small Vaagdevi figurine presented by Moloy Banerjee, to be used as a part of these RMIM get-togethers. It was thrown up to the attendees to find a suitable use of this figurine. Eventually it was decided that the figurine would be with the host of the meet and passed over to the next host at the next meet and so on. Also at this point a tape titled 'Abhi To Main Jawan Hun' commemorating the Meet was distributed. It is a collection of rare songs of Lata Mangeshkar which and who we think (at least, *some* of us think :)) are 'hameshaa jawaan'. Tin Kanastar..... At this point of time it was taken up to sing more songs, and so it went from 'Jago Mohan Pyare...' to innumerable melodies down the memory lane. Surendra had orchestrated many of these melodies quite well on his keyboard, so the additional momentum sustained this entire effort. Surendra's younger daughter, Mugadha sang 'Dil Hai Chhota Sa ...' (while her elder sister Snigdha was busy videotaping the proceedings of the Meet). Anurag Shankar and his guitar , Anil Hingorani and Piyush had joined us by now. I must admit that it is the spirit of Anurag, Pradeep, Anil and likes who have attended all these meets in the past which has kept this effort successful to date. Truly hats off to these folks. Another RMIMer Ramesh Hariharan joined in later with his wife Radhika this time. He is also a contagiously fun-loving guy who has contributed to the success of these meets. Ek Sawal Main Karun...... Nevertheless to continue on, this went on for a few hours. Pradeep, Pankaj, UVR, Mrs. Agnihotri, Surajit, Helen singing and many of us joining in as chorus. Others had started gathering outside in Surendra's backyard and on his deck for their own set of discussions and information tit-bits. At around 1300 hrs, we decided to have the video quiz as compiled by Guri. Everyone flocked near the TV upstairs. Guri had meticulously taped the quiz, muted song first and then the same segment non-muted later. Two teams based on their geographical location of sitting before the TV were formed. Pretty much all the clues were cracked except maybe for two or so. Hrishikesh Mukherjee 'team' defeated Bimal Roy 'team' ironically making it a case of 'shagird' scoring one over 'guru'! Sometime now, Suneeta (our prime host) and Veena walked in. They had been delayed since Suneeta had taken upon her the onus of managing a signifcant part of the food that day. Nishi Bhatnagar and her mother also joined us at this time.Next in line was the audio quiz by Hema. She had only some 8 clues. So Ketan who had also made a similiar quiz continued with the quiz. Mr. Satish Kalra seemed to be really good at cracking these clues, so obviously his team did well. Guri and Pradeep did a good job of playing the non-playing captain's role for teams fondly called 'Shailu' and 'Gullu' respectively. For the benefit of less perceptive people that meant 'Shailendra ' and 'Gulzar' respectively !! The same teams continued with Suneeta's 'Baatoan Baatoan Mein' quiz (figuring out the song from spoken words within the song). 'Shailu' turned out to be the more inspired team in all these quizzes. Kalyan who was in the 'Gullu' team turned out to be a sore loser (ha, ha..), and prevented further 'Gullu' onslaught, by vociferously contributing to discontinuing of the quizzes. Daal Roti Khaao Prabhu Ke Gun Gaao..... By this time the food was served upstairs. Veena / Purvi / Suneeta / Mrs.Rajak had taken over this portfolio at the cost of missing all the fun downstaris. In fact they did that successfully through the entire meet. There were quite a few courses and many beverages. During this lunch which was around 1530 hrs. Surendra played a video recording of a tribute to S.D. Burman. It was a well made documentary, adulating the tour de force of the music industry. This was followed by a documentary on the lyricist Anjaan. After this Guri's own production screened on TV-Asia was played - 'Apne Hain Apne'. Quite a wonderful effort I must say. The script I am told was written by another RMIMer 'Pintoo Diwana'. While this was watched and food was devoured (yes there was some meat too), discussions on Ghazals, Inspired music, Kumar Sanu regaled amidst many small nuclear groups in and out of the house. For one everyone seemed to be enjoying and feeling comfortable. Ye Kis Kavi Ki Kalpana Ka Chamatkar Hai..... Post-lunch it is always difficult to sustain the enthusiasm, cauz all the blood is busy circulating near the stomach ! But some more singing kept us all thankfully, awake. Once again it was 'Jago Mohan Pyare..' (sung a record 4 times in the entire meet), 'Aa Ab Laut Chaley...'. Ashok and Chetan had in the meanwhile prepared a set of groups consisting of all those present, to participate in a 'lyrics' quiz, which turned out to be the highlight of the day. There were three groups, each given a set of 10 clues. The clues were lyrics of 10 songs and 10 lyricists. The idea was to match the right pairs. To aid further, these songs were played in the background to figure out film, MD, and other P-Stats. Obviously Ashok had taken immense pains to choose obscure lyricists with MDs pairs so as to mislead us all ! If any of us cracked the MD from the song, and from that the lyricist (like Shakeel from Naushad) we were sure to be wrong. Of course all this was realised later. I was this team of Guri, with Hema, Veena, Vijay, Pankaj. All our logic seemingly correct then, yielded futile results. Vijay went on to the extent of pure-hindi for Shailendra, and desh-bhakti song from Bharat Vyas. Considering Ashok we thought there would be Anil Biswas as a MD, and thus Rajendra Krishen as the lyricist but both were wrong. All our reasoning on lyricist and further strengthening based on MDs cracked from songs was to no avail. Ek Do Teen Char Bhaiya Bano Hoshiyar..... Finally when the results were announced by Ashok in a true style of a teacher, all out to spoil the happiness of his student, all our answers were wrong ! All the three groups ! Except for the Gulzar clue which all the three teams got (thanx to the 'dhuaa', and blah blah in it..). Also team 'B' of Pradeep, Satish Kalra and co. got one last clue by elimination, so they eventually won. But as Pradeep remarked - the satisfaction on Ashok's face was something to cherish for the rest of the day ! Everyone enjoyed this quiz. Ashok thanked Suneeta for coming up with the theme on 'lyricists'. Tasveer Teri Dil Mein..... Ketan warned us all of the dwindling daylight outside. A photo session of the attendees was still in the offing. By now some RMIMers had left, but the rest all flocked up on Surendra's deck again. Amidst confetti and a shower of compliments several photographs were taken. It was 2000 hrs. by this time. A few more items were still on the anvil - to be completed before the end of the day. As we came down again in the basement, Helen had started on her talk on similarities between Greek and Hindi songs. To those who may not be aware, Naushad, Shanky J, C. Ramchandra, Nargis, Madhubala are familiar names to Greeks. There is a whole bunch of films and songs copied from the Bollywood film industry. Helen is currently writing a book towards that effect and has some 98 similiar songs. She is looking forward to make this number - 100. She played some of these songs. Some more songs that she did not know also were played hoping some one would crack them and contribute to her increasing number 98. Also distributed was a cassette on Greek 'Mother India', with all its songs (adapted note by note from the original so well known to us all). Her efforts were well appreciated and an interactive question answere session ensued. Aap Ke Anurodh Pe...... This was followed by Satish Kalra's 'Aap Hee Key Geet'. The effort started with Radio Ceylon's signature tune. Satishji had painstakingly recorded some 'farmaishs' from those present and those absent alike. Others which he did not have, were taped by Ashok on the previous day. Some more requests which were not available were verbally acknowledged. Kalyan was keen on conducting the 'Sawal Jawab' quiz conducted by Archana during the west coast meet. However the the remaining crowd's tempo was still inclined towards singing. Incredibly this enthusiam sustained till 0300 hrs of the early wee morning. Surendra being the host was around for a while, but all the hosts who seemed to be visibly tired after a long day almost 48 hours long, had retired by 0100 hrs. RMIM Ke Ye Pyaare Pyaare "MEET" Liye...... This meet was unique in the sense, that the attendees themselves sustained it by their sheer enthusiasm. Right from the beginning, Guri, Kalyan, Hema, Veena and others had volunteered for organizng at least one quiz for the meet. Veena, Suneeta, Purvi, Radhika, Mrs.Rajak were actively important in the preparation / serving / planning of the food. Anup was extremely helpful with all the odd jobs including Kalyan's humour ! We only wish there had been more attendees ! Especially Ikram, Himanshu, Faez, Arup, Udit, Ashish Banerjee, Swapna and Tablaguy - who had all sportingly agreed to show up at some point in time but had to back out for various reasons. So thanks from all of us at SS Inc. for having made this Meet yet another feather in Ketan's cap. (frankly, no other member of SS would agree to be stupid enough to wear a cap with feathers in it J) See you again next year ! Ajay Divekar