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		      RMIM Meet Report - part 1

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Posted by:   arunabha shasanka roy (asroy@midway.uchicago.edu)
Posting date: 1998/11/13
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        We began with Kalyan's antakshari. Kalyan divided us randomly into
three teams , putting Anup in Vish's team, he explained "in order to
cancel out Vish" :)The three teams were led by Harish (Roshan team),
Preeti (Mukesh team) and Guri (Sahir team). In the first round we were
required to sing a song beginning with the specified letter , and in the
second round, containing the given word. Two points for singing an antara,
and one point for singing a mukha.Daa. I picked the first chit for our
(Roshan )team, complaining that I would probably get "Th" which was the
subject of so much discussion on the net recently. And indeed I did :(
(After that I refused to pick any more chits )  Nachiket from our team
sang the notorious "Tha.nDe Tha.nDe paanii se nahaanaa chaahiye" in
perfect sur. This song eventually lands up in any Antakshari I have seen,
owing to the paucity of "Th" songs. Traditionally, it is sung brutally
besuraa. So hearing a classical singer sing it in perfect sur was a
novelty :)
        Preeti's team (him, Vish, Anup, UVR and others) won hands down
owing to their strange predilection for antaras. You would find other
teams hard-pressed to think of a mukha.daa whereas this team churned out
antaraa after antaraa. They were bound to win, from the outset .:( This
led Ketan to quip, at the end :" When you guys listen to film songs, do
you'll fast forward directly to the antaras ?"
        It was a treat to listen to UVR sing the Hum Dono antara "kaun
rotaa hai" for the word "dost" . He sang as well as Rafi if not better .
Anyway, such praise for UVR's singing has become routine and he must be
used to it. But despite large demand, he refused to oblige us with
"Ravindra Sangeet" on Friday.
        One of the more memorable moments was when the antaraa team got a
song but failed to sing it within the specified time limit. Kalyan
promptly landed them a zero, whereupon there was much cheering from the
other two losing teams. The (s)antaraa team began to protest that they
were not told it was time-up. Anup loudly announced "I don't like this
Quiz Master ! " "Throw this bum out" and other similar terms of
endearment.  Watching Anup dance was half the fun :)
        Actually Kalyan was under constant and heavy fire , with people
shouting "give them zero", "you didn't tell us it's time up" , "He's
making the rules as we go along" etc. We commiserate with you, Kalyan.
Future antakshari organizers, beware.
        On another occasion Guri sang a song ,precariously close to the
end of the twenty-second time-limit. This song was so slow that numerous
doubts were raised by the opponents , in the hope of swamping Guri's team
on this point. Some examples :"Is this a song ?" "Guri, did you make up
this song ?" "Yes, it's a song - P-Stats : Lyricist :Guri , MD :Guri ,
composed on 11/07/98 ", "Fraud", and "If this IS a song, it's got to be
the slowest one there exists" . (I believe it was a song from one of the
KK MD'ed movies, DGKCM perhaps ? )
        At the end Kalyan gave a word and asked teams to keep on singing
songs with that word, in cyclic order, the team singing the last song
getting three points. Our team dropped out after two cycles on the word
"musaafir" and we discovered that there were several common ones we'd
missed. We really kicked ourselves on that one. The next word was "chup"
Kalyan clarified that it was "chup, not "chhup" and later disqualified a
team for singing a "chhup" song. Preetham objected that this constituted
regionalistic discrimination against South Indians for whom "chup" and
"chhup" are no different. Despite being a South Indian, however , Kalyan
did not budge. On running out of "chup" songs, our team sang "khaamosh hai
zamaanaa, chupchaap hai.n sitaare... aayegaa aanewaalaa " We must have
done a pretty good job, for Kalyan closed his ears instantly . :) For all
our efforts we were unceremoniously landed a zero and disqualified. On the
pretext that "khaamosh hai.. " is neither a mukha.Daa nor an antaraa.
Kitanaa buraa zamaanaa aa gayaa hai - aajkal puraane dino.n ke acche
gaano.n kaa koii qadr nahii.n rahaa.  :(
        Another time we stirred up a hornet's nest was when Ketan sang
"phuulo.n ke ra.ng se..." Our understanding was that this is an antaraa
and we should get a 2 , and things were plain and simple. But the amount
of commotion that resulted from this song had to be seen to be believed.
"jitanii munh utanii baate.n" comes to mind. Everyone had a differing
point of view on this issue. So much so that Kalyan himself was in a
quandary. Some said - "this is a mukha.Daa , not an antaraa- give them 1
point". Ketan countered "Go and look up deja news - there was a long
thread on this song on rmim - about it being the only song to begin with
an antaraa" Someone else : "This is neither a mukha.Daa nor an antaraa"
Yet another :"What is the definition of a mukha.Daa ?" and so on. Finally
we were given a 1 and the game continued.
        
        The antakshari concluded, we were to move on to other events. The
next scheduled event was Anup's dancing. To our great disappointment ,
however, this event was cancelled. Anup proceeded instead with his Audio
quiz :" Recognize the voice" where he would play a snippet of conversation
from some interview, often with reference to a singer or a song, to help
the guessing process. It began well enough with S.N. Tripathi. But
gradually the clues grew tougher and tougher. A common factor, however
seemed to emerge - all the personalities were talking about KK.
Enlightened, some people responded :
Guri : "Anup has a two-point program : KK and Hindutva."
Ketan :(grin) "Cool- this is a neat promotional venture for the Klan" :)
We had to guess the voices of people like Pankaj Udhas, Anup Jalota,
Shabbir Kumar, and such others, so it wasn't easy at all. There would be
some KK song playing in the background, usually, and this would tend to
misorient us, only to be warned by Anup :"the song has no connection with
the personality "

        To confuse us further , Anup gave us hints. Here is a sample :)
When no one could guess a certain personality, Anup said "OK, this is a
tough one, but I'll give you a hint. This is a modern day peronality.
Think about ghazal" And that was followed by several incorrect guesses.
The correct answer (I think some team miraculously got it right) was Anup
Jalota. An indignant Ketan said : "Anup Jalota and ghazals ? Let's throw a
bottle at this guy !" :)

        Another interesting one was Suresh Wadkar . People were attempting
to guess when Anup, helpful with clues as ever, said "Think - in the
conversation he referred to Lata as "Didi" " Guri said :"Ah, that narrows
it down to about 1, 200 people " :) But Vandana Malkauns somehow nailed
this one for their team.
        
        Manna De, RDB, Salil are some of the other featured people that I
can recall off the top of my head. (Maybe because they're all Bong :) )

        Tabassum Sahibaa turned out to be a real asset to their team. She
guessed correctly all the Anup Jalota's , the Pankaj Udhas' and the
Shabbir Kumar's.  She also guessed all the singers that were featured :)

        To be fair, Anup also included a couple of giveaways. There was
(yes, it's unbelievable) a song clip of KK himself singing some weird song
"mere maamaa maamiyo.n, mere kaakaa kaakiyo.n, mere daadaa daadiyo.n, mere
naanaa naaniyo.n, mere chaachaa chaachiyo.n, mere *.* ... " (Good song to
trap Antakshari opponents, I'm sure no one can ever remember the correct
order ) C'mon Anup, is your idol's voice that tough to recognize as to
include it in a quiz ? :)  Ketan :" Who wouldn't be able to recognize the
great man's voice, eh ?"

        There was another easy clue , a clip of Meena Kumari speaking. The
team naturally got it instantly and one team member shouted "Meena
Kumari". A fellow team member, wary of losing a point on even this sitter,
hastily corrected that to "Meena -ji" :-) They got their point.

        There were many other interesting clues, but I can't recall them.
IMO what made this quiz challenging and hence interesting, was the fact
that for once you had to forget your Asha, Lata, Rafi, KK et al and try
and think of singers you did not hear all that often. Plus, the impediment
of listening to them speak, rather than sing, made it necessary for one to
concentrate very carefully on the voice and intonation. As an example,
recognizing Suresh Wadkar singing would not have been tough (recall Dr.
Parrikar's post "the ghaaT in him shines through" ) but recognizing his
voice from conversation was no mean task. Thanks, Anup. OK, to be fair, I
should clarify there were a couple of personalities featured whose
conversations did not involve KK.

        It was around 4.30 p.m. when Vish began his presentation on
unfamiliar songs sung by familiar people, but familiar not for singing.
Alternately, it featured singers singing in a completely different style
from that they were known for. There were no teams, essentially the whole
group was one large team, and Vish would play a song clip, and provide
some background information such as the time frame and what the
personality was primarily known for. Initially we tried guessing at
random, but this was so hopeless that Vish said it would rob all the
motivation for the presentation. What he suggested, that completely
altered the nature and course of the presentation, making it more
accessible and interesting at the same time, was that we ask Vish binary
questions in order to nail it, a sort of Twenty-Questions game. There was
a vast range of people covered - judge for yourself : Raj Kapoor,
Vyjanthimala, Uma Devi "TunTun", Shabana Azmi, Rekha, Jagjit Kaur,
Khaiyyaam, Sudha Malhotra, Amit Kumar, Sulochana Desai, Geeta Bali,
"Madhuji" Madhubala Zaveri, Sandhya Mukherjee, Hridaynath Mangeshkar,
Meena Mangeshkar, Usha Mangeshkar, Chitragupta, Anil Biswas, Sonu Nigam,
Shamshad Begum are the ones that I can recall. He also featured Lata's
earliest HFM recording, NOT the oft' cited "paaye laagu kar jori" but an
earlier '46 recording, as Vish explained. There was a very early recording
of Asha that was featured too. I found myself wanting to shout out "Lata !
Asha !" when these voices came on but checked myself , saying "It CAN'T be
THEM !" :) Interesting observation : All five Mangeshkar siblings were
featured.
        The interesting thing was that different RMIM'ers were successful
at guessing different peronalities. Prince mentioned how we think of
"TunTun" the comedian, but don't know that she was the same "Uma Devi" who
has sung up there with the likes of K.L.Saigal.  Shabana's voice was
guessed remarkably quickly by someone after Vish pointed our attention to
the fact that the music was by Khaiyyaam. Rekha's voice , to me, was
entirely different from the "Khubsurat" songs that I knew. It was a song
from the early 80's, I think ?
        Sudha Malhotra's clue provided entertainment. Vandana Vidwans, who
had already identified the voice, decided to ask a binary question , just
for fun :"Is the singer connected with Sahir " ? :) Vish replied that it
was indeed the case. Anup can always be counted on for a witty comment .
He followed it up with the binary question :"Is her last name Malhotra?"
:)
        A terrible song from the 80's (unreleased) in the voice of Amit
Kumar was played. I asked Vish who the MD was and was shocked to hear it
was Salil. People reacted :"THAT'S why it never got released " after
hearing the song.
        A trick question involved a recent singer . It was a Rafi song,
plain and simple, but Vish clarified that the singer was not a famous one.
"Is he alive ?" "Very much so", replied Vish. "Did he get recognition as a
singer ?" "Not yet ", says Vish, "that remains to be seen" . Yes, it is
none other than our own RMIM'er Sanjeev Ramabhadran :)
        Geeta Bali singing in a male voice (remember the Rangeen Raaten
thread ?) and Hridaynath at the age of nine singing in a female voice
threw us all off. Beautiful songs by Usha and Meena were played. Usha
sounded as flawless as Asha or Lata in that one song - I have indeed NEVER
heard her sing as amazingly. Someone finally guessed "Surajit's guru" for
Madhubala Zaveri which was impressive. She sounded fabulous in that song.
Shamshad singing in Tamil "ye duniyaa ruup kii chor" and Sandhya Mukherjee
singing a classical piece in "Mamta" were other notables. Vish also played
a couple of songs by singers who, he lamented, never got recognition.
        One real "cool" incident that occurred towards the end was when
Neha stepped in to join the meet , having been occupied with office work
in the afternoon. Vish had just finished playing a song and no one was
getting very far in identifying the person, when Vish announced , as
though on cue :"And the personality shares her last name with the RMIM'er
who just stepped in " It was too much !
        By now some people had to leave so it was time to cut the samAAROH
cake. As Vandana Vidwans cut it, everyone chirped "Happy Birthday To
You".:) In case you are wondering, it was NOT her birthday, this was
merely a ruse on the part of Guri. We all enjoyed being part of it, Guri.
Vish and Guri then brought out the samAAROH mementos, a tape and CD titled
appropriately :"rahe.n naa rahe.n hum, the music lives on..." Indeed , it
was so authentic, in true HMV style, the tape had some songs that the CD
didn't. :) And there was commentary by Vish and comprehensive P-stats (NOT
HMV style). When you consider that Guri and Vish have spent sleepless
nights recording thirty to forty copies each of CD and tape, and another
one filling in the "inlay cards" so prettily crafted by Balaji and Malini,
you truly come to appreciate this as a labour of love. Our sincere thanks
for the tape and CD.
        We then had dinner and settled down for the last event of the day,
and of the meet :Guri's video quiz. Muted songs /songs in FF or REW modes
were played and we had to identify the songs. The difficulty level was
just right - on the one hand songs like "aaiye meharbaan" and 'tere mere
sapane" were giveaways but "pyaar par bas to nahii.n hai" "merii jaan
tumape sadaqe" were more challenging. As we discovered, often enough, the
songs themselves were well-known, but not the picturizations. Neha and
Kalyan were in their element. There was virtually no stopping them. And
whenever it was a Lata song, Neha .... or need we say more ?:)
         One song from Mother India - the one with the refrain "arre
paagal, arre paagal" bears mentioning . Vish from our team , based on the
preceding conversation from the film and the raag used in the background
music guessed some song (?) It passed to the second team without Guri
telling us whether we were right or wrong ; the idea was, the second team
now had three options :1)  Agree with us 2) Bet 1 point that we were wrong
and give their best guess 3) Abstain.They chose option 2 and Guri passsed
it to us without telling them whether THEY were right or wrong. And we
were given another set of three options. At this point the scoring process
itself became tougher than the quiz, and we begged Guri for mercy. Much
ado about nothing folks, we were both wrong :)
        Towards the very end there was a Lata song from "Main Chup
Rahungi"  that made for a great deal of audience participation and debate.
The song in question was picturized on Helen , playing a tawaif and
seducing this fellow in his own house, din dahaa.De , while his wife
(played by Meena-ji)  and kid looked on helplessly. Now, I wasn't going to
let an opportunity like THAT slip away, was I ? So I said "Neha, look,
such baazaaruu and sensual songs are what Lata is good for " :) And
everyone seemed to agree then, that "Anil Hingorani will call this a
bhajan" :)  Neha added :"because of the lyrics !" :) So it was party-time
. I asked Vandana Vidwans "So has Lata sung this sensual song too like a
lorii/bhajan?" No points for guessing her answer.  :)
        "jaago mohan priitam", "chham chham naachat aayii bahaar", "haule
haule ghuu.NghaT paT khole", "barakhaa bahaar aayii", and "mai.n to tum
sa.ng nain milaake " are some other songs that I can remember. The last
was fun : it fell to Neha's team and she said "Oh My God ! It's THAT Lata
song, that extremely well-known one , it's on the tip of my tongue but I
can't get it .... " "something sa.ng nainaa lagaaye" was the maximum she
could get . After which Guri passed it to our team . Prince decided to
fill in the "something" . He tried , in succession, sajanaa sa.ng nainaa
lagaaye, preetam sa.ng nainaa lagaaye, baalam sang nainaa lagaaye, un sang
nainaa lagaaye, piyaa sa.ng nainaa lagaaye, man maujii(name of the film !)
sa.ng nain lagaaye. All to no avail :( It was "mai.n to tum sa.ng nain
lagaake, haar gayii sajanaa " :)
        The last song was "tere sadke balam na kar koii Gam" to which I
said "Wow ! What a nice song " And Neha got her chance to get even "sun !
isiiko gaanaa kahate hai.n !" :)
        That done, it was time to clean up the clubhouse . Everyone had a
great time, probably the only thought nagging everyone was, now that the
meet was over, it was now till the next meet.  "har mulaaqaat kaa a.njaam
judaaii kyo.n hai" On the subject of mulaaqaat's, there was a brief one
between best friends Neha and Reeta Sinha :) Reeta was in the area on work
and came to say hi to the RMIM'ers.
        This, my first meet, frankly surpassed all expectations. I went
with the idea that I would say Hi to a few junta and there would be a few
events and everything would be formal the way things generally go, with
people sitting aloof, or discussing basketball scores or equally
unappetizing matters. Far from it. Thanks to Kalyan, Vish, Anup, Preeti,
UVR and Vandana for making it such a pleasurable experience. Lastly,
thanks to all the RMIM'ers who came and jived, it was great fun meeting
you.

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