RMIM Archive Article "242".

From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian
#
# RMIM Archives..
# Subject: K. L. Saigal: the pilgrim of the swara   9
#
# Posted by: ADhareshwar@WorldBank.Org (Ashok)
# Source: K. L. Saigal: the pilgrim of the swara   
# 		Clarion Books, New Delhi, 1978
# Author: Ragava R. Menon
#


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I am forced to admit, with considerable chagrin, that I have
failed in determining the year in which Saigal left us.  All
the sources I have consulted agree on the day and the month:
January 18.  The sources, however, are divided regarding the
year between 1946 and 1947.

Two of the sources I consulted individually gave me the year
as 1947.  The first element of doubt was injected by the
Menon book on Saigal, which gave the year as 1946.  Since I
had (and have!) more trust in my sources, I went ahead with
the claim that Saigal passed away half a century ago.

The next twist for me came when I borrowed an old Saigal LP
from a friend just a couple of days ago.  Although the LP
was totally innocent of any P-stats, HMV did include a brief
write-up on Saigal and his period was given as 1904-46.  At
this stage, I consulted the entry on Saigal in the BFI
Encyclopaedia: again, 1904-46.

So, all the print media seemed to be consistent in saying
1946 and I was about to post a correction on RMIM when I
received from Sreenivas  Paruchuri the Susheela Mishra
article from The Hindu.  It starts by talking about the
fiftieth anniversary of Saigal's death and, in case there is
any ambiguity in the expression as to the date (actually,
there isn't), toward the end it gives the date of death as
18th January 1947.

So, friends, let us do some research and settle the question
definitively.

Ashok
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From: sreeni@ktpsp1.uni-paderborn.de (Sreenivas)

I checked some other sources, mostly verbal, apart from the ones you
quoted (BFI's encyclopaedia, Menon's book, the LP jackets, S.Mishra's
article, etc..). I also see that Dr. Surjit Singh confirms the year of
death as 1947, quoting Harmindar S's _Geet Kosh_.

All my verbal sources quote the year as 1947. In print I could find
only one source (quoted below) which says the same. But I must also
say that the amount of bibliography I have with me here is very
limited.
 
But, First those who quote it as 1946:
I started going through different discographies of KLS I have; Alain
Danielou's book published by UNICEF in 1952 (it does n't quote the
year of death at all), Kinnear's weel-known work _Discography of
Hindusthani and Karnatic Music 1950-1985_ quotes it as 1946 and
Kinnear in his EXTENSIVE (which includes all 78rpms) discography in
the SIRC Journal (issue 8, 1992) quotes the year as 1946. But Kinnear
is n't a biographer but a discographer.  And his source was Menon's
book.

BTW, how about listing all the songs sung by KLS, including the
non-Film numbers! There are n't many.

In TM Ramachandran's, a well known film journalist, _70years of Indian
Cinema_ the year of KLS' and Master Vinayak's year of death was
mentioned as 1947.

Does anyone have the recording of 4 part TV Serial: _Gata Jaye
Banjara_ aired in 1990. It was visualised by Sidharth Kak, documenting
the six decades of Hindi film songs. The first part was almost
dedicated to KLS.  If anyone has it please send me a brief
message. Perhaps we can work out an exchange.


Thanks and Regards,
Sreenivas

E-Mail: sreeni@ktp.uni-paderborn.de



From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian