RMIM Archive Article "335".
From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian
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# RMIM Archives..
# Subject: Hamraaz Harmandir Singh - Geetkosh compiler
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# Posted by: Chandrashekhar shekhar@emirates.net.ae
# Author: Chandrashekhar
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An unsung hero - Hamraaz
Today, the 18th of November, marks the birthday of an unassuming
man from Kanpur - Shri Harmandir Singh 'Hamraz' of Kanpur. Some of
you already know him to be the author of the authoritative 'Geet
Kosh' volumes - a priceless and indispensable compilation of data
on Hindi film songs, right from the first talkie 'Alam Ara'.
I have known Harmandir for some years now, and he is a modest
man, occasionally self-effacing to the point of
exasperation. Although employed with the State Bank of India in
Kanpur, his renown as a master-compiler is established among music
lovers of India. The story of how the 'Geet Kosh' volumes came
about is in itself fascinating.
In his teens, Harmandir - like so many of us - was an ardent fan
of radio programmes broadcast by the Sri Lanka Broadcasting
Co. (then simply called Radio Ceylon). One of these was called
'Vakya Geetanjali'; a sentence of seven or eight words would be
announced, and listeners would then be asked to send in a list of
Hindi film songs, each beginning with one of the words.
At that time it struck Harmandir with some annoyance that no
official data was available anywhere regarding film songs, and he
began making his own notes in an exercise book. The collection
steadily grew, and transcended the requirements of 'Vakya
Geetanjali', becoming an obsession in itself.
At that time, in the '70s, only one reference book existed which
listed all films censored, in chronological order - Feroze
Rangoonwala's "Indian Filmography". But even that made no mention
of songs, music directors, lyricists and other info of use to
music buffs. Nevertheless, using the "Filmography" as a skeletal
framework and with no idea of what lay ahead, Harmandir began the
painstaking process of compilation.
His own publication 'Listeners' Bulletin' provided a convenient
forum to glean data from his reader friends from India and abroad,
and Radio Sri Lanka did its bit by broadcasting his appeal for
help. (For long he desired to visit Colombo to delve into SL
Broadcasting's comprehensive achives, but that never came about.)
Soon information poured in from all over in the form of booklets,
catalogues of the Gramophone Co. of Inida, and from the Film
Archives at FTI, Pune.
But the compilation was still far from complete. Harmandir's was a
practical target, to collect only info about songs from his
favourite decade, the '50s. Even so this meant having to travel
all over India to meet film personalities of yesteryear before
their memories faded, or worse, before they shuffled off the
mortal coil. One place where he struck gold was with an aged
bookseller in Indore, who had a priceless collection of booklets,
and had since converted his bookstall into a paan shop!
That took care of most of the lyrics, but the problem of
ascertaining the names of the singers for individual songs
remained (booklets would publish all lyrics, and then merely list
the playback singers of the movie separately). This was done by
noting the details directly from thousands of records available at
'Chor bazaars' in prominent cities, and from the private
collections of connoisseurs.
Finally, without much fanfare, in January 1980, Vol. III (details
of songs from 1951-60) was published; thanks to insufficient
publicity, lack of finance and the refusal of publishers to accept
the book, news of the 'Geet Kosh' project didn't reach all music
lovers, and it took nearly four years for the 800 copies to be
sold out. Subsequently Vol. II (songs from films of 1941-50) was
released by the venerable Naushad in February 1984. Then came Vol
IV (1961-70) at the hands of Anil Biswas, in July 1986, and
finally Vol I (1931-40) in October 1988, once again released by
Naushad. Vol. III was understandably the most difficult (and
financially the least viable) to put together. Many of those
concerned with the music of those days were no more, and the
problem remained of records carrying the names of characters in
the film on whom the song was picturised - not even the actors,
let alone the playback singer! Vol. V (1971-80) was published in
1991, and in April of 1997, a handsome new edition of Geet Kosh
Vol III was issued, at the hands of Kalyanji.
Harmandir publishes the volumes on his own, to eliminate 'greedy
middle-men', and music lovers find the prices utterly modest. Each
volume has a film title index in Hindi and in English, and an
index of every song listed in that volume (indexed by the first
line of the song). Taking a leaf out of 'Geet Kosh', as it were,
others have published their own works - Harish Raghuvanshi's
'Mukesh Geet Kosh', which also includes full lyrics of all Mukesh
songs (although not the 'third stanza' extended version), and
Nerurkar- Sincar's books on Lata and Asha, in addition to their
filmographies of music directors.
With the release of Vol III's 2nd edition, Harmandir has turned
computer-savvy, and is busy feeding huge amounts of data into his
ever-increasing database. This morning he told me that he has two
full-time operators to help him with the job. His next project is
to update his own 'Indian Filmography' list (it will list all
films released from 1931 to 1997 in alphabetical order) and soon
to follow is Vol VI (1981-85) and Vol VII (1986-90) of Geet
Kosh. It is typical of the man that he is under duress from
various satellite TV channels to update the Geet Kosh, and yet
they never ever give him any credit! I'm of the firm belief that
even if a programme compiler for any Old Song programme on TV
thinks he knows the facts or credits behind a song, Geet Kosh must
remain the ultimate authority on the subject.
Harmandir was excited to know of RMIM, and would love to hear from
music lovers everywhere. Unfortunately Kanpur is yet to get an
Internet provider, so it'll have to be a phone call or a regular
mail correspondence. And, if any of you wish to get the Geet Kosh
volumes mailed/shipped to you, here's the address:
Har Mandir Singh 'Hamraaz'
'DREAMLAND'
HIG-545, Ratan Lal Nagar
Kanpur 208 022
India
Tel: 91-512-281211
217175
From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian