Madhosh Kiye Jaa: July 2020

An Experience to Cherish

Bonding with new friends is not tough at all, when it's based on a love for music. Once again, this came true for me. A music group that I joined online at the invitation of a former student a few years ago, organised an online meet yesterday (July 26th). And it was on for over 4 hours, non-stop. And it felt like we were meeting old friends, even when some hadn't met each other, or not for years. Lovely! Some of us met earlier in Bangalore before COVID struck, and it was the same feeling. Some pics from Bangalore. and one screen shot.

Maana ho tum behad haseen aise bure hum bhi nahin.. (below for the second part)

Friendships were forged, or renewed.

Some stars of the meet (above) and many more (below)

Below- Screenshot of yesterday's meet..special effects unintended :)

Online Tribute to Anand Bakshi

Yesterday I saw an interesting online program. It was a tribute to Anand Bakshi, a prolific master-lyricist of Hindi films. Having read a book by his son recently and being aware of some excellent songs penned by him, I was keen. And was not disappointed.

Subhash Ghai and Vijay Akela, lyricist, were the hosts in this discussion. Akela is the lyricist for Hrithik Roshan's debut film, and has written some good stuff. Anyway, the discussion centred around Subhash Ghai's films for most part (a pity, because that was not Anand Bakshi's best work, in my view).

But the points made by both Ghai and Akela were valid. That lyricists are generally unsung and usually underpaid compared to their contribution in writing memorable songs that carry the story forward in many Hindi films, and are also the reason (along with the composers) for the success of a film, and nostalgia, long after the film has faded from memory. Subhash Ghai cited various songs from Taal, Pardes, Khalnayak, Vidhaata, Gautam Govinda (Ek ritu aaye, ek ritu jaaye), Meri Jung, etc. as examples of how the song lyrics gave him direction while shooting the film. Interesting anecdotes around 'One two ka four' in My name is Lakhan, and Ilu ka matlab I love you were shared.

Akela recited some of his favourite songs written by Anand Bakshi. Surprisingly, he started with a Hare Rama hare Krishna song.. Ram ka naam badnaam na karo..it does have some great writing. All in all, a wonderful tribute.

Waiting for Lefty: The Inside Story of a Play

These are reminiscences of how a play called Waiting for Lefty (by Clifford Odets) was staged by a band of wannabe stage actors at IIMB, circa 1983. I was one of them. Directed by Harish Chaudhary.

You should have seen the first day’s audition. It was hilarious, with voices reading the dialogues out in a flat monotone. I’m sure not a single one of us understood what was going on-if anyone did, he "done himself" full credit. Now that it’s all culminated fairly successfully, I think it’s only in the fitness of things that the inside story, the SCOOP, must come out. About what happened while we worked at it- it was all WORK, and for a PLAY.
There was this old disease-malignant, tumescent (sorry, Doc Barnes- a character from the play)- of non-attendance. We never really found an anti-toxin for it till the end. One does understand if you bunk classes, but a play rehearsal? What’s the world coming to? Of course, those of us who came gulped down chai and paushtik bondas at Uncle’s.
The fight for the good voice: There were a few voices in the script- a voice, another voice, and a good voice. Now, everyone wanted to be the GOOD voice. We never reached a consensus on the issue (HR guys please note). Finally, the diro (Harish Chaudhary) pulled a fast one by mouthing it himself. The really good voice, Banny, withdrew due to commitments (academic? Not sure).
If one man could play two roles, Nandu Jr. would have been the Gunman- “Sit down, punk!” was written by Odets with him in mind. But Banny had to be replaced by someone equally good, and Jr. filled the breach admirably. Luckily for us, Chakki was lurking in the shadows, and could be hauled up for this role fast.
The comedy: I haven’t laughed as heartily ever before or since-

1. Dash saying “But Fatt is right, our officers is right” with a nasal twang-the first time he did it, we all rolled over in our chairs.

2. Dilip Gadkari jumping all over the place trying to sound convincing with “Boys, they just found Lefty.” Instead of looking shocked, we hit the ceiling laughing.

The relatively smaller travails we endured were-

- Getting Ali and Navneeta to step on the floor instead of stepping on each other’s toes during the dance sequence.

- Getting Yours Truly to emote- my inexperience in the area showed, and with Rose (my heroine) looking as if she meant every word of what she said, the only emotion I registered was FEAR.

- Getting Sunil (Kandlikar) to look less like a gangster and more like a brother (here we succeeded).

- Getting Robin to stop laughing. He just sat there and laughed. Finally, we had to stuff his mouth with accurately aimed chalk pieces.

- Getting Corporate Man (Manglik) to bend (in lieu of a fall) when Sarat punched him. I’m sure I noticed a 5degree deviation from the vertical once in rehearsals.

- Getting Sivaram to look less less frightened of old Doc Barnes (ROI).

Just one more point. The censorship. The original script contained a couple of kisses. But we decided that you dirty old guys didn’t deserve the vicarious pleasure. Feel cheated? Well, bad luck.

(this first appeared on our wall mag. I had preserved the original)

Friends, Romans,..

Did not add countrymen, because it's not kosher. Only speaks of men, and I want to address both women and men. Indigo also includes boys and girls..

I just felt like making a speech today. I want to remember a few people before I start forgetting things. Some beautiful people that I encountered (of course there are about a couple of thousand more, but it's a start)..

My Profs.- JD Singh, Gopal Valecha, SK Roy, Thirunarayana, AK Rao.

Colleagues- Bhagyalakshmi, Manasa Nagabhushanam, Shahida, Manoharan, Murali Mohan, SP Kumar, Smita Dabholkar, Anant Ram, Tk Chatterjee, Ravi Gadgil, Vijayakumar, Dhanapal, Rajesh, Raghavendra, Pavan (and Jamuna), Yuvaraj, BK Mohanty, Avinash Mulky, MG Korgaonker, Veena, Mehboob, Gururaj Khasnis, YK Gaur (golf partner too), Jeyavelu, Tripti Srivastava, Saumyaa Sharma, Karu, CK Sharma, Muthu (and family), Jayanti Ranjan, Lubna Nafees, Sandeep Puri, Bhavna Bhalla, Harsh Halve, Jitendra Sharma, Maheswaran, Ekkirala, Milind Fadnavis, Indrajit Thakurata, Shweta Kushal, Bhuvanesh Pareek, Shinu Abhi, Vinod Jadhav, Snehal, Sanjay (my driver at IMT N),

Classmates- Avadhanulu, CS Murthy, K.S. Murthy, G. Sreenivas, Nagarjuna, Seshu, Alok, Basudeo, Daddy Krishnamurthy, MN Rao, Huma Kidwai,in college, and Ram Seshu, Praveen Gottipalli, Srinivasa Rao, Nadir, Kartik, Rajiv Krishnan, Vinu from school in Hyderabad

Childhood friends, Shashank, Sharat, Shalina, Shobhna, Manoj, Subodh, Anant, Milind, Chitrangi, Shubhangi, Avi, Ajit, Ashu, Kiran (and Neena), Prakash Kenjale, Tingu Sanjay Sinha

Cousins- Lots of them, and their kids too. Suhita-Miskil, Milind-Jui and saie, Mihir -Azam, Gauri-Malay and Kalpak, Jyotsna, Chitra-Varun, Meera-Shantanu and Medha, Bhavana -Aboli and Aparna, Sheela, Nirmala, Mrunal and Ragini, Rohini, Bhagyashree, Pratap, Pramila, Sheelu, Jayashree, Laxman, Chandraprabha, Lalita, and others,

Classmates- Prabhakar, Rajan (of India), Uday (Appu), Nanda Kumars, Harish Chaudhry, Sunil Gupta, BB Dash, Venky, Rajeev Bhagwat, Lingaraju, Smoke Smoke, Ramesh (Hassled) Srinivasan,

Students- Nishka and Vikram Rathi, Dheeraj Mohan, Praveen Kotta, Sidharth Agarwala, Pushpak Sengupta, Aditi Sood, Sunil Kataria, Nidhi Kanungo, Savitha, Achint Arora, Nikhil Damle, Navroze Sethna, Jogeswari, Sharmistha Singh, Vidya TC, Swapna Gurijala, Smita Mohan, Padmapriya, Divyaa Sharma, Ranjana Rudra, Rashmi Manchanda, Deepa, Deepthi, Zargar Basharat, Himanshu Shekhar, Shweta Jha, Sanket Vatavwala, Ankita Sahai, Aarushi Jain, Anjali Sharma, Anushka Mishra, Sandhya Sajeev, Pooja Daniel

Sonam Chirania, Sidhanta Patnaik, Aishwarya Omprakash, Isha Bhalla, Bharath Shenoy, Aashneet, Nagendra Shenoy, Chaitra Hegde, Shampa, Priyasmita, Roopsha, Mrunal, Arvind Joshi, Anusha Ramakrishnan from Finland, Manasa Bharadwaj, Shreya Sengupta, Viju Verghese, Veena Singh, Jensy, Akaksha Yadav,

Kalaivani, Swathika Selvam, Madhan Rehan, Sadhana Lakshmi, Neha Adiga, Shatakshi Tripathi, Kshitija Deshmukh, Sapna Patni, Akash Gupta, Sruthi Chandrasenan, Anam Nuhi, Sanjana Rao Yarram, Shrunga Hede, Shreya Surana, Aradhya Vats, Bhuvneet Raheja, Kritika Gupta, Shivangi Goel, Garima Sachdeva, Thoshitha (my Osmania junior), Rohit Kumar, Arshia Mulla, Komal Nagdavne, Shruti Suman, Poonam Pawar, The Kaurs (Ruminder, Barleen, Harshdeep), Zenitha Das, Writabrita Ray, Tanya Jakhar, Ansh Kathpalia, Pooja Talapatra, Anusha Mahendrakar, Aishani Verma, Mihir Ghandat,

Shuchi Bhatnagar, Sampark Sachdeva, Shreyashi, Abhinav Kamal, Aditi Gupta, Garima Shah, Pradyumna Mohanty, Harshad Lunavat, Vivek Anant, Shubhangi Khare, Madhulika Gaur, Roshan Kanth, Merwin James, Nikita Kumar, Aditya Naag, Shruti Sharma, Shweta Sinha, Sheetal Garg, Abha Kulkarni, Tosha Dubey, Urvasi Anand, Siri Adi, Khyati Jha, Divya Singh, Supriya Jain, Surbhi Mehta Chaddha, Kanika Mhendiratta, Akshita Garg, Anchal Sharma, Nandini Saxena, Parul Kashyap, Animesh Jain, Ratnashree Tripathi, Phalguni Banerjee Basu, Twinkle Jain, Shraddha Nigdikar, Surbhi Tandon, Momi Saha, Arundhati Singh, Vaishali Bathla, Sreeram (and Gowri), Meghana Joshi, Meghna Sinha, Anshita Chetty, Aashsish (and Anusha), Anumeha Saxena, Pavan Tarawade, Kedar Muley, Ravi Mittal, Adarsh Kamat, Palak Narang, Bhawana Moondra, Madhulika Gaur, Meenu Mynam, Aishwarya Iyer, Anjali Iyer, Ishan (and Ankita) Joshi, Keyur Bhalavat, Manjari Mundanad, Punyashlok Dwibedy, Rupam Verma, Neha Jha, Swati Sinha, Bhawana Sahay, Vrinda Khanna, Pallavi Sharma, Shafique Gajdhar, Bhayashree Agarwal,

Friends Made in Later Life- Indira, Poonam and Ashwani Bhatia, Subbu, Sunil Kapoor, Om Prakash and Geeta Chaudhary, Sandeep and Mamta Bansal, Rajni, Satish and Rimjhim Verma, Milind Chalisgaonkar, Rajan Mani, Virender Gupta, Naveen Sinha, Mohan Gopalratnam, Jyothi Gurumurthy and Nagendra Rao, Usha, Shiva and Lalita Chidambaram, Ratnamadhavi, Lakshmi Rajagopal, Vijji Ganesh, Yogesh Kale, Umesh Jadhav, Venkatesh Gopalan, Priya Mohandas and her hubby (she’s from Calicut), Suryakumar Khanai of Gogte Institute, Belgaum,

Some are still online- haven’t got around to meeting them. Like Pritu Shetty, Aiswarya Manazhy,..bosses are mostly not included because you have mixed feelings about them, though I had a few good ones at MBA the company- an IIMA alumni startup.