Ameen Sayani
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A brief biography
Avijit Ghosh, February 22, 2024: The Times of India
Sayani shaped & expanded golden era of radio
From 1950s-70s, radio ruled indoor entertainment in India. With a voice that seemed to be shaking hands and a style that was intimate, Sayani not only personified “the golden years of radio” but also shaped and expanded it. At a time when songs sold films, his show was pivotal to the fortunes of the Hindi feature. It spawned hundreds of shrota sanghs (listeners’ clubs) in towns and kasbahs. Overcoming the faint and wavering sound of short-wave radio, hundreds would press their ears to the ‘transistor’ to engage with a weekly register of songs. The programme’s emotional bonding with the listener is hard to explain, impossible to replicate.
Binaca (later Cibaca) Geetmala was born at a time when Hindi songs were banned on All India Radio by Union I&B minister B V Keskar, a classical music purist. Radio Ceylon grabbed the opportunity.
“Geetmala came on the scene as a low-priced experiment. I was given the job because none of the senior broadcasters cared much about it,” he told this reporter in a 2009 email interview.
The job entailed listing songs, writing the show’s script, presenting it and handling the feedback for Rs 25 per week. “Within a few months, AIR lost a major chunk of its popular listenership,” said Sayani, who was mentored by his elder brother Hamid, a reputed broadcaster.
The format of playing 16 hit tracks of the week for an hour (initially 30 minutes and seven numbers) was novel and exciting. But it was Sayani’s voice that became the 41-year-long show’s endearing USP. At its peak, the show received 65,000 letters every week.
Sayani’s easy, relaxed and flowing style led to first-rate interviews with major composers, lyricists and singers of the time. S Kumar’s Ka Filmi Muqaddama was another popular 70s show of his. Prolific with ad jingles, he also occasionally worked in the movies. The radio compere introduced Dev Anand’s Teen Devian (1965) with a background commentary and did a cameo for Mehmood’s Bhoot Bangla (1965).
Born into an enlightened and well-heeled Khoja family, Sayani graduated in history from St Xavier’s, Mumbai. Not many know he assisted his mother, Kulsum, in editing, publishing and printing afortnightly journal for neoliterates on Mahatma Gandhi’s instructions. The fortnightly, Rahber (1940-60) was published in Devanagari, Urdu and Gujarati scripts.
Sayani also brought out a highly popular CD and cassette series, “Geetmala Ki Chhaon Mein”, which was peppered with film star interviews as well as digressions into the music of the past. He received Padma Shri in 2009.
