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Ameen Sayani’s death
Entertainment industry was recently taken away when the sad news of Ameen Sayani, a prominent former radio broadcaster, rose to prominence throughout the Indian subcontinent with his television programme Binaca Geetmala. For an entire generation of Indians, Bollywood and radio represented a single name: Ameen, Sayani. He passed away on Tuesday.
Ameen Sayani, aged 91, died in Mumbai on Tuesday due to a heart attack. His son, Rajil Sayani, confirmed his father’s death to Indianexpress.com. The renowned radio personality conducted the well-known show Binaca Geetmala. Sayani’s burial will be taking place on Thursday, since his family is waiting for certain relatives to arrive in Mumbai on Wednesday.
Sayani recorded at least 50,000 radio broadcasts, contributed his narration to 19,000 jingles, hosted TV shows, and made voiceovers and appearances in select Bollywood films, frequently as a radio broadcaster.
To his listeners, he was much more than a broadcaster; gifted with a warm, compassionate voice, he developed a cheerful, distinctive broadcasting style that produced the idea of an actual friend communicating directly to each listener across their radio set. A buddy who established a cult fanbase that had no generational divide and fostered a romantic relationship between Bollywood tunes and his listeners.
His unique radio programme, Binaca Geetmala, aired for 42 years, making countless lyricists, composers, and vocalists household names and saving several films from obscurity.
Amin Sayani came into the world on December 21, 1932, growing up in Mumbai, to a Gujarati-speaking Muslim family. Both of his parents were Kulsoom and Jan Mohammad Sayani. His mother was a liberation fighter and a personal friend of Mahatma Gandhi, hence Sayani referred to himself as a Gandhian in nature. He later got married to a Kashmiri pandit, Rama Mattu.
Messages from Jhumri Telaiya to That Echo from the Heart
Ameen Sayani’s career is connected with India’s golden period of radio. He also hosted other famous shows, including the monthly Bournvita Quiz Contest, a position he took over while his elder brother died.
He produced hundreds of 15-minute film commercials for radio and promoted toothpaste and headache medications on radio and television. Aside from Bollywood, he made Jhumri Telaiya, a dusty, unremarkable town, famous throughout India.
Sayani would encourage listeners to email him with their favorite tracks and rankings for Binaca Geetmala, and he would deliver some of the remarks live on radio. This sparked ardent radio clubs and impassioned letter writers across the country, especially in Jhumri Telaiya, a mica mining village located in the north Indian state of Jharkhand.
Hindi-Urdu, women initially, with a sense of resistance
Ameen Sayani began his radio career with a ban.
Balakrishna Vishwanath Keskar, India’s federal minister for dissemination of information, banned cinema songs on national radio in the winter of 1952, claiming that their lyrics were illogical, vulgar, Westernised, and a danger to Indian classical music.
Hindustani and Carnatic musical styles took the place of cinema songs on AIR, while announcements and news broadcasts grew more Sanskrit.
Radio Ceylon, a radio station established during World War II in Colombo, Sri Lanka, to provide news and entertainment to British soldiers stationed in South Asia, recognised an opportunity.
Learn more about Ameen Sayani’s history of work till date
Source (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ameen_Sayani)
Ameen Sayani’s successful international radio shows
- “MINI INSERTIONS of FILMSTAR INTERVIEWS” : Over the British Broadcasting Corporation‘s Ethnic Network in the UK: 35 installments.
- “MUSIC FOR THE MILLIONS” : For the BBC’s World Service Radio: 6 episodes.
- “VEETEE KA HUNGAMA” : Over Sunrise Radio, London: 4½ years.
- “GEETMALA KI YAADEN”: Over Radio Ummul Quwain, UAE: 4 years.
- “YE BHI CHANGA WO BHI KHOOB” : Over Radio Asia, UAE: 8 months.
- “HANGAMAY” : Over ethnic radio stations in Toronto, Washington, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boston: 2½ years.
- “SANGEET PAHELI” : Over Radio Truro, Eswatini: 1 year.
Radio shows produced and compered by Ameen Sayani
Some of the better known radio shows produced (mainly for consumer product clients):
- CIBACA (formerly BINACA) GEETMALA: broadcast from 1952 – mainly over Radio Ceylon, and later over Vividh Bharati (AIR) – for a total of over 42 years. It was again revived after a gap of 4 years, and was aired over the National Network of Vividh Bharati for 2 years as COLGATE CIBACA GEETMALA.
- S. KUMARS KA FILMI MUQADDAMA and FILMI MULAQAAT: over AIR and Vividh Bharati for 7 years. Re-commenced, after a decade, on Vividh Bharati for a year.
- SARIDON KE SAATHI: 4 years. (AIR’s first sponsored show.)
- BOURNVITA QUIZ CONTEST (in English): 8 years. (Took over from his brother and guru, Hamid Sayani, after his death in 1975.)
- SHALIMAR SUPERLAC JODI: 7 years.
- MARATHA DARBAR shows: SITARON KI PASAND, CHAMAKTAY SITARAY, MEHEKTI BAATEN, etc. : 14 years.
- SANGEET KAY SITARON KI MEHFIL : 4 years – and still running (in 2014). (The format comprises interviews and musical career sketches of top singers, composers and lyricists; syndicated to various radio stations in India and abroad for their commercial clients.)
Sayani also produced a 13-episode radio series in the form of plays based on actual HIV/AIDS cases – including interviews with eminent doctors and social workers. (The series – entitled Swanaash – was commissioned by All India Radio, and its audio cassettes have been acquired by many NGOs for their fieldwork.)
