Thursday, May 08, 2008

AIR it short, simple, sweet with Ameen Sayani

Tuesday - May 06, 2008
Deepasree Venugopal - Televisionpoint.com | Bangalore
Behno aur Bhaiyo - magical words that bring fond memories of evenings in your living room, listening to Geetmala on All India Radio. Albeit a Hindi programme, people across India seldom missed this radio show, hosted by Ameen Sayani. "P Murari, an advisor to the President of India, once told me that when he was in Chennai as a college boy, he would tune in to listen to Geetmala along with his family every Wednesday. He didn't know much Hindi, but he liked the programme so much that he would get miffed if visitors dropped in unannounced," narrates Sayani. Simplicity is the key to drawing such large audiences says the grand voice of India which has set many a heart aflutter for 60 years. It's his mother Kulsum Sayani who taught him the importance of keeping it simple. "Mother came from a nationalist family. She was a shishya of Gandhiji who asked her to start a fortnightly in Devanagri, Urdu and Gujarati. The line of communication in all three issues was simple. What I learnt was from her is that it's very easy to be difficult, but very difficult to be easy. There are so many languages in India, that if you have to reach the largest number of people, you need to use the same kind of simple yet effective language that Indian film songs use," he says.
 

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