Hey zindagi mil ke bitaayenge
Posted on: October 17, 2014
A group of regulars of this blog met at Bangalore on 5 october 2014. Part I of this meet, viz genesis has been discussed in the past followed by the build up of the meet. Now, in this third and concluding part,Raja a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog, discusses the meeting itself, now known as Gangout in Bangalore. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
Part-3 (final part)
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And so, finally the day dawned upon us.
I woke up by about 5.30 a.m, very excited.
Pradeep had not informed us about the specific train he was travelling by, but the earliest train from Chennai arrives at Bangalore City Station around 5.30-6.00 a.m. So I thought Pradeep and Aparna would be home by 6.30 or 7.00.
So I was lazing about in the living room, having my coffee, reading the morning paper, expecting them to land up any moment.
7.00…8.00…9.00…9.30..no sign of the duo.
I sent Pradeep an SMS to know his whereabouts. Not that I was worried or anything but there had been some confusion about his ticket being till Cantonment Station and not City Station. Or had the auto-guy taken them for a ride of the not-desirable-but-not-entirely-rule-outable types?
No response.
I sent an SMS to Aparna.
No response.
I began pacing up and down my living room, a bit like Ashok Kumar pacing up and down, outside a maternity ward, waiting to hear news of Nirupa Roy’s delivery.
Then, finally, a phone call.
“Rajaji, we are at your place”. It was Aparna.
“Great! I’ll just come downstairs and meet you”.
“We are outside your door”.
My flat doesn’t have a name/number plate yet (some things are still work-in-progress), so P&A weren’t absolutely sure it was my place. Anyway, I opened the door – and there they were. I don’t remember the time but it must have been about 10.00.
Pradeep explained that there had been a bit of a delay at the station (City) because of their waiting for each other at different exit points. Sounded a bit to me like a scene out of a Manmohan Desai movie. 🙂
Anyway, it was no big deal – the important thing was they were here. But they’d already had breakfast! Pradeep had wanted to try out Bangalore thindi (breakfast), so they’d stopped at a place and had it first, before proceeding to my place.
My sis was all set for making masala dosa, waiting only to make the dosa straight off the tawa. Graciously (and also to give me company), P&A agreed to have a second round of breakfast.
I then got a demo of Yippee. Thanks to the tagging, it is very easy now to get a specific subset of songs based on any of the many filters we can work with. We did a test – Binaca Geetmala songs with lyrics by Sahir.
Pradeep then got busy copying Yippee data onto the pen drive provided by Aparna. The idea is to circulate this amongst Atulites.
We’d planned earlier itself to connect with other Atulites via Skype or Google Hangout. Although we were waiting for Peevisie’s Mom and Peevisie to join us, we thought we should at least inform the others of the planned session, so that they could prepare accordingly.
Pradeep therefore sent out a whatsapp message to the group – we waited for responses.
In the meantime, Peevesie’s Mom and Peevesie (PvM&Pv) also landed up. It was wonderful to see them – suddenly we felt there was more “raunaq” in the room. (More on “raunaq” later).
We all got chatting – clearly everybody was excited. Although this was the first time we were meeting each other, it felt like we’d known each other for years. One of the best things was that there was absolutely no formality of any sort. (In fact, I had insisted in an e-mail beforehand that there shouldn’t be any formality, everybody should feel at home. “Apna hi ghar samjho” feeling 🙂 ).
Obviously our talk was mostly about the blog. About other Atulites, about the projects going on at the moment. It was amazing to see the level of passion everybody has about the blog.
We then realized we better start our Hangout because it was getting late in the US (West Coast) even if it was broad daylight in India. And our first Hangouter was to be none other than Khyatiji (or Khyatiben as she is to many of us).
It was just so wonderful to see Khyatiben on the Hangout! For me, it was the first time I was interacting with her other than on the blog. And what fun it was! Khyatiben is known by Atulites for her sharp sense of humour and she certainly did not disappoint us that day. Although it was late in the night in the US, she was sharp as ever. Or, as she said, her husband being away in hospital, might have helped. (In fact, when she said “He is in hospital”, I was initially alarmed. It took me a while to realize that he was there, not as patient, but as doctor. 🙂 ).
Somehow, discussing songs, we started Antakshari. Since none of us has any claims to being Rafisaab or Lata Mangeshkar, everybody was relaxed. While the Antakshari was on, we decided to contact our second Hangouter.
This was none other than Sudhirji.
There is something about Sudhirji’s presence (even if only e-presence) that is remarkably soothing. Just as in the case of Khyatiben, this was my first interaction with Sudhirji outside the blog/e-mails to-and-fro. I was thrilled to have him join us.
Now that the Antakshari was in full swing, there was no way Sudhirji could have escaped joining in. Not that he didn’t try. But we would not be deprived. Khyatiben, in her inimitable style, managed to persuade him with a classic “Arrey, humko tamatar thode hi padne waala hai. We are at a safe distance”.
Sudhirji then tried to rope in Atul but he was travelling and had a bad connection. (Or so, he said. Maybe he’d got wind of the Antakshari going on. 🙂 )
Sudhirji then tried to get Arunji on the Gangout. After a while, he logged in – and we were all tremendously excited. For me, again, this was the first time I was interacting with Arunji outside the blog/e-mails.
Sadly Arunji’s connection on the Hangout kept failing. Initially we had some issues with the audio (we could hear his voice, he couldn’t hear ours) but later on even the connection kept failing. Or so, he said. Strangely, this seemed to happen the moment I would request him to sing a song on Antakshari.
For Arunji, or Arunopedia as he should be better known, obviously, we have higher standards. So we (or rather, I) requested him to sing specific songs of specific years. As if on cue, immediately we lost the connection with him.
This happened a few times. Everytime I’d request him to sing a song, his connection would drop. This prompted Khyatiben to tell me “Rajaji, ab aap door hi rahiye”. 🙂 Sadly, though Arunji kept trying, we could not manage to have his presence on a sustained basis during the Gangout. Khair, phir kabhi!
The Antakshari was fun – I kept getting “Ra”. I sang “Raha gardishon mein har dum”, “Rang aur noor ki baaraat” and “Rukh se zara naqaab”. All Rafisaab songs. Then I realised there was one Rafisaab “Ra” song I really wanted to sing – it is one of my favourites. But I didn’t get “Ra” after that! Finally, after some “manipulation”, I got a chance to sing with “Ra” again – and I got to sing “Roshan tumhi se duniya, raunaq tum hi jahaan ki”. Was very happy – such are the small pleasures of life. 🙂 ”
Anyway, after some Antakshari, it was lunchtime here in India. Sudhirji was fasting but the rest of us went ahead with lunch. Although it was very late for Khyatiben in the US – and she had to get up early the next day – she was still nice enough to wait for us to return from lunch.
In the meantime, Pradeep had invited one of his local friends to join us for the Gangout. The more the merrier, of course – so we were happy to welcome her too. She also joined in the singing and fun.
After a while, it was time to say good night to Khyatiben. We wished it could have been longer but it was really late by then in LA. And anyway, how much time is time enough on such occasions? We could have gone on and on..
The rest of us did.
Pradeep had come up with a game for the occasion. He would play a short clip of a song (from the middle) and we had to guess the song.
Very soon, it became clear to all of us that there were two levels – Peevesie’s Mom and Sudhirji were Test cricketers, the rest of us were Ranji level. 🙂 I was just amazed at how sharp these two were. Sudhirji was obviously listening to the song from a distance, so that came with a natural disadavantage. And Peevesie’s Mom – wow! I could only sit back and admire her knowledge of entire songs, not just the odd line here or there.
Now a bit about Peevesie’s Mom and Peevesie herself.
Between them, and maybe with a bit of help from Arunji for pre-1947 songs, I think they have the entire gamut of songs covered in the history of Hindi cinema. If there’s a competition of sorts, these three in one team, should win it hands down. 🙂
What impressed me very much – and took me totally by surprise – was how much Peevesie’s Mom knew of “modern” songs. I did expect her to know songs of an earlier era, but she traverses eras so effortlessly, that one moment, she is singing a 1950s song, the next moment, it’s a 2014 song. And not just well-known songs. She seems to be up-to-date on the latest Bollywood releases (and even films not yet released).
For this, maybe some of the credit must go to Peevesie.
Now Peevesie, as we all know from her songs posted here, is very well aware of recent songs. But, just I was surprised by her mom’s knowledge of modern songs, I was pleasantly surprised by Peevesie’s knowledge of old songs. Or maybe, like she said, her mom would get more upset by her not recognizing an old song playing on the radio, than by her not doing well in one subject at school. :- ) And, if I understand correctly, her grandfather himself used to watch movies every single Saturday and Sunday, and has seen every movie from 1950 to, about 1990. First day, first show.
Clearly this has rubbed off, on the next generation(s). 🙂
Anyway, back to the events of the day.
After the Antakshari, we continued to chat for a while, discussing the blog most of the time. Pradeep and Aparna continued with their copying of songs. After some time, Pradeep’s friend had to leave.
Then, after a while, Peevesie’s Mom and Peevesie also had to leave. They had some shopping to do in Commercial Street.
That left us with Pradeep and Aparna. And of course, Sudhirji on Gangout.
The four of us continued discussing music. Songs, composers, lyricists. From Ravi to Shankar Jaikishen. Here, I have to appreciate and admire Sudhirji’s patience in staying with us on the Gangout for so long. It could not have been easy, following a conversation remotely for so long. Especially when that conversation is often chaotic. The Hangouter often feels he or she is missing out on something.
Anyway, after a lovely chat in which I did most of the talking, while the others listened :-), it was time to call it a day. I think the time must have been around 7.00 p.m or so. After saying good bye to Sudhirji, Pradeep and I decided to drop off Aparna at the bus stop for her to take a bus. Pradeep had a late bus back to Chennai.
As it turned out, we waited for a long time at the bus stop – but no bus. Ok, there were a few buses to other places but not a single bus to Aparna’s destination.
Since Pradeep had to go to the KSRTC bus terminal anyway later that evening for his bus, he offered to drop Aparna off by auto and then go on from there. His stuff was still at my place, so we all returned home, had a quick dinner – and then the two of them left.
And thus ended a memorable ASAD Gangout.
P.S: I haven’t said much about Aparna but it was really nice to have her at the Gangout. Compared to the rest of us, she is definitely the quieter sort. 🙂 . On the day, she came across as somebody who is a good listener, but doesn’t talk very much herself. Or maybe she wasn’t given much of a chance. 🙂
All in all, it was a fundoo fun-day Sunday. So much warmth, no formality…my thanks to all those who participated, in some form or the other.
Conclusion: We definitely need to do this again. 🙂
With that, this 3-part ASAD Gangout in Bangalore series comes to an end. Am sorry that Part-3 took so much time to materialize. I had to write it in parts – which is not my usual style. Usually when I start something, I finish it in one shot.
So, to round up this discussion of Gangout in Bangalore, here is a rollicking song from “Satte Pe Satta” (1982). This song is sung by Kishore Kumar, R D Burman, Bhupinder Singh, Sapan Chakravorty and others and the song is picturised on Amitabh Bachchan and others playing the seven brothers. Gulshan Bawra is the lyricist. Music is composed by R D Burman.
Audio
Video
Song-Hey zindagi mil ke bitaayenge (Satte Pe Satta)(1982) Singers-Kishore Kumar, Bhupinder Singh, R D Burman, Sapan Chakravorty, Lyrics-Gulshan Baawra, MD-R D Burman
Chorus
Lyrics
hey zindagi mil ke bitaayenge
haaley dil
gaa ke sunaayenge
hum to saat rang hain
ye jahaan rangeen banaayenge
zindagi mil ke bitaayenge,
haaley dil ga ke sunayenge
hum to saat rang hai,
ye jahaan rangeen banaayenge
sargam humse baney
naghme humse jawaan,
jhoome aasmaan
hum hi to duniya ke saat ajoobe hain
humse hai jahaan
sargam humse baney,
naghme humse jawaan
jhoome aasmaan
are hum hi to duniya ke saat ajoobe hain
humse hai jahaan
dooba dooba
dooba dooba
dooba dooba
hey
zindagi milke bitayenge,
ho o
haale dil ga ke sunayenge
hum to saat rang hai,
ye jahaan rangeen banaayenge
khushiyaan baantenge hum
har gham mil ke sahen
phir kyun aansoo bahen
arre banke sahaara ek dooje ka
yoonhi chalte rahen
khushiyaan baantenge hum
har gham mil ke sahen
phir kyun aansoo bahen
ban ke sahaara ek dooje ka
yoon hi chalte rahen aen
dooba dooba
dooba dooba
dooba dooba
hey
zindagi mil ke bitaayenge
haal e dil gaa ke sunaayenge
ham to saat rang hain
ye jahaan rangeen banayenge
heyheyhey
zindagi milke bitaayenge,
haale dil ga ke sunayenge
hum to saat rang hai,
ye jahaan rangeen banaayenge
hey ae ae
14 Responses to "Hey zindagi mil ke bitaayenge"
October 17, 2014 at 11:01 pm
EXCELLENT post!
Such fun to read all this. Glad you people had a whale of a time.
What an apt song to go with the post, Atul.
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October 18, 2014 at 6:52 am
Totally re-lived the Gangout day reading the write up. Thank you Raja ji :). Mahesh ji, thank you for a very apt song recommendation :).
Now we should start planning for the next, and even bigger Gangout :).
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October 18, 2014 at 7:41 am
WOW! Raja Ji, what a zabardast end to the Gangout!! As I have said earlier, I sure do envy you guys!
Hum saath saath milke rahenge;
Hum saath saath khush rahenge:
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October 18, 2014 at 9:01 am
Rajaji,
I bet you were more happier to see Pradeepji and Archanaji at your door than Ashok Kumar looking at his on screen babies in the maternity ward. 😆
Nice write up and good selection of songs by our own Mahesh Mamadapurji.
Regards
Khyati
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October 18, 2014 at 9:03 am
Thanks Raja for the bulletin. Great fun and fabulous show-sha party. Instead of playing Antakshri each one should be allowed to sing a song(half or full) of his/her choice one after another. This way there is no restriction of any syllable and everybody is forced to sing.
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October 18, 2014 at 10:54 am
Raja ji,
Thanks for your final installment of the story of Gangout. You write so wonderfully that even the ordinary becomes special and after all our Gangout was anyway Special already,you took it to a high level.
I enjoyed reading about the participants’ view about my ‘On and Off’ being there. It was indeed a hilarious situation when I used to disappear once the request for singing came. There must be someone in MTNL who had suffered from my ” Singing” in the past and wanted to spare you all from it !
I wish to be physically present next time and show you my ” singing prowess”. Dont blame me afterwards.
Thanks once again for a fabulous series on the Gangout. I actually enjoyed reading it more than being there in bits and pieces.
-AD
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October 18, 2014 at 11:30 am
Raja ji
Enjoyed every bit of your post, I felt like I am there with the GANG enjoying the experience., But I missed the morning “MASALE DOSE” part very much 🙂 (:
Regards
Prakash
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October 19, 2014 at 5:26 pm
Hullo PCji
you cud have atleast made a try to get to Bangalore
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October 18, 2014 at 7:20 pm
What a wonderful idea — the Gangout. Let us plan it more often. let Atulji be the chief guest. And let it be held in all major cities by rotation. When it comes to Kalkata, I will be willing to host it.
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October 19, 2014 at 5:25 pm
ok so mr. Vijay Guptaji is from Kolkatta.. So @arunkumar deshmukhji there is on person from the east
Zindagi Milke bitaane ke liye
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October 19, 2014 at 5:31 pm
Rajaji
Aap toh humien chaane ke jhaad pe chadaa rahe ho. (that is a very bambaiya language) i used to think of myself as a “SURMA” before i encountered Arunkumarji and Sudhirji. now i know where i stand.—next to Aparnaji when the 2 greats are on
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October 19, 2014 at 7:38 pm
Thanks to everybody for appreciating this series of posts on the Gangout. It was a lot of fun writing it – after all, the event itself was a lot of fun.
Next time, we need to have more participants. The more the merrier. Ideally physically present, but if not possible, at least on the hangout.
I feel there is a multiplier effect of each additional participant. 🙂
Khyatiben, you are right – I was absolutely thrilled to see Pradeep and Aparna at my door. Ok, so Pradeep isn’t a jogi, so there was no chance of “tere dwaar khada ek jogi” , but that moment was special, no doubt. 🙂
Nitinji, you are absolutely right – it is fun if each person is allowed to sing a song (or part of a song) of his/her choice. No restrictions. After all, the idea is just to enjoy, not really a competition or anything. 🙂
Arunji, agli baad ye “disappearing act” nahin chalega. We will either have you present in person, or make sure the connection is already working fine. 🙂
Vijay Kumar Guptaji, nice idea to have the Gangout in rotation. This was just a start. Am hoping to see many more Gangouts. 🙂
Prakashji, if you had been present, you could also have enjoyed the Masala Dose. Anyway, you should definitely try to make it for the next time. 🙂
Peevisie’s Mom, arrey, chane ke jhaad pe isliye bithaaya ki aapki wo aukaat hai, na. 🙂 Hum aise hi thode na bol rahe hain. 🙂
Avinashji, Satyajitji, thandapani – ye to shuruaat hai. Hopefully there will be more Gangouts where we will get to meet up.
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
October 17, 2014 at 11:01 pm
Was eagerly waiting for this and what a lovely, energetic, exciting and interesting ‘gang out’ details… Thanks a lot Raja Saab !!
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