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Blog Day :

5435

Post No. :

17823

It was somewhere in the middle of may 2023 (17 may 2023, to be exact) that plans to have a meeting of blog regulars at Mumbai began to be explored. The idea began to take shape when Sudir jee, alongwith Bakshish Singh jee planned to visit Mumbai for one week towards the end of May till first week of June ( week beginning 29 may 2023 and ending on 4 June 2023).

The initial response was like we all will be busy in prior engagements towards the end of may, it is not the season to visit Mumbai etc. But after initial hiccups, things began to take shape. It was decided that 2 June 2023 would be a suitable date. Mumbai based regulars readily confirmed their availability on that date, except one who was not available at Mumbai on those dates. The messages were marked to other regulars spread over India as well. Avinash Scrapwala was always ready to join from Vadodara. Regulars based at Bangalore and nearby stated that they would be unable to join due to prior engagements.

Even I began to warm up to the idea. The only time I had joined a gangout at Mumbai was in December 2014. That meeting is still fresh in my mind, even though nearly nine years have passed after that meeting. During that meeting, I had the good fortune to meet lots and lots of Blog regulars. Mumbai regulars like M/s Sadanand Kamath, Nitin Shah, nahm had joined the meeting. Khyati Bhatt flew over from USA and was there in the meeting. Our youthful and energetic Bharat Upadhyay jee (sadly no longer with us) was there and he was one of the most enthusiastic organiser of that meet that took place in a Hotel not very far from the Mumbai airport. He had also invited a few HFM related stalwarts who were not our blog regulars. Legendary Mumbai based names like Nalin Shah and Suresh Chandvankar were invited by him and they joined the meeting. From Delhi, Sudhir jee and Ganti jee had joined. It was quite a gathering of HFM enthusiasts.

One Mumbai based regular who could not make it to the meeting at that time was our beloved inhouse encyclopaedia Mr Arunkumar Deshmukh as his wife had sadly passed away just prior to the scheduled meeting. After the gangout, those who were still at Mumbai went to see him. I had arrived at the meeting from Raipur (from an early morning flight) and I had to leave by an evening flight, so I could not meet him during that visit.

On many occasions, Arunkumar Deshmukh jee has expressed his fond hope that he would be able to meet me sometime in future. I too was just as eager to meet him.

This meeting afforded me the opportunity to meet him. That was one of the main reasons why I felt that I must attend this meeting. What is more, he was the host of this gangout at his residence !

I am based at Bhopal at present, which is well connected by air to Mumbai. Like the previous Mumbai Gangout, I wanted to be able to return back on the same day. Flight timings suited my plan. So I immediately booked an early morning flight from Bhopal to Mumbai that arrived Mumbai by 10:30, well before 11 AM, which was the scheduled time for the gangout to begin. I also booked the ticket for return flight, which was at 8:05 PM that arrived Bhopal at 9:30 PM.

Very next day, I got e mail message from the airways that my flight was rescheduled to 12:30 afternoon and would land at Mumbai at 2 PM. What a letdown ! I quickly cancelled that ticket and booked ticket for another flight. This flight left Bhopal at 10:35 AM and arrived Mumbai at 12 noon. From there to the venue of the meeting was about half an hour drive by cab. So I hoped to arrive by 12 :30, hopefully not missing much of the activity at the gangout.

As days passed, Mr Satish Shenoy, based at Bangalore confirmed that he too would attend the meeting. That made it three regulars that I would meet for the first time. Arun Jee, Shenoy jee, and Avinash Scrapwala. Avinash Scrapwala too was going to meet me and Sudhir Jee for the first time and he hoped to set a record of meeting the maximum number of blog regulars. 🙂

I had not informed my wife and daughter that I planned to visit Mumbai. I wanted to inform them just one day prior to my departure. They became aware as I tried to take printout of the boarding pass on the printer. My kitten saw a printer for the first time and she tried to find out how this device works. 🙂 When my daughter looked at the printout she enquired where I was going. I told her Mumbai. My wife, who overheard me, correctly guessed that it must be to meet my blog regulars. “you will go like this ? Quickly go out and get your haircut”- She ordered me. So I walked down the street to the nearby haircut saloon and got my haircut. She too had heard about Arun Jee. I had shown her books authored by him. So she was already much impressed. You are going to meet such a famous man and you are going empty handed, She chided me. Going empty handed and meeting blog regulars, that is how it has been with me all these years. But then I used to live alone those days. My wife was not there to take care of such fine details. My wife and daughter went out and picked what they considered an appropriate item to be carried with me at the meeting.

The flight was at 10:35. It meant I had to reach the airport by 8:30. I typically wake up at 4 AM in the morning and take my two dogs for their morning walk, one dog at a time. Their walk was over by 5 AM. In addition to being a dog walker, I am their chef too. Normally I get their meals ready by 8:30. On this date, I got their meals ready by 6:30, hoping that my wife/ daughter would feed the dogs in time in my absence. I was myself ready in all respects by 7 AM.

My wife had woken up early to prepare breakfast for me, but the daughter, who was supposed to drop me to the airport (11 km away) was a late riser. I wondered if she would wake up in time. Luckily she woke up early by her standards and I arrived the airport well in time.

Every airport is different form other airports and things work differently in all airports. So it is always better to arrive early at an airport that is new for one. Bhopal airport is new for me. I have gone there a few times to drop my daughter or to pick her up, but it was for the first time that I was going there to catch a flight. I found Bhopal airport building quite a small building that had just four or five gates. In contrast, Mumbai or Delhi have different terminals, and each terminal has say one hundred gates or so. Some gates (half of them) in Bhopal have aprons too, which means passengers can directly board the aircraft or deplane the aircraft via the apron, instead of being carried to the plane or to the terminal via buses. In some airports they simply walk upto the plane from the terminal or get down from the plane and go to the terminal (as in Gorakhpur 🙂 ) .

I make it a point to take a window seat so that I could watch outside from the window. I watch as the aircraft taxies on the airport and reaches to the edge of the runway. After the plane reaches the end of the runway, the plane starts running on the track picking up speed and finally the plane takes off. In a matter of seconds, the plane is way above in the sky and structures on the ground start looking like small specks. I try to identify structures like road, railway lines, rivers etc. It helps if you know the route the plane flies over. They you can try to identify landmarks visible undeneath. I had not done any such prior research this time so I was not able to identify any landmarks as the plane flew towards Mumbai.

With a flight just over one hour, you do not have to wait much. The airhostess starts distributing eatables. She would have barely served four rows of passengers when announcement is made that the aircraft is reaching Mumbai. I wonder why these aircrafts distribute foodstuff on such small duration flights, when they do not have enough time to carry out this task fully.

Watching the plane land on the aircraft is another interesting process as far as I am concerned. The structures on ground, including even the airport looks so small from above. It comes as a great relief when the aircraft actually lands where it is supposed to land and then actually ends up at just the gate where it is scheduled to stop. The apron is connected to the plane and the passengers troop out. I had made it a point to have just a hand bag and no checked in baggage, so all I had to to was to come out of the airport.

Coming out of the airport is one thing, you also need to go to your destination. I am a novice when it comes to booking vehicles on Ola, Uber etc. Mr Arunkumar Deshmukh had sent me (and others) whatsapp message inviting us to his place. That message contained the address of his residence. My daughter, who spent four years in Mumbai doing her MBBS, is an expert in such matters. I had whatsapped this message to her and asked her to book a cab for me. After I landed, I asked her to book the cab. She asked me what terminal I was at. I was in terminal one, which is smaller than terminal two (or so it seemed to me). She booked an Ola cab and messaged the details to me. In a matter of minutes, I found the cab bearing just the registration number as in my message turning up exactly where I stood. I am used to long waits for cabs elsewhere, so getting a cab so fast was quite a pleasant surprise for me. I boarded the cab, gave the driver the OTP and I was on my way. While on the way, I checked up the blog. I found that Sudhir Jee had commented on my post for the day, where he had mentioned that Peevesie’s mom too was going to attend the gang out. That came as a pleasant surprise. It meant I was going to meet not three, but four blog regulars for the first time. Soon, the number would swell even more, as Peevesie and her husband too would join later in the afternoon.

The cab reached a place and the driver stopped. He asked me whether this was where I had to go. How could I know ? I told him that I would find out for myself and told him that he may go. I entered a side lane. When I looked back from where I came, I saw a 16 storey building across the road . Arun Jee had mentioned that his building was opposite a 16 storey building called Avinash. When I looked at that building, it was indeed named Avinash. I crossed the road, entered the gate and asked the watchman guarding Avinash where was the building called “Jyoti Apartments”. He pointed me out towards the building directly across the road (from where I had just come by crossing the road). I could see JYOTI written on that building. So I went back across the road and entered the gate. While entering, I could see A , B, C written on different portions of the building. I asked the watchman where was B 13. He informed me that it was on the first floor on the B wing. I went there, climbed up to the first floor and found a door. Before I could think of how to get the door opened, the door opened and I found Arun Jee standing there. He had watched me arriving from the window. On the right side room, I saw a gathering of all the regulars. Arun Jee was one person I met for the first time, Peevesie’s mom (unexpectedly pleasant surprise), Satish Shenoy jee and Avinash Scrapwala were the other “new” persons I met for the first time. Sudher jee, Bakshish Jee, Sadanand Kamanth jee, and Nitin Shah jee, whom I have met in the past, were also there. Then there was a Mumbai based person Subhash jee, who I guess was an acquaintance of Bakshish Jee, and he was an extremely knowledgeable person about HFM, just like Bakshish jee.

One can say that some seriously knowledgeable HFM lovers were gathered together in that one room. That room incidentally had hosted many more HFM related people in the past. I was quite familiar with this room, as Arun Jee had shared his photographs with fellow HFM lovers and experts, or relatives of all HFM related artists, taken in that room.

While we discussed all sorts of matters, including HFM, a few photographs got clicked and shared on our whatsapp group. Some people who had not joined the meeting offered their remarks on these photographs.

Prima facie, our talks would look like small chit chat. But some of the discussion that took place would be considered stuff of breaking news in the field of HFM, and also in some other fields. For example, Sudhir Jee, on a query whether we will run out of songs after 25000 songs, stated that the list of songs that are contained in HFGK were based on the information available at that time. Many more recordings of songs, in HFM as well as NFS, are becoming available that are not yet available online. (They are available with Sudhir Jee, of course. 🙂 )

While discussing other matters, I stated that I used to bathe in Ganga jal and drink Ganga jal, when I stayed at Jamalpur, but I became aware of this fact much later. As it is, Jamalpur got Ganga water from 15 KM long pipeline that brought Ganga river water from Munger. In response, Sudhir jee informed us that when Lutyen’s New Delhi was established, it got its water supply not from River Yamuna that flows in Delhi, but pure Ganga water from the hills of Uttarakhand through upper Ganga canal. It turns out that Sudhir jee’s colony too gets this water. So Sudhir jee has been drinking ganga jal and bathing in it since his childhood. 🙂

While on the matters of HFM, Sudhir Jee gifted me an external hard drive containing all the 17800 songs that have been covered in the blog. This drive contains all the version of the songs, including multiple versions. So the actual number of songs in the disk is more than 27000 !

While all this discussion was going on, lunch time was announced by Arun Jee. Arun jee had singlehandedly prepared a sumptuous lunch for all of us that contained a variety of dishes. I eat sparingly, but even I can tell that the food was quite tasty. I especially like aamras and the dahi, both made by Arun Jee himself.

In the afternoon, Peevesie and her husband arrived. So we had the good fortune of meeting as many as three members of Peevesie’s household. Only two members, viz her father and her brother were missing, else the entire family would have been present. By the way, even Peevesie’s father has a post in the blog.

While most of us are movie lovers, Peevesie and her husband are actually into film making. So we do have a fim maker among us. Peevesie is a costume designer while her husband is a photography enthusiast. He took a few nice group photograph of all of us.

Satish Shenoy jee had flown out from Bangalore and his return flight was at 7 PM or so. At 4 PM, he booked a cab for himself and announced that his cab was arriving in three minutes time. So he took leaves of us and was on his way to the airport. My flight was one hour later. Unlike Shenoy jee, I was a novice when it came to booking a cab, so I whatsapped my daughter asking her to book a cab for me from my present location to Terminal 2. I hoped that the cab would turn up after say ten minutes or so, but immediately message flashed on my mobile that the cab would arrive in one minute. So I hurriedly bid farewell to all the participants. I came down, along with Sudhie jee and Avinash jee, who came down to see me off. Soon enough, a cab arrived at just the location it was supposed to arrive. I boarded the cab and I left for the airport.

It was such a nice and memorable meeting. I had hoped to meet four new people. I ended up meeting twice that number. Plus I met four old acquaintances. I was carrying sweet memories of the meeting with me that would last me a long time. I was feeling very happy with the world.

I arrived at terminal 2. It is Mumbai airport’s domestic as well as international terminal. It is quite vast, and at the same time, things there are quite automated, which was not the case nine years ago, when I had gone back from the same airport terminal after the previous gang out in 2014. One needed to arrive at the airport well in advancce if one was new to it. There are so many gates. But before that , one needed to find out your gate by going to your airways counter. After knowing the gate number, you needed to find how to go in. The first hurdle is the security check for you as well as your luggage. Which queue to join ? It turns out that you could join any queue of your choice. After successfully negotiating the security check, you, alongwith your belonging, had to go past doors that opened when you scanned the QR code of your boarding pass. The gate would then open automatically, allowing you to pass. This feature was not there the last time I boarded a flight from Mumbai. Mumbai airport has clearly been following the best practices that are being followed elsewhere. Just imagine how fast and painless it becomes for the passengers when we use technology.

After entering into the area that contains gates, there are miles upon miles to walk before you reach your gate. It turned out that gates of a few flights were changing slightly, and my flight was also one whose gate changed a bit. Moreover, the flight was late. By the time I boarded it and it left, the flight was already one hour late. But surprisingly, it was announced that the flight time was just one hour. So it meant that the flight would arrive Bhopal by 10 PM. And that is what happened. Coming out with just a hand bag, and quickly out of the exit, I found my wife was looking out for me. I entered the vehicle, driven by the daughter and we were home by around 10:45 PM.
The dogs were happy to see me. I would take them for their evening walk at 6 PM. It turned out that neither my wife nor daughter had bothered to take them for their evening walks. So I took them for their evening walk, some five hours late, and they went out happily with me.

By the time I fell asleep, it was already midnight. I had a sound and happy sleep. But as always, I woke up at 4 AM ext morning to take the dogs for their morning walk.

I felt sleepy throughout the next day and the blog saw just one post for the day. Next day I began to write (type) about my visit to Mumbai, so that I could get it published by monday morning. I am waiting for others too to write about this meeting, but surprisingly, no article had arrived in my mail till then. May be they will start coming in after my post appears.

On this occasion, I have picked a cute motor gaadi song. In olden days, road vehicles were called Motor or motor gaadi. People were used to bullock carts or horse driven carts. Driving these vehicles meant urging the animal to move faster. This was गाडी हाँकना . The lady in the song considers a motor gaadi to be similar to a bail gaadi that is runs by the process of हाँकना. To the lady and her sahelis, a driver is a “dalaiver”.

These days, if you are going to meet someone, you would want the driver to drive faster. But in olden days, people including ladies would have an opposite request. They would want the driver to drive slow. Reason, either their dupatta or chunri is threatening to fly away, or, as in this case, “doley hai manwa”.

This cute song is from “Dil Ki Basti”(1949).

“Dil Ki Basti”(1949) was produced by S M Yusuf and directed by Wahid Qureshi for Aaina Pictures, Bombay. The movie had Nigar Sultana, Masood, Yashodhara Katju, Amar, Mirza Musharraf, Urmila, Tewari, Ramlal, Ismail, Lalita Pawar etc in it.

“Dil Ki Basti”(1949) had nine songs in it. Eight songs have been covered in the past.

Here is this ninth and final song from the movie. This song is sung by Zohrabai Ambalewaali and female chorus. Nazim Panipati is the lyricist. Music is composed by Ghulam Mohammad.

With this song, all the songs of “Dil Ki Basti”(1949) are covered in the blog. The movie thus koins the list of movies that have been YIPPEED in the blog.

Song-Motor hauley hauley haank dalaiver (Dil Ki Basti)(1949) Singer-Zohrabai Ambalewali,Lyrics–Nazim Panipati, MD-Ghulam Mohammad
Female chorus

Lyrics(Provided by Prakashchandra)

motor hauley haulye haank dalaiver
doley hai manwaa
doley hai manwaa kisee ka doley hai manwaa
kisee ka doley hai manwaa
motor hauley hauley haank dalaiver
doley hai manwaa

motor waaley kee matwaalee ee
jhooth-moothh sharmaaye
motor waaley kee matwaalee ee jhooth-moothh sharmaaye
man mein laddoo phoot rahey hain
oopar se ghabraaye
jo kuchch man ke andar bhed chhupaa hai
kholey hai manwaa
doley hai manwaa kisee ka doley hai manwaa
kisee kaa doley hai manwaa
motor hauley hauley haank dalaiver
doley hai manwaa

bhaiyya driver ek passinger chori chori taakey ae
bhaiyya driver ek passenger chori chori taakey ae
mukh se ghoonghat udd udd jaaye
dekhey hain sharmaake
apney man ko man ke saath
sakhee ree doley hai manwaa
doley hai manwaa kisee kaa doley hai manwaa
kisee kaa doley hai manwaa
motor hauley hauley haank dalaaiver
doley hai manwaa

bhaiyya driver teri motor
pharr pharr kartee jaaye aey ae
hho pharr pharr karthee jaaye aey ae
oo oo ooo
ooo oooo ooo oo ooo
bhaiyya driver teri motor
pharr pharr karthee jaaye aey ae
hho pharr pharr karthee jaaye aey ae
badaa majaa ho aisey mein petrole khatham ho jaaye
badaa majaa ho aisey mein petrol khatham ho jaaye
chhup chhup ankhiyaan dekh rahee hai
pee ko /dekho/?? boley hai manwaa
doley hai manwaa kisee kaa doley hai manwaa
kisee kaa doley hai manwaa
motor hauley hauley haank dalaiver
doley hai manwaa