Jumri Telaiya in Jharkhand have a large number of All India Radio followers who send song requests to the radio station. It was here, when I was on an assignment, a few years ago that I came across Ameen Sayani.He was part of the town’s lore. When one Rameshwarprasad Barnwal, who was of a mining family, sent a postcard to Radio Ceylon, his name got mentioned in Ameen Sayani’s Binaca Geetmala, its legendary programme of Hindi film songs in the ’50s. Thereafter everyone in the town wished to have their humble share of fame.Sayani passed away, aged 91 on Tuesday night in Mumbai after a heart attack. Born in Mumbai, the youngest of three brothers, his father Dr Janmohommed, a doctor, and mother Kulsum Sayani, was an editor of the magazine Rahber.Veteran Mumbai-based radio anchor Manohar Mahajan who was associated with Radio Ceylon for many years, says Sayani had all the qualities that were essential for a radio professional. Ameen Sayani began his stint with Radio Ceylon in 1951. “His throw of voice, his way of greeting an unseen audience; he had superb control over language; he had vocabulary and the pronounciation to go with it, he brought together all these and used it to great impact,” he says.Popular producer-anchor of Guftagoo, Irfan, who has been hosting live radio shows on FM for more than a decade interviewed Sayani for Doorsdarshan in 2005.What he remembers of him is Sayani being quite particular about the way he was being presented; he had an image and in some manner wanted to “control” it.“Where was he to sit, where was the interviewer to be seated, he wanted in a manner of speaking to control the set,” says Irfan.That said, there is no denying Sayani’s unique signature style, his language a mix of Hindi and Urdu, his constant attempt to connect with the audience in a popular idiom at a time when national broadcasters were Hindi or Urdu-centric.
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