Songs of Yore Anniversaries

Songs of Yore completes 16 years

It is customary to add ‘sweet’ before 16. That is how the hosts of the social game Tambola/Housie describe this number in their sing-song style. How sweet was SOY’s 16th year, or did it simply clock another year? The judgement rests with the readers, for me it was a pleasant experience.

As the readers are now aware, the blog was born on 7th June, therefore, its anniversary spans two calendar years. However, for some years, I have been dedicating the year to a music personality – generally from beginning of the calendar year to its end. 2025 happened to be celebrated as the year of RD Burman. I find there has been a dozen articles on him, some contributed by the guest authors, Ashok M Vaishnav and Dr Rajesh Deshpande. For SOY, which had a pronounced bias towards golden and vintage era music, this did seem to be an overkill. But there was also a revelation that RD Burman had a lot of fans, even among the lovers of old melody.READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Songs of Yore completes 15 years.

Fifteen has a nice ring to it. However, the beginning of the 15th year gave me a little concern. With the introduction of a new law in place of the Indian Penal Code, Taazirat-e-Hind Dafa 302 in our court room movies would be a thing of the past. Because there would be no Taazirat-e-Hind on the statutes. And there would be no Dafa 302, or maqtool’s body being dragged in the court or tumbling out of a wardrobe door either. In those movies the hero, wrongly accused of Dafa 302, used to be acquitted on the basis of Tamaam gawaahon ke bayanat and Vakeele-e-safaai’s daleels, and Memberaan-e-Jury’s opinion. Also gone would be some cultural symbols and songs. However, our parliamentarians were not concerned with that. They were all concerned with protecting our Samvidhan – from the other side. We saw in the election campaign competitive ferocity to protect the Constitution. When the parliament convened, there was pandemonium to save the Constitution with everyone waving a copy of the Book. We saw the same ferocity to protect the Constitution by all the parties in some state elections. We must admire the voters that in this mayhem too they are able to elect a winner.

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Songs of Yore completes 14 years

When I started this blog I never imagined that it would go on for so long. And it is not just clocking year after year. Songs of Yore is perhaps the only place where you will find a comprehensive series on Arrangers and Musicians, the people who embellished the songs with various instrumental preludes, interludes and postludes, but who remained behind the curtain. The series started in January 2023 and after 14 articles has come to a close in April 2024. Our familiarity with names like Sebastian D’Souza, Van Shipley, Anthony Gonsalves, Goody Seervai, Manohari Singh etc. may not have been more than just knowing their names. The series helped us know more about them and also connect famous songs they were associated with. We can’t thank enough the guest authors Piyush M Pandya (Gujarati original) and Ashok M Vaishnav (English translation) who wrote the articles in the series. They so fittingly titled each article as “The Sculptors of Film Music”. Our indefatigable DP Rangan turned out a number of guest articles on a variety of themes. READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Songs of Yore completes 13 years

Today the Songs of Yore completes thirteen years. The last three years have brought great disruption in the world. In the years 2020 and 2021, the pandemic was on a rampage. The year gone by saw a debate whether Covid19 is gone or still around. Finally, the scientific opinion has veered around that this unwanted guest is now a part of our lives, with its virulence greatly mellowed down. Finally, everybody has started travelling and taking part in functions and get-togethers. I, too, had more than a fair share of travels, and family and friends’ functions and get-togethers that two years ago I would have declined without any hesitation.READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Songs of Yore completes twelve years

Songs of Yore_12 yearsIn normal times, completing twelve years of blogging would have been a matter of joy, and possibly a bit of crowing. That would look quite out of place in these unusual times. We thought that we would be getting some respite from Covid. But now there is a scare of the fourth wave hitting the country. It is clear by now, the scientists are as clueless as we all are. Otherwise, we would not have got conflicting signals: It would be very mild, it would be like any normal flu; Don’t take it lightly, it has mutated into extremely virulent variants, you have to continue following Covid-appropriate behaviour. Masking is the only remedy, make it a part of your life; masking creates a sense of fear. A friend tells me, forget everything, enjoy your normal life, अधिक से अधिक क्या होगा, मर जाओगे, in the long run we are all dead. But I am not in a hurry to reach there.

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Songs of Yore completes eleven years

Songs of Yore_11 years

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,…. it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” Charles Dickens started his “A Tale of Two Cities” with these lines. If we look at the last two months, this has been a period of unmitigated darkness, the winder of irredeemable despair. In fact, the eleventh year of the SOY began in a state of Lockdown, but then it was a piece of statistics for us, these things do not happen to us. The recent second wave has been ferocious beyond imagination, and there is hardly anyone who is unaffected by it.

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Ten years of Songs of Yore

SoY Ten YearsWhen I started blogging a new buzzword had just come into vogue: Vision 2020. We all – whether in public, private or non-profit sectors – were rushing in and out of seminars, workshops and breakout rooms, to prepare a Vision 2020 document for our organisations in nice spiral-bound volumes containing Mission Statement, Vision Statement, Objectives, Tasks, Values, Weights and Weighted Scores. All this was Greek and Latin to me, I still don’t know whether Mission Statement came first or Vision Statement, and why. I was equally clueless about blogging, least of all how long it would last and what shape it would take. SoY completes ten years today and, coincidentally, we are in the year 2020. Even if I had attempted a Vision 2020 document for SoY, letting my imagination soar as in those documents, writing the most grandiose goals, I would not have been able to visualise what the blog is today.

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Songs of Yore completes nine years

Songs of Yore Ninth AnniversaryAfter about the fifth year, I have been approaching each anniversary of the Songs of Yore with some apprehension whether it has been able to hold the readers’ interest and maintain quality. As I look back on the ninth year completing today, I am quite satisfied, and a great deal of the credit goes to the readers who have continued to participate with high-quality comments. Some readers have taken the trouble of writing guest articles which have significantly enhanced the blog. I owe my heartfelt thanks to all the readers.

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Songs of Yore completes eight years

Songs of Yore eigth anniversaryOn the eighth anniversary of Songs of Yore, I am going to break an unwritten code I have tried to follow – keeping private and public apart. I have met SoY regulars in the NCR from time to time, and also those living in other places during my travels to the cities where I knew an active member lived, but I have never mentioned these meetings. However, this year the meetings have been very special, and KS Bhatia has alluded to the get-together last month in his comments. This makes me overcome my reserve.

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Songs of Yore completes seven years

Celebrating with some newly discovered gems and a tribute to Master Madan

Songs of Yore Seventh anniversaryWhen I wrote on the sixth anniversary, I had been concerned by Gaddeswarupji’s ominous statistics that many promising blogs start losing steam in the sixth year. Seven years is ripe age for a blog. This is the stage when, I guess, a blogger starts thinking whether he/she is able to keep the readers still interested, or is doing more of the same. I believe SoY has been able to do more of different things. We are getting new readers, we also get to know of many who follow the blog regularly, though they may not be participating. A highlight has been the arrival of two new guest authors: Ravindra Kelkar and Ashwin Bhandarkar. Mr Kelkar had already made a mark as an OP Nayyar-expert. He filled up an important gap in SoY as I could not have given him the profile commensurate with his fan following. Ashwin is a Master with a light touch. Readers can expect many more offerings from them.

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