Songs of Yore Anniversary

Celebrating with some discovered gems and a tribute to Vidya Nath Seth

I recall that on the fifth anniversary of SoY, Gaddeswarupji commented that many promising blogs start losing steam around the sixth year. The sixth year brought in some major constraints in my personal logistics. I had just taken up a new full-time assignment in a city about 1000 km from my settled home. Daunted by the hassles of packing and moving household effects, and going through the same in reverse after a couple of years, I preferred to live out of a suitcase in a guest house – sans internet. Which meant that when I touched base, about twice a month, I had to pray to God that the internet did not conk off, race like Usain Bolt to catch up with fellow bloggers and write some article banks. The wife dear was not amused to find the absentee husband glued to the computer, and my attempts to humour her with romantic dialogues of eternal love one has learnt from Yash Chopra films only infuriated her more.

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Celebrating with three triad songs

Today SoY completes three years. When I look back, it is not merely more of the same. To be sure, the frequency has increased from the preceding two years. Thirty-three posts in the year gone by, i.e. a post every 11 days, is far more than the preceding two years. But more important is the variety. With songs on themes like River, Naiya, Kinare, Jigar; personalities like Asit Baran, Mubarak Begum, Minoo Mumtaz, some potpourri like Wrap Up of Songs of 1955, Mahamoorkhon ke gaane, and historical-musical travelogue of Rangoon/Burma, I have indulged in my freewheeling wanderings. I have to admit, as I have said earlier, that there is an element of स्वान्तः सुखाय here, borne out of the fact that I am the host of the blog. But what is really gratifying is that a lot many people with tremendous amount of knowledge have joined me in sharing my delights.

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Today Songs of Yore completes two years. While the first year was somewhat tentative and kind of groping its way around, it has become surer of its steps in the second year. I have generally maintained a frequency of a post every two weeks. SoY has also become more interactive. The readers’ comments, views and observations have added a great deal to the blog. They have introduced us to several unknown or little known marvelous songs. Some novel ideas for themes have come from readers’ comments. One example is a string of posts on year wise survey of the best songs of pre-Filmfare Awards. The first post in the series for the year 1955 attracted a lively discussion. This itself gave another idea to write wrap up posts on different categories. I have done the first wrap up on the best male playback singer; three more are still to come.

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