An evening of melody laced with nostalgia

Madhapur: Sunday evening at 6 pm was the starting point of a three-hour music programme which had a unique potpourri of both vocal music and audio-visual clips. 31 songs, sung by 11 singers, drawn from various backgrounds and professions, from a retired teacher to a IT sector executive at one end and media and training professionals at the other made the team of Dakshin Dhwani, an interesting mix of old Hindi film music enthusiasts.

Titled ‘ Ek Akela Is Shehar Mein’ the programme began sharply at the appointed time and ran for more than 200 minutes with a delightful combo of music and moving images, drawn from films released as early as 1946 – K L Saigal’s Shahjehan in which he sang the haunting number

 ‘ Jab Dil Hi Toot Gaya’ to the flicks of the 1980s in which one saw Anil Kapoor groove with Amrita Singh in the hummable track  ‘Yaar Bina chain Kaha Rey…’ 
“The idea was to honour the greats who were born and who died in the month of January, our continuing tradition of running a series called Monthly Movie Memories’ informed Mudit Kapoor, a young enthusiast and an avid Kishore Kumar fan. 

Having belted out four numbers of the maverick genius, Kapoor listed out the 17 names who were as diverse as O P Nayyar at one end and the relatively lesser known Naqsh Lyallpuri, the lyricist who gave immortal hits.

The audience, who were clearly enjoying the delectable mix of activities were treated to a good mix of male and female voices who sang songs of R D Burman and Shankar- Jaikishan with equal gusto. The years covered were from 1946-1994, which clearly indicates the range that the city based group of enthusiasts dared to take up and ultimately execute it successfully.