Why a book on music...

It has been a journey of 23 years now that I have been doing musical nites. Am thankful to God That I got an opportunity to perform with popular banners like Zankar, Babla, Gunjan, Beatles, Golden Star, Starnite and many more. Barring two auditoriums in mumbai I have performed at all of them. There have been instances when I have done 3 shows in the same theatre on the same day or three shows at different places on the same day.  I did enjoy  the challenge of reaching various places in time though most of them use to be closely located. It was great fun.

Since the past five years I have floated a group KHUMAAR that renders old hindi film songs. Have made the product interesting by having segments like Solos, Duets, Classical songs,Quawwalis, Sufi etc.  The attendants have been corporate bigwigs. Most of them have been extremely passionate about music and do understand even classical music - Ragas, Sur and Taan. They loved the show exceeding its limit of 3 hours and always desire for more.

I thought of a concept why not a book on music whereby all the CEO's and M.D.'s will contribute in the form of an article on their favourite playback singer, Lyricst and Music Directror. I will do my bit and lend a different element to the book. Thus I thought of KHUMAAR as the title since it is my established brand and KHUMAAR does imply intoxication so the reader should feel musically intoxicated when he or she will read the book. Moreover this book will be launched on Friday 19th April, 2012 at my musical nite KHUMAAR scheduled at the Savarkar Hall, Shivaji Park at 5.30 pm.

Today I have more than 37 articles and some of the formidable names who have written wonderful pieces for my book are Piyush Pandey, Pradeep Guha , Bharat Dhabolkar, Ayaz Memon, M.G.Parameswaran, Nagesh Alai, Madhukar Sabnavis, Apurva Purohit, Paritosh Joshi, Priti Nair, CVL Srinivas, Subhash Kamath, Ashwin Deo,Hemant Kenkre, Ajay Kakkar, Ajay Chandwani, Charulata, Gokul Krishnamurthy, Narendra Kusnur, Rajiv Vijayakar, Chaitnya Padukone (D.S.Phalke award winner in journalism) Nandkishore Desai, Madan Sanglikar, Arjit Ray, Andee Hyderabadi, Dipen Sheth.

The team is a fine blend of those who have achieved greatness and some who are inching closer to it.

Not many who have been working with them must have known the fact that besides being a success story and a task master at the work place the big man is also a music enthusiast who knows the nuances of the subject very well. In a way their insights will present that side of the person which is hitherto not quite known. It is always the lesser known side of a famous person that people find more interesting. Some of them however are already into music in a big way.

Am sure you will get engrossed reading the articles and find my effort worthwhile. | By Bipin R Pandit