Gateway House’s long time home at Cecil Court, an art deco building in Mumbai’s Colaba heritage district, held many delights, and much history. Among them was an elegant gentleman with a ready smile and a velvet voice.
Ameen Sayani, for many decades India’s most favourite and recognised voice on the radio, had his studio on the second floor. For nearly 50 years, Mr. Sayani, The Indian Broadcaster as his website calls him, worked out of that wood-paneled studio, with its equipment intact and functional.[1] He came to the office every day, with much work to do and many visitors and admirers to meet. We met him often, and during the pre-Zoom years, he let us use his studio to record our interviews with smart geopolitical minds.
He delighted in Gateway House’s work. We felt the presence of the great Bombaywallahs and nation-builders who were housed at Cecil Court: Ismail Merchant the film maker on the first floor, Ameen Sayani the voice of Indian radio on the second floor, industrialist and philanthropist Keshub Mahindra’s trusts on the third floor.
Ameen Sayani became popular in post-Partition India by communicating in the bridge language of the old India and the new: Hindustani, a mix between Urdu and Hindi, also the link language of an emerging Bollywood. Sayani brought Indian film songs to the audience. All India Radio (AIR), a conservative place, didn’t like “courtesan singers … entering Broadcasting House, the headquarters of AIR [and] also stopped broadcasting Hindi film music, deemed not refined enough for the Indian public,” says Conoor Thadani-Kripalani, a scholar on AIR.[2] Ameen Sayani, who hosted the hugely popular Binaca Hit Parade, would have none of it. He moved to Radio Ceylon in 1952 – and “immediately, listeners shifted loyalty.” AIR had to launch a new channel in 1957 – with Ameen Sayani and his popular film music. Indian listeners were reunited with their dost, their best friend, Ameen.
Over the years, Ameen Sayani expanded his repertoire to advertising and jingles – who could resist that voice, that affectionate dosti? We too, at Gateway House, were in thrall to his voice, his warmth and his gentlemanly ways. We shared with him, the mission of nation-building. We resided in the same building, and belonged to the same cosmos.
Ameen Sayani died on 21st February, 2024. He will be so missed. An era passes, but his voice resonates forever.
Manjeet Kripalani is the Executive Director, Gateway House.
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References
[1] https://www.ameensayani.com/contact.html
[2] https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/building-nationhood-through-broadcast-media-in-postcolonial-india/