How Ameen Sayani’s voice and show went viral in the days of radio

The man who ruled the air waves

Ameen Sayani’s passing away on February 20 at the age of 91 brought the usual flood of reminiscences on social media accompanied by the mandatory easily digestible little packages of compilations of songs from Binaca Geetmala. As with all social media, there is a kernel of truth in the fluff and it is fitting that a tribute to Sayani should be in the form of a musical countdown of popular Hindi film music.

The legendary radio broadcaster, despite doing a bunch of other stuff, including acting in movies such as Bhoot Bungla and Teen Devian (as an announcer), is practically synonymous with ‘Binaca Geetmala’. Incidentally, that is one marketing wizard, who hit the jackpot tying the toothpaste to the countdown show.

Everyone has their particular Geetmala (garland of songs) memory whether it was painstakingly keeping a record of the songs every week in the back pages of an exercise book, or walking home down a dimly lit village lane. It would take three songs to cover the 15-minute distance and hearing the song from the radios from the shops on either side of the lane gave one a rudimentary sense of surround sound!

Thursdays (the Geetmala aired on Wednesdays at 8 p.m.) was a time to compare notes where everyone bought out their lists and jumped for joy or were crushed by disappointment depending on whether the favourite continued to reign or was toppled by a usurper.

The countdown show aired on Radio Ceylon, which has the British and World War II to thank for its existence, between 1952 and 1988, and on Vividh Bharati till 1994. When the Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, BV Keskar, banned Hindi film music from All India Radio on the grounds of it being vulgar and westernised, Radio Ceylon swooped in on the chance to fill the gap and reaped rich rewards. The ban underlined the debate of good versus popular as well as the Indian government’s nanny state proclivities.

Lists are irresistible—it helps us consume information easily, and the fact that we are proved right signals to our brain to give us a dopamine fix. ‘Binaca Geetmala’ did not start as a countdown show. In the beginning, according to Wikipedia, it was just seven popular Hindi songs in no particular order. It later morphed into a countdown show (the first countdown show of Hindi film songs).

In an interview Sayani said the popularity was decided upon by the number of records sold. Listeners clubs were set up, to send in their top ten songs of the week. As the show became exponentially popular, it was looked upon as a barometer of success. This proved problematic for some composers, Sayani said, as they felt their careers were affected by the ratings. After running the show without ratings for a year, an ombudsman was appointed to ensure there was no bias.