Behno aor bhaiyo, let us celebrate, Ameen Sayani has just turned 90! Today is his 90th birthday. When you are 90, you have seen it all, been there, done that. But the spark is still present, and he has been recording advertisements and content well into his 80s. As can be expected, health is an issue, and assignments have gradually come down to a trickle in the last decade. Not many wanted a man in his 80s as the voice of a product, service or film. But it is amazing that the assignments h...

Aamir, Nasir, Tahir, Tariq, Mansoor, Amjad: Movies, Masti, Modernity, Flashback 10: Aamir To remind you, Aamir is indeed Aamir Khan, Amjad is definitely Gabbar Singh, and the triple M above is to acknowledge that it was Akshay Manwani’s biographical book on the cinema of Nasir Hussain that got me delving into the period of about 15 years, when I interacted with the Hussain Khans (first five) and the bare Khan (last, but the most imposing personality). Actually, Mansoor did not use his m...

Siraj Syed reviews Biddu’s autobiography, Made in India: Lone Trojan’s Adventures of a Lifetime That life-time has now seen 72 summers. Karnataka-born world musician Biddu Appaiah, with Coorgi nativity, has chased his recent summers from London, to Spain, to Mumbai to Goa, every year. For one who strongly believes that musicians should retire at 65, including greats like Paul McCartney, he has just about lived up to his conviction. The only creative work he has done in the last se...

Ameen Sayani and the film Geetmala: Standing tall "Every stage singer is a mimic,” said Ameen Sayani ‘clone’ Sagar Sayani to me, in the green room, “and imitates legendary film song singers, Mohammed Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Manna Dey, Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle or Geeta Dutt. So what’s wrong if I imitate the compère, the very man who introduced us to these original singers, on radio and on stage, for 65 years?” Lead singer and ad-libber Gaurav Ba...