Guest Authors

The Sculptors of Film Songs (10): Van Shipley

Van Shipley December 21, 2023

Guest article by Piyush M Pandya (Gujarati original) and Ashok M Vaishnav (English translation) (Van Shipley earned acclaim for his proficiency in violin and guitar, and he brought out many independent albums of tunes of film songs on these instruments. As such, he was among the well known arrangers and musicians. Yet there is no […]

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The Sculptors of Film Songs (9): Dattaram

Dattaram November 30, 2023

Guest authors Piyush M Pandya (Gujarati) and Ashok M Vaishnav (English translation) (The most prominent identity of Dattaram is as long-time assistant of Shankar-Jaikishan. He later started giving music independently, but he continued his association with S-J. Thus in public mind when one thought of Dattaram, one thought of Shankar-Jaikishan, even though Dattaram had composed […]

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The Sculptors of Film Songs (8): Ramlal

Ramlal October 30, 2023

Guest article by Piyush M Pandya (Gujarati original) and Ashok M Vaishnav (English translation) (We all know Ramlal as the music director of V Shantaram’s films ‘Sehra’ and ‘Geet Gaya Pattharon Ne’. We also generally know that he was an ace shehnai player having been associated with Ustad Bismillah Khan. But we hardly know that […]

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The Sculptors of Film Songs (7): V Balsara

V Balsara September 17, 2023

Guest article by Piyush M Pandya (Gujarati original) & Ashok M Vaishnav (English translation) (V Balsara was an extremely talented musician encompassing proficiency in all the links in the vertical chain of producing music – instrumentalist to arranger to music director. He was a master of many instruments. He was also a rare exception for […]

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The Sculptors of Film Songs (6): S Hazara Singh

Thumbnail image for The Sculptors of Film Songs (6): S Hazara Singh August 9, 2023

Guest Article by Piyush M Pandya (Gujarati original) & Ashok M Vaishnav (English Translation) (Continuing their series on the Arrangers and Musicians our guest authors Piyush M Pandya (Gujarati) and Ashok M Vaishnav (English translation) now write on S Hazara Singh who played several instruments, but became a legend with Hawaiian guitar. His Hawaiian guitar […]

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The Sculptors of Film Songs (5): Manohari Singh

Manohari Singh July 13, 2023

Guest article by Piyush M Pandya (Gujarati) and Ashok M Vaishnav (English translation) as a tribute to the legendary saxophone player Manohari Singh on his 13th Remembrance Day (Our immortal songs are memorable not only because of the melody created by the music director, but also because of the preludes, interludes, the musicians who played […]

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Love Counsellors in Bollywood

Mohabbat ki rahon mein June 30, 2023

Guest article by Anita Rupavataram (There is no upper age limit for falling in love. As our octogenarian love guru, DP Rangan, has explained in his recent series of articles, love entails going through different phases: ecstasy, agony, flippancy, and finally when the things go wrong, shikwa/shikayat. This has led to a mushroom growth of […]

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Shikwa in Bollywood

Na shikwa hai koi June 19, 2023

Guest article by DP Rangan (Our love guru DP Rangan, after exploring the ecstacy, agony and flippant sides of love, now explores another common aspect shikwa/shikayat, or ‘complaint’, ‘grievance’. Nay, Mr Rangan explains in the introductory lines that shikwa/shikayat is universal to human nature in all social interactions. The 84-year young Mr Rangan is a […]

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The Sculptors of Film Songs (4): Kishore Desai

Kishore Desai with his mandolin May 28, 2023

Guest article by Piyush M Pandya (Gujarati) and Ashok M Vaishnav (English translation) (Our guest authors Piyush M Pandya and Ashok M Vaishnav have been writing an excellent series on the Arrangers and Musicians for the last few months in which they have already covered three of the most celebrated names: Sebastian D’Souza, Anthony Gonsalves […]

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Ballads of Love: Flippant

Thumbnail image for Ballads of Love: Flippant May 18, 2023

Guest article by DP Rangan completing his Trilogy of Love (Our octogenarian guest author, DP Rangan, surely has great experience in ‘Love’. This is an evidence that age is not just a number, but wisdom and knowledge. After his previous two articles on the ‘Ecstasy’ and ‘Agony’ aspects of love, he concludes his trilogy with […]

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