‘Sisters and brothers’: Ameen Sayani, India’s subversive ‘king of radio’

Sayani, who outwitted a ban to nurture a love affair between Bollywood songs and millions of listeners, passed away this week.

New Delhi, India — For three generations of Indians, Bollywood and radio meant one name: Ameen Sayani. On Tuesday, the voice that entered the homes of hundreds of millions of people fell silent one final time.

Sayani, who began his career in the early 1950s with a weekly countdown show of Bollywood songs and dominated India’s airwaves for more than six decades, passed away in Mumbai following a cardiac arrest. He was 91.

To his audience, he was much more than a presenter – blessed with a warm, kind voice, he cultivated a joyous, inimitable style of broadcasting that conjured the image of a sincere friend speaking directly to each listener through their radio set. A friend who built a cult following that knew no generation gap and that nurtured a love affair between Bollywood songs and his listeners.

His original radio show, Binaca Geetmala, ran for 42 years, made several lyricists, composers and singers household names and even saved many films from oblivion.

“Radio was king in those days and he was the king of kings,” Anurag Chaturvedi, journalist and author, who knew Sayani well, told Al Jazeera.

Over a career that spanned much of independent India’s journey, Sayani recorded at least 50,000 radio programmes, lent his voice to 19,000 jingles, hosted TV shows, and did voiceovers and cameos in some Bollywood films, often as a radio presenter.

“If you see our radio history from 1927, the year radio was incorporated in India, till today, there’s only one voice, one name that is remembered – Ameen Sayani. He was a superstar, his voice was like a gift from heaven,” Pavan Jha, a musicologist, told Al