Excellent, engaging, nostalgic…

I can't find the words to describe the Flashback series on
VividhBharti-Pune. The series ended last Sunday with a `Thanks
giving' episode. From late June [25th I believe] till the last Sunday
[12th November], it lasted for 21 weeks with no breaks in between. It
was an amazing journey that narrated the history of Hindi films with
the help of Hindi film music. For last 21 weeks, my Sunday mornings
were spent blissfully either thinking about what I am about to listen
or reveling in the beauty of the songs I heard during the program.

What set this series apart was the immense research work done to
produce such a series and the efforts put in to collect the rarest of
rare songs. This was quite evident in the program and was confirmed
in the last episode that turned out to be kind of `making of…'
episode.

Most of the music directors, film makers, directors, singers, and
poets/song writers have their own place in Hindi film history. Some
of them are still shining brightly even though their careers have
ended decades ago. Any program with these stalwarts and their
creations will be good if not excellent. But what made this series
special was not the songs [not the poetry nor music], but the
commentary that accompanied the great work. All credit goes to Ms.
Prabha Joshi's style of simple narration and her ability to recreate
the situation surrounding song perfectly. Number of small snippets
about the great personalities and the talented artists sprinkled
throughout the program made the program unforgettable.

Another thing I liked was the focus on music directors. Even though
the composers and singers were given due credit, it was the music
directors that were the center of attention. The difference in their
styles of composing, their ability to tackle different song
situations, use of different musical instruments, orchestration,
everything was explained beautifully and in simple style.

One striking feature of this program was minimal commercials. I don't
know how VividhBharti achieved it in an era where commercials
dominate any program on Network television. I would like to applaud
VividhBharti for that.

Before this program, I had just heard about certain songs, singers
and music directors. But here, I had the pleasure of listening to
those songs.

Atul.