When a toothpaste company's program of film songs influenced Azad Bharat

- Amin Sayani used to work 12 hours a day. His wife Rama and trained staff help him in the work. He could not even meet his family members during the week.

It was the beginning of the winter of 1952. The executives of a top advertising company were planning a show of Hindi film songs on Radio Ceylon for their client. These assets of his were mainly famous in India for their chemical and pharma production. But more than that he was famous for his ordinary toothpaste.

At that time, a show of English songs presented by Hamid Sayani on Radio Ceylon was popular. Now the ad company was eager to capture the Hindi market considering the popularity of Hindi film songs.

Amin Sayani, considered the king of radio management, says that any writer or manager who is offered to do the research, script and presentation needed to deliver a hit show will get Rs. 25 per week was not willing to work. This amount was considered insignificant even then. But Hamidbhai insisted me to do the show and then the journey of the extremely popular show Binaka Geet Mala began. From 1986 Binaka Geet Mala was known as Sibaka Geet Mala.

Amin Sayani, who graduated from St. Xavier's College and was 20 years old at the time, started working on this hit show with all his heart and Geetmala easily became popular, crossing the lines of caste, religion.

In the 1950s, All India Radio banned cinema songs, alleging that they would corrupt the youth. Hence listeners were hungry for Hindi songs and loved Sayani's simple Hindi style program in Gitmala. Sayani's words Sartaj and Paydan for song sequences also became popular among the people.

Amin Sayani's first show with seven songs was released on December 3, 1952. Within a year, Sayani's Colaba office received 65,000 letters every week. Thereafter the number of songs was reduced from seven to sixteen.

A tape was sent to Colombo the following Saturday for the show to be released every Wednesday. Amin Sayani used to work 12 hours a day. His wife Rama and trained staff help him in the work. He could not even meet other family members during the week. He was always busy in the studio. In 1989, Sayani shifted the show to All India Radio's popular music window, Vidhya Bharati.

Sayani kept changing the format of the show so that its popularity continued to grow. Initially, songs were listed based on record sales through music stores.

Weekly sales reports were called from major record sellers across the country to bring transparency in song selection. During the first two decades, Naushad Ali, C Ramachandra, Hemant Kumar, Roshan and Madan Mohan continued to feature in the weekly hit parade.

The 60s belonged to Shankar-Jaikishan, OP Nair and SD Burman and then Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Kalyanji-Anandji and RD Burman took their place.

Pyarelal of the famous Laxmikant-Pyarelal Beldi said that both Laxmibhai and I were staunch devotees of Binaka Geetmala. When we were struggling in the recording studios in Mumbai, we too used to dream that our songs too would one day top Binaka Geet Maala.

However, with the introduction of private TV channels from the 70s and the declining standard of film songs, Geet Maala's luster also faded. According to experts, the poor reception of Radio Ceylon was the main reason that caused the network to backfire.

Amin Sayani currently occupies himself with writing and reading in his comfortable New Marine Lines apartment. This great radio broadcaster is writing his memoirs. Of course even at that time the song is constantly echoing on his lips.