Ameen Sayani was the town crier for millions. He took Bollywood music to rural India

For millions of Indians, Sayani was the voice of Bollywood and the popular show, ‘Binaca Geetmala’. His trademark greeting, ‘behno aur bhaiyo’ quickly became iconic.

Radio broadcaster Ameen Sayani | YouTube/Doordarshan Sahyadri

In 1990, India’s iconic radio broadcaster Ameen Sayani travelled to London to record a programme for the South Asian diaspora. Upon arriving at the radio station, he was shocked to hear a show featuring his voice. The station had already hired an impersonator who mimicked Sayani’s style. When he approached the staff, they immediately recognised him but refused to let him record.

“We could not have afforded you, so we hired a cheap Ameen Sayani who could copy you,” they explained. Stunned, Sayani left the station without recording anything.

“This was the level of popularity he had. He created clones in India and abroad,” Pervaiz Alam, BBC journalist and close friend of Sayani, told ThePrint.

For millions of Indians, Sayani was the voice of Bollywood and the popular show, Binaca Geetmala. The weekly countdown of the top Hindi movie songs was first broadcast on Radio Ceylon (1952-1988), and then to All India Radio (AIR) till 1994. From 2000 to 2003 the show aired as Colgate Cibaca Geetmala.

Sayani’s trademark greeting, “behno aur bhaiyo (sisters and brothers)”, quickly became iconic.

Legacy of Geetmala

As the leading presenter of his time, Sayani played a pivotal role in popularising radio in India. His voice was a window to Bollywood music, especially in small towns and villages.

In cities like Mumbai and even Delhi, people had access to clubs, jazz shows, and poetry readers—all catering to the upper class. However, in smaller, dusty towns like Bulandshahr and Ghaziabad, there was little for the common people to enjoy. Sayani was their town crier.

Born on 21 December 1932 in Mumbai, Sayani was drawn to arts and humanities. His big break came in 1952 when he started hosting Binaca Geetmala on Radio Ceylon, one of the oldest radio stations in Asia, located in Sri Lanka.

This was the time when AIR had stopped airing Bollywood music as it was thought to be too Western. Radio Ceylon, therefore, became the primary source of Hindi film songs in India.

Binaca Geetmala, which started as a half-hour segment, expanded to an hour. In its first week, Sayani received close to 6,000 letters. The show then was changed from a seven-song format, based on audience ranking, to a hit parade format in 1954. By the 1970s, the show had become a weekly ritual for millions of listeners across India.

It led to the formation of Geetmala clubs or radio-listener clubs, where listeners would keep a list of all the songs. There were around 500 clubs during the show’s peak years, between the 1950s and 1970s. They gave fans a way to share their love for the music and connect with each other, even in the most remote parts of India.

“Aligarh in the ’70s was at the centre of riots and clashes. Geetmala was our refuge. As soon as we tuned in, we would forget all about the outside world. It was like going to a concert,” Alam recalled.

What remains mostly unknown is that Alam, who was then working with BBC London and was a theatre director as well, once wrote a play on Sayani. The play, Zahoor ka Hotel, was staged in London’s Waterman’s Arts Centre in 2005. The play was based on the Aligarh of the ’70s and Sayani’s show.

“When I told Sayani about the play, he recorded a special show just for the play, recreating the aura and the era of the ’70s and even sent it to me in London, via courier. He did not charge a penny for the show,” Alam said.

Emergency years

During the Emergency, Indira Gandhi wanted Kishore Kumar to sing praises for the government in a show. Kumar refused and his defiance led to a “cultural standoff”. The Information and Broadcasting Ministry banned his songs from AIR and Doordarshan for three months.

The censorship hit private shows like Binaca Geetmala as well. Listeners began to notice Kumar’s songs vanishing from the countdowns. The show’s success relied on its connection to public taste, which was ruled by Kishore Kumar then.

In 2024, Union home minister Amit Shah referenced this incident during a Rajya Sabha debate to highlight the extent of government overreach during the Emergency. “I used to listen to Binaca Geetmala, but it suddenly stopped during the Emergency. My neighbour told me that Kishore Kumar had a fallout with Indira Gandhi, which led her to ban his songs from being aired. As a result, for 19 months, the public heard duet songs of Lata Mangeshkar and Kishore Kumar in only Lata ji’s voice,” Shah said.

It was only because of Sayani that the show endured the political standoff—his influence never faded. Even as satellite television emerged in the 1990s, and Binaca Geetmala ended in 1994, Sayani remained active as a radio jockey across various platforms in India and abroad.

His only disciple, film critic Siraj Syed, remembered him as a perfectionist who valued simplicity in language.

In 1973, Raj Kapoor asked Sayani to create a radio advertising campaign for the film Bobby, starring Rishi Kapoor and Dimple Kapadia. As part of the campaign, Sayani decided to create a weekly radio show inspired by the film. He cast Syed in the role of Rishi Kapoor.

Bobby, the radio show, was an instant hit and 21-year-old Syed was soon receiving fan mails. “My role even won second place in the first edition of the Radio and TV Practitioner’s Association [RAPA] awards. The first place was, of course, reserved for Sayani sahab, the legend,” he said.

A fair man, lenient parent

Sayani died on 20 February 2024 after a cardiac arrest. He was 91 years old and was working on his autobiography, which his son Rajil has taken up since.

“I hope to complete the book by the end of the year,” Rajil said. He recalled that while his father was often busy, the family would spend the weekends together.

Rajil remembers his father as a fair man and a lenient parent.

“He never scolded, always explained. His long-term thinking often proved correct,” Rajil added.

Alam recalls his last meeting with Sayani, just two months before his passing, during which he recorded an exclusive interview with the presenter. Alam plans to release this interview along with Sayani’s biography, as a tribute to his lasting legacy.

“I remember Sayani as an icon, a pioneer, who made radio hugely popular in India. The one actor, presenter, anchor, who was the sole catalyst for radio’s legacy and took it to the top.”

(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)