Aa Laut ke aaja mere : Manhar Majithia

' Life is half spent before we know, what it is '
There are two types of people in this world. Catagory no.1 live life, by the external forces and category no.2 live their life with internal forces and enjoy every bit of it..
There are people, who have the daring to explore and experiment new things, at any age.
There can not be a better example than our Dear Manhar Majithia . I still remember his first day with a Hero brand harmonica, then chromatic, and today with a diatonic.
He is the person, who would always take up the challenges despite of his age and health related problems.
He used to play the SIONARA song in the public performances, meaning he was given the last chance.
One day I just asked him to prepare a good number and play with little more breath control. Today he is in the list of top ten !!!
We really congratulate him for his sincerity, hard work and making all the efforts to live every moment of his life

A date with Madan Kumar's pupils

Mouth organ maestro Madan Kumar wants to devote the rest of his life to teaching this wonderful musical instrument, which is fast becoming extinct, to the next generation. Ever since he closed down his recording studio about four years ago, he has been teaching young music enthusiasts. This is more out of passion and as a mission to popularize mouth organ among the young people than for monetary considerations.

I had been wanting to meet Madan Kumar's pupils for quite some time now. I met three of them at a popular pub-cum-disc in Pune recently. Pub owner Ramesh Khole, his chief chef Mushtaq Pathan and Meera Patole, three of Madan Kumar's disciples took some time off their busy schedule to meet me. Since it was a week day and that too early in the morning, there were not many guests in the pub.

Ramesh told his disc jockey to shut the music system so that we could have some quiet and peace. I was keen to record at least one number each of Madan Kumar's pupils before the lunch crowd started trooping into the pub. All three of them agreed. Here are the numbers:

Man who plays semi classical songs..Mukul Dutta

Recently I came in contact with Mukul Dutta, a hardcore harmonica player. He plays more than 80 semi classical songs. He has promised us to provide his recordings for the benefit of all the visitors of this blog.

Here is a small introduction, in his own words

Dear Mr. Bhatt,

Thanks for your reply and suggestions. Right now I don't have any CD of mine but I will try to send my photo for your site. But as you said I am giving some details of myself and my association with Harmonica.

Way back in 1962 when my father died. I was 4 years old and I had to go to Motihari (Bihar) with my mother and sister where my grand pa was working as a Mechanical Engineer in Sugar mill there. I am an emotional person and very much attracted to music of any kind from childhood. My grand pa was also a fine Violin player. May be this is the reason I started playing the toy harmonica in 1962 gifted by my grand ma.

Motihari is a very small town and our residence was surrounded by farming land and villages. I used to roam around in farm fields playing my little harmonica in free times. Time passed by and grand pa retired in 1967 and we came back to our own residence in Allahabad. In the mean time I continued playing local made harmonicas.

It was during college period in 1979 I got one Hohner chromatic harmonica (made in Germany) from a friend of mine who stayed in Kualalampur (Malesiya). At present I have one Larry Adler-16 and a Super-64 Chromonica (Hohner made) harmonicas. They are fine instruments. I have nearly 80 semi classical old hindi film songs in my play list. I practice them as well as try to play some classicals also.

I listen mostly Western classical/semi classical songs and Hindi & Bengali semi classicals. My most favourite Western singers are Barbara Striesand & Neil Diamond and Indian singers are Lata Ji ,Asha Ji & Rafi Ji.

I am going to be 53 years in the coming November 8th of this year and working in a private organisation as P.A. to Director. We are three in my family i.e. wife, one son & me. Son is a 3rd year student of Mechanical Engineer.