नचिकेता देसाई बने सब बच्चो के दादाजी

पुरे भारत में नवरात्रि महोत्सव खूब धामधूम से मनाया जाता है। रात भर सभी लोग डंडिया और गरबा खेलते है।
एक रात मुझे उनकी सोसाइटी में जाने का मौका मिला। मैंने ड्रम्स पर हाथ साफ़ किया और उन्होंने अपनी अदा में हार्मोनिका बजा कर बच्चो से काफी डांस करवाया।
एक छोटी सी झलक......

mere sapno ki raani kab aayegi tu ????

Sunday the Funday, once again we were invited by the authoroties of Kankaria Lake. Nachiketa played a very famous song 'Mere sapno ki raani kab aayegi tu...'
It was a real fun and all the players went there with their family members.
The train which we see is the Bajpai Express imported from U.K.
Many queens wanted to get down but the train did not stop...!!
Anyway !!! next time...

The 3rd one Ye Dil na Hota Bechara : Nachiketa Desai

We call him ND, some call him Muneer Ahmed !!! He has a special skill to dominate the stage and capture the crowd.

Nind na muzko aaye : Nachiketa Desai

Nachiketa Desai has a unique style of presenting his songs. Most of us prefer listening to him. He is very strong in adding required feeling to the songs.

pyar diwana hota hai

I have been into Diwali vacation mood past couple of days. With nothing much to do on the work front, I took up harmonica and tried playing some long forgotten numbers that I used to play more than 30 years ago. Here is one such number:
Pyar Diwana Hota Hai, Mastana Hota hai

BACK IN ACTION : Nachiketa Desai

This is the first performance after 10 days of his open heart surgery. It is rightly said that ' Music is the divine source of energy '.... in any form.
Phoolon ke rang se

Gaadi Bula Rahi Hai : Apoorva Bhatt

People in Vadodara say That,Textile engineer Apoorva Bhatt got his first harmonica in the cradle !!!
Inspired by his father who used to play flute then, started playing harmonica at a very tender age, has trained more than a dozen professional players.
He played Gaadi Bula Rahi Hai in Ahmedabad, normally Rupesh whistels on harmonica for him but due to certain unavoidable circumstances he could not join the group and Amjadbhai performed without any practice.
This video gives the proper introduction of Apoorva Bhatt's calibre.

Some of my videos

Yeh Dil Na Hota Bechara



Tumhe Yaad Hoga Kabhi Hum Mile The


O Neend Na Mujhko Aaye


Tum Mile Raah Mein


Phoolon Ke Rang Se

Birthday Boy: Yogesh Bhatt

Manohar Vaidya and Yogesh Bhatt were the star performers at the musical evening held in Baroda on Saturday in memory of legendary Hindi film playback singer Mohammed Rafi. (photo by Manish Vaidya)


Principal Judge Industrial Courts, Gujarat, Yogesh Bhatt celebrated his 59th birthday in Baroda by playing 'Suhani Raat Dhal Chuki, Na Jaane Tum Kab Aoge' to a thunderous applause from the music afficianados. Members of the Harmonica Club of Gujarat wished him a long musical life at their Sunday gathering at the Satyam Mall. There was pastry, flower and music. Here are some photographs:


Say 'Cheese everybody': Standing L-R Nachiketa and Tapan. Sitting: Chandramohan Bahadkar, Piyush Pandya, Yogesh Bhatt, Manohar Vaidya, Manohar Majithia and Alex Lobo


Alex Lobo presents a bouquet to Yogesh Bhatt, while Manohar Majithia looks on.


Yogesh Bhatt hands over a piece of cake to Tapan Bhatt.


It's your turn Nachiketa, forget about diabetes.


Eat it Lobo, I'm not looking.


Kumar Pal Shah stuffs a piece of cake in the birthday boy's mouth.


Professor Piyush Pandya gets his share from the birthday boy.

I am the joint author now: Tapan Bhatt

Thank you Nachiketabhai for allowing me to manage the blog jointly. This is just a beginning to make the blog a community property. I hope gradually more members will start posting on this blog.

This is Camaraderie

The Harmonica Club of Gujarat has become an extended family for all its members. After performing in a public park, individual members have been inviting the rest to their homes.

The first to invite us was Prof. Piyush Pandya. We had a gala time at his place, playing mouth organ and being treated to tea, coffee and snacks. It was decided at this get together to go for formalizing the club into a trust and a registered society. Yogesh Bhatt, the principal judge of Industrial Courts, had already done the necessary ground work by preparing the draft of the proposed public trust.

The general body of the club unanimously elected Nachiketa Desai as the managing trustee and Tapan Bhatt as the secretary. The following were elected as the trustees:
1. Nachiketa Desai
2. Tapan Bhatt
3. Rohini A Jhala
4. Piyush Pandya
5. Manohar Vaidya
6. Paresh Bhatia
7. Bansi Gajjar

Registering a trust is a big hassle. For ordinary citizens it takes months. In Ahmedabad, on an average 5000 public trusts are registered every month. But not in our case, thanks to one of our members, who is a senior member of the judiciary. Yogesh Bhatt took the trouble of doing all the paper work and we could complete the process in just two days.

Yogesh Bhatt is so passionate about harmonica that he invited Nachiketa Desai and Manohar Vaidya to his home on a Saturday to practice with them. It was a day of marathon mouth organ playing - from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For Yogesh Bhatt playing on a chromatic instrument was a new experience. However, he is a fast learner, mainly because he has musical ears.

The very next day was a Sunday, the day the club members perform in a public park. This time it was at the Vastrapur Lake. After the performance, Purnendu Dave invited all of us to his home, which is walking distance from the lake, for a round of tea. We were not only treated to several rounds of tea there but we also played there for the benefit of the club's repository of video records. We will be putting up these videos on the blog soon.

Our next performance is going to be at a cancer hospital. The date is yet to be finalized.

Network Expands

Thanks to the live talk show on Radio Mirchi, many new members joined the Harmonica Club of Gujarat this Sunday morning at the Vastrapur Lake garden. It was heartening to note that among the new members were young boys and girls in their teens. While a couple of them played fairly well, some of them had come with the desire to learn from the senior players.

A few of the senior members played some very popular numbers from Hindi films of the 50s and 60s. Unfortunately, in the absence of club coordinator Tapan Bhatt, who usually records the event on his mobile phone, we could not capture the video and audio of today's rendition.

After everyone dispersed, Prof. Piyush Pandya, invited Manohar Vaidya and me to his home. The Pandya's are a musical family. Both his wife and mother are very good singers. After a sumptuous breakfast comprising of upama and tea, we requested Manohar Vaidya to play some old numbers. While the professor's seventy-year-old mother nodded her head in appreciation, his wife hummed along.

Interestingly, it was their common interest in music that brought the professor and his wife together before their marriage.

Indeed, music binds the souls.

Melody of Harmony

Most of them are so busy pursuing their respective profession and business that they have hardly any time to spend with their family.

There are three entrepreneurs whose manufacturing units, away from the city, require them to commute at least 100 km every day.

There is an orthopedic surgeon whose patients have to wait in queue to get his appointment. There is an honorable judge of the session court, a professor of microbiology and a teacher of physics and a couple of journalists. There are also a few who are leading a retired life.

All of them, however, have time for one common activity – to play harmonica every evening at a shopping mall in Ahmedabad. These amateur music aficionados are trying to revive interest among the younger generation in harmonica.

This handy, pocket-sized musical instrument, called harmonica or mouth organ, once ruled the hearts of millions of youth during the 1950s, 60s and even till the late 70s, with legendary Hindi film music directors such as S D Burman, his son R D Burman, O P Nayyar and Shankar Jaikishan making use of it to compose ever-green melodies.

“Unfortunately, like many musical instruments, mouth organ too is getting out of circulation due to the widespread use of electronic synthesizers which are capable of producing sound resembling almost any musical instrument. However, what these electronic gadgets cannot imitate is the human touch that is required to produce melodies on any of the wind or string instruments such as flute, saxophone, mouth organ, violin, guitar and sitar,” says Manohar Vaidya, who has been playing mouth organ for over 50 years, taking out time from his busy schedule as an official of an insurance company.

“Mouth organ was so popular those days that we used to have regular classes every Tuesday in our school in Mumbai where Mr. Firoze Damri used to teach us the instrument. This was in 1956-57 when I was studying at Queen Mary’s High School. There were 40 girls in our mouth organ class. Mr. Damri used to teach mouth organ in both boys and girls school in Mumbai, Pune and Panchgani,” recalls Mrs. Rohini Jhala nee Ruby Narotam.

“Today, many boys don’t even know how a harmonica looks like. The present craze is for electronic gadgets which can be operated with a keyboard producing sound of both percussion instrument and other melodious instruments. I always carry a harmonica in my purse and play it whenever I feel like playing. One day, I hope to teach my grandchildren how to play harmonica, which does not require any accompaniment to produce melodious numbers,” she says.

“I was lucky to have an encouraging father and a supportive husband who liked me playing mouth organ at social gatherings. During my school days, we used to take part in youth festivals and perform for the special youth programme of the All India Radio. After marriage, I used to play at the parties of the officers’ mess of the Indian Air Force in which my husband Wing Commander Ajitsinh Jhala was a fighter pilot,” she says with a glint in her eyes.

It was his desire to perform at his alma mater’s reunion function that made 44-year-old entrepreneur Tapan Bhatt, who undertakes major post construction projects across Gujarat, take up learning harmonica last year. So determined was he to realize his dream that Tapan attended classes in Ahmedabad and Vadodara and learned how to play harmonica in six months, just in time to perform at his college reunion in Puttaparti, Andhra Pradesh.

An engineer, Tapan was aided in his endeavour by Information Technology which he put to good use by downloading all necessary information about harmonica from the Internet. “It was through a discussion forum on a search engine and a social networking website that I came in contact with other harmonica players in Ahmedabad and we decided to meet,” recalls Tapan.

It was decided to meet on a Sunday at Parimal Garden, in the heart of the city, which is a popular public garden among morning walkers and joggers. Shedding all inhibitions, about a dozen amateur harmonica players performed at the garden, drawing big round of applause from the onlookers. Encouraged by the public response, the harmonica enthusiasts decided to perform at different public gardens of the city every Sunday morning.

These amateur players from diverse background have formed the Harmonica Club of Gujarat, with Tapan Bhatt as its coordinator. “The Harmonica Club of Gujarat is a not-for-profit organization with the objective of promoting this once-popular musical instrument. We plan to do charity shows for hospitals and orphanages. We have already received invitation from several social groups to perform at their gatherings,” says Tapan.

“I was glad to have come in contact with the Harmonica Club, about which I came to know from local newspapers. The Club has given me the opportunity to play my favourite musical instrument which I had picked up when I was a small kid,” says Devraj Hansdah, a 29-year-old petroleum engineer working with the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation. “I wish many more young people start playing this instrument which produces great melodious music,” he adds.

NACHIKETA DESAI

Down the memory lane

I was fascinated by harmonica since I was a little boy. My mother's uncles, P K Sen and K P Sen were great musicians who played piano, flute, guitar and harmonica. Their children - Patu Mama, Ishu Mama, Sumanta and Sumitra Mamas too played harmonica. However, none of them allowed me to touch their harmonicas then. I can now understand why they kept me away from their mouth organs. I would have spoiled the reeds of this delicate musical instrument by blowing recklessly.

So when my father went abroad for the first time, the only thing I asked him to bring for me was a mouth organ. My first harmonica was a 'Comet' from M HOHNER, Germany. I freaked out on the instrument, blowing and inhaling as I liked, at random. My parents said I made nice melodious sound. And, I believed them.

We didnt have a radio or a gramaphone those days. The only music I heard was when during family reunion all my uncles, aunts, cousins would break into Rabindra Sangeet, which never seemed to end. My maternal grandma too was a musician. She played Veena and was featured on the cover of 'The Illustrated Weekly of India'.

Unlike the present generation kids, who get over exposed to 'sound bytes' from TV, IPods, and a plethora of gadgets, I had the peace and tranquility to try out my own music. I dont remember which was the first song that I played on the harmonica. In all likelihood, it must have been a song composed by the great Poet Laureate Tagore.

We got our first radio - a gramophone-cum-radio - sometime around 1965-66. It was a small portable gadget from Grundig, Germany. Father was an ardent fan of K L Sehgal, Punkaj Mullick, Juthika Ray and the likes. Being a peace activist, he was a friend Paul Robson, Pete Seager and Joan Baez too. He would bring back long playing records of these spiritual singers. He also brought some records of the Beatles and the Ventures.

The radio brought Vividh Bharati and Radio Ceylone into our home. For the first time, I got exposed to popular Hindi film songs. In the meantime, I had learned by trial and error how to play mouth organ to bring out the desired notes. My friends would tell me to try play a particular Hindi film song and I would make a serious attempt. Today, I can say that I could not play these songs anywhere near their original tune.

It was in 1968 that Patu Mama visited us and he taught me vamping (using the tongue to produce a rhythmic sound). He also taught me how to play a few Hindi songs. I was so thrilled that I would spend hours playing the harmonica. Then came my cousin, Kabir, who was keen on playing guitar. I had a banjo which was converted into a guitar for him to practice.

Both of us would practice playing several popular Hindi film songs. And, the elders encouraged us. Soon, both started playing about a dozen songs fairly well. Kabir, elder to me by four years, was a student of the Banaras Engineering College of the Banaras Hindu University. The BHU and the BENCO had some good players of guitar, mouth organ, piano accordion and bongos. Because of Kabir, I was allowed to practice with the members of the BENCO band.

Since then, I have been learning and improving.

However, my marriage and taking up a career as a journalist did not give me much time to pursue my hobby. It was only in 2006, after a gap of more than 30 years, that I again picked up harmonica. My job had taken me to Bangalore where I lived alone and did not have any social circle. So, I began playing harmonica once again.

The forming of Harmonica Club of Gujarat has given me the reason and scope to take up harmonica on a more serious note. The excitement is similar to the one I had felt when I had got my first harmonica in 1958.

(All harmonica players are requested to share on this blog their personal tryst with this melodious instrument .)

Nachiketa Desai

Phoolon Ke Rang Se

Nachiketa Desai

Live on Radio Mirchi

Five members of the Harmonica Club of Gujarat were on a live talk show on the Radio Mirchi today, June 16 2008. The talk show began at 8 in the morning and continued till 11.

The most popular Radio Jockey, Dhvanit hosted the show. An amazing guy, handling at least three tasks single-handedly without losing his sense of humour.

All of us - Nachiketa Desai, Tapan Bhatt, Rohini Jhala, Paresh Bhatia and Manohar Vaidya - talked and played mouth organ.

Radio Mirchi studio was flooded with phone calls from listeners. We hope to get many more new members to the harmonica club when we meet next coming Sunday.

We will be posting the recording of the talk show on the blog as soon as we get the CD from Radio Mirchi.

In the meantime, enjoy the video recording of the songs done by our members during our first public performance.

Nachiketa Desai

Has been playing from the early boyhood, when he was gifted with a harmonica from his maternal uncle.Performed regularly at various functions during college days. However, discontinued from 1974 and has picked up only from last January. Plays Hindi film songs as well as western notes. A senior journalist by profession, currently works as special correspondent for Gujarat for Business India.