AMEEN SAYANI – THE KING OF ANNOUNCEMENT

In India, you cannot talk about radio without talking about Ameen Sayani, who made a place in the heart of almost every Indian through his melodious voice and unique presentation. His ‘Behno aur Bhaiyo (Sisters and Brothers) would hook the listener right from the first word.

Ameen Sayani was born on 21 December 1932, in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh. Ameen Sayani started his career as a Radio Announcer for the English Programmes on All India Radio (AIR) and was instrumental in popularizing the All India Radio through his voice.

Ameen Sayani’s first radio broadcast in Hindi was the “Binaca Geetmal” program, broadcasted by Radio Ceylon, which was a blockbuster hit throughout the entire Asian subcontinent. Even today he is the most imitated and respected announcer. The program was aired every Wednesday evening and it seemed as if the entire country had dialled into their radios to hear Ameen Sayani’s supreme tonal quality and voice.

Ameen Sayani has compered and hosted more than 54,000 radio programmes and 19,000 jingles/ads since 1951. This is a record that has not been broken to date. He has presided over 2000 functions in India in various genres.

Ameen Sayani’s mother, Kulsum Sayani (a freedom fighter and an extremely service oriented person) used to publish and print a fortnightly journal under the instructions of Mahatma Gandhi. Ameen Sayani used to help her edit the paper. Ameen Sayani credits the simple language used in the paper to create a feeling in him that simplicity is effective. This quality later helped him a lot when he used to announce on the radio in a simple language which could be understood by all and sundry. People loved his style and impeccable voice and not to mention his simplicity.

Ameen did the radio commentary and voice-over for the Filmfare Awards Documentary. He was such a hit that people would not realize that they were listening to him for hours.

A lesson for all as shared by Ameen Sayani is one should be aware of the situation and the requirement before promoting anything. He narrates one incident involving his close friend late Raj Kapoor. This was a time when he would see the movie first and then decide how to go about promoting it on the radio. Since “Mera Naam Joker” (the film Raj Kapoor was making) was still under production, he was just told that it will be a very big film and no stone should be left unturned to promote the film. Hearing the name of the film, Ameen Sayani thought it would be a film which would enthral the audience and leave them in splits. Assuming it to be a very energetic film he went on announcing it on the radio with gusto and enthusiasm and especially highlighting the name of the movie. In the back of his mind, he was under the impression that children would enjoy this film the most. Then once the film was ready, he was called for viewing it. While Ameen Sayani liked the film, he realised that the damage had been done. It was a melancholic film with lots of emotions and sentiments. It was not an entertaining film. Ameen Sayani felt he had misled the audience into believing the movie was a comical one. Whatever he thought, happened. The movie bombed at the box office and several people were heard saying that they thought it was a comical movie and hence they came with family and kids and it turned out to be a sad, sentimental movie about the pain of the man behind the circus.

He learnt a lesson from his mistake. A couple of years later Raj Kapoor would make another film called ‘Bobby’. Ameen Sayani made sure to first watch the movie and then accordingly promoted the film on the radio. The movie was a big success.

Ameen Sayani also use his mike skills to calm the audience. In one incident, legendary singers Mukesh and Mahendra Kapoor were to perform for a well-known organisation. Due to some reasons, a riot took place in the area and there was a lathi-charge by the police. Everyone thought that the show would be cancelled as the situation was getting out of control. Ameen Sayani then took the mike and spoke continuously for an hour to calm the audience. Eventually, he was able to calm them down and then the show could begin.

Ameen Sayani has always been a man of ethics and principles. During his famous radio program ‘Geetmala’, he would personally tally the requests that used to come for the song vs the actual song topping the list.  He once discovered some scam happening. He identified that many postcards carried the same song request. In the address section names of different cities like Benaras, Pune, and Kolhapur were mentioned but when he turned around the postcard, he found the stamp of Kalbadevi Post Office in Mumbai. This meant that all those requests were being sent from the same place but in the postcard, the name of the city was mentioned differently. If Ameen Sayani had not noticed this, many deserving songs and music directors would have not made it to the “Geetmala” list.

He was the first Indian to export Indian radio shows and commercials. He compered several shows directly for radio stations out of India.

In one of the interviews, Ameen Sayani shared an interesting incident involving superstar Amitabh Bachchan. Once Amitabh Bachchan was invited by Ameen Sayani as a chief guest for an award function on the RAPA (Radio and Television Advertising Practitioners Association). Amitabh Bachchan, in his speech, mentioned that during his initial struggling days, he had approached a commercial broadcasting firm a few times to audition for a newsreader. However, they were extremely busy and he did not find any luck there. That is how he became an actor instead of a broadcaster. Post the show Ameen Sayani tried to find out which broadcasting firm Amitabh was referring to. He was then told by his wife (who used to work with him in the radio Ceylon during those days) that one man named Amitabh Bachchan had come for an audition but since he did not have an appointment, Ameen Sayani’s secretary asked Amitabh Bachchan to make an appointment and visit. Amitabh Bachchan came again but still without any appointment. Ameen Sayani could not spare time to meet him and that is how Amitabh Bachchan left. When Ameen Sayani got to know this, he laughingly said that whatever happened, happened for good, else the world would have missed the superstar of the millennium.

Ameen Sayani became so popular with his unique announcement style and his captivating voice that he was featured in many feature films as the announcer for some events.

Between 1960-62, Ameen Sayani worked as a Brand Executive at Tata Oil Mills Ltd., as part of the team managing Jai and Hamam soap brands. He came out of his sabbatical in 2016 to announce the promo of Akshay Kumar’s starrer “Rustom”.

Ameen Sayani was awarded many awards, some of the most important ones being:

• “Person Of The Year Awards” by Limca Book Of Records (1992)
• “Outstanding Radio Campaign Of The Century” by Golden Abby, Bombay (2000)
• “Living Legend Award” by Loop Federation of India Chambers (2006)
• ‘Hindi Ratna Puraskaar’ by Hindi Bhavan of New Delhi (2007)

In 2009, Ameen Sayani was conferred the prestigious ‘Padma Shri’ by the President of India for his contribution to Indian Radio and Media.

 The poise, the control, the softness, and the culture which Ameen Sayani displayed while announcing have been the Gold Standard by all means. “My listeners are like family. I may be reaching out to multitudes but I speak as though I’m talking to just one individual.” –  Ameen Sayani.

 Credits and suggested further reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ameen_Sayani