After putting in 23 years on stage as a compere and mimicry artist for hindi musical nites I have since the past 7 years started my own musical troup KHUMAAR – experience musical Intoxication. A group of around 18 artist it renders quality music.

Having been employed with The Adclub, for the past 15 years and recently promoted as the Chief Operating Officer whenever I did my musical shows the stalwarts from the Advertising, Media , Marketing and Journalism Industry not only honoured my invitation to attend but started enjoying the shows immensely. In fact some are regulars with their respective families and urge me to hold the shows often.

It was while interacting with these famous names from the corporate world during my Khumaar shows that I noticed passion for music runs very high amongst them and some of the stalwarts new a word or two about classical music also.

My mind started toying with the idea why not a book on music involving these stalwarts whereby my brief to them would be please feel free to write about your favourite Playback singer, Music director and Lyricist. As I was to pay a tribute to Dev Anand, Shammi Kapoor and Rajesh Khanna at my musical show I made an exception and requested my journalist friend of great repute Chaitanya Padukone to write on Dev Anand and Rajesh Khanna who were very close to him.

There was a challenge in choosing the right people as passion for music is not the only criteria but fabulous written skills an equally important pre-requisite. I could identify the right people due to my close proximity with them and the world of Advertising, Media, Marketing and Journalism .

My idea was through the book many a unknown facets of this very famous personalities from the corporate world will be known. In fact we often are interested in knowing those things about a famous personality which are hitherto not known and nothing better than connecting through music. Thus Piyush Pandey writing about Amitabh’s singing prowess, Pradeep Guha writing about music, Ayaz Memon writing on Rafi and Kishore in itself generates lots of interest.

After living this project for 365 days and the launch happening at the hands of the legendary Pyarelalji of the Laxmikant Pyarelal fame and getting a good instant feedback I have to thank God for making me an instrument in getting some good work done. I call it a divine intervention when this good work happened at my hands on the eve of completion of 100 years of Hindi cinema.

Khumaar my coffee table has 129 pages , 34 articles and priced at Rs.1200/- . The USP is the concept/idea besides of course the fact that Industry leaders from the world of Advertising, Marketing, Media and Journalism have contributed articles. I would love to add that pictures which are used in the book will not be seen anywhere as they are unique in their own right.

The legendary composer Anandjibhai of Kalyanji Anandji fame also had good things to say about the book when he was presented a copy of the same at his residence on Tuesday 21st May, 2013.

God was also very kind as he gave me an opportunity to present the said book to the legendary cricketer Sachin Tendulkar on 14th October, 2013. Sachin is named after the great music composer Sachin Dev Burman and also happens to be die hard fan of playback singer Kishor Kumar.

A big thanks to all my Advertisers, Contributors of articles and Chitralekha for pictures that bring nostalgia. Mitrajit Bhattacharya, President and Publisher Chitralekha deserves a special mention.