Binaca Geethmala by Ameen Sayani

I started listening to Binanca or cibaca geethmala during my school days. One of my uncles worked in the Indian Air force then.He used to come to our ancestral home every year on leave.Along with him used to bring a radio also. Being in Air force he probably learned Hindi from his friends who were from all over India.I somehow caught the attention of the program every Tuesday or Wednesday perhaps, I don't remember well.Songs were played from 10 to 1 in ranking of popularity. There also used to be some special songs played in between as the occasion demanded.Anchoring by Amin Sayaniji was equally good and played a crucial role in the program's popularity those days.Most of the songs played in the Cibaca geethmala are still my old favourites. Along with the songs I also recollect the sweet memories of my school days.

You have revived old memories of an era bygone. In those days we had the old fashioned big valve radio and i used to always tune to Radio Ceylon and also Vividh Bharati for the hit program Binaca Geetmala and its subsequent avatars which were hosted by the evergreen Ameen Sayani. But don`t forget the English version Binaca Hit Parade hosted by Ameen Sayani`s elder brother Hameed Sayani on Radio Ceylon on Sunday mornings. This was also an extremely popular program and had hundreds of listeners.Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Cliff Richards, Pat Boone, Risky Nelson, Jim Reeves, Trini Lopez etc were some of the very famous names who figured in this show. Then there was also the very popular Saturday Date on Saturday afternoons and Saturday nights on Bombay 'A' radio channel on medium wave which carried listeners requests. the night program always clashed with the National Program of Classical Music which also started at 9.30 pm on Bombay 'B' radio channel and whenever hindustani classical music was on i had to give up listening to my fav program since my parents wanted to listen to it.