[Urbanstudy] Deepak Kadyan on Max Studio Part II

[sadan at sarai.net]

This is second part of the first posting by Deepak Kadyan.

send comments to urbanstudygroup at sarai.net or/and <hie_deepak at yahoo.com>
wishes,
sadan.

Deepak Kadiyan on Max Studio and Haryanvi Popular Music Part-II

Feeling quite embarrassed at this implicit scolding, I thought of having 
him as my mentor in my fieldwork as agratitude for his edifying message. 
It was now my responsibility to include him as well in the conversation 
but he didn’t provide any moment to think,

“ Are you an artist”, he continued

‘ oh! No, not another tortuous round of self identification’ I said to 
myself but I was saved by my friend of my age. At this visitor’s 
excitement knew no bounds,

“ You should meet Mr. Goldy, he is a very good friend of mine, you just 
give him my reference he will tell you everything about cassette 
industry. He has recently started his own cassette company. If you are 
interested in other companies, meet Mr. Sachin of Neelam cassettes, he 
is a very nice person and a very good friend of mine”.

As I was noting down the phone numbers, an average height person in late 
40’s enters,

“ Can I meet Mr. Hansraj”?

“ Any specific purpose”? asks young man,

“ I am an artist, have worked in Akashvani(AIR) as announcer and gioven 
voice to a few documentaries. I have just finished recording of 15 
programmes with AIR but someone told me that slots are full for next few 
years there, even I don’t know when I am going to hear my voice, now I 
want to try some private studios”.

“ Papa is at shop, you please be seated”.

“ Is your company active in other regional music as well”? I continued

“ We produce Haryanavi, Rajasthani, Nepali, Bhojpuri cassettes as well. 
For Haryana alone we have a catalogue of more than 10,000 songs and 700 
VCD titles. We have copyrights of some of Haryanavi films as well like 
Chandraval, Lado Basanti”, he claimed boastfully.

“ Who, from Haryana, has sung the most for your company”?

“ Almost everyone has sung for us, association depends on the success of 
first record”,

“ I meant to say, with whom you had the longest association”?

“ There are no such agreements in this industry, one singer can be with 
as many companies as he wants, we can’t stop anyone. There no copyrights 
for these songs as these are part of a long continuing oral tradition 
and almost every singer has these songs learn by heart. These songs 
composed mostly by Lakhmi Chand (1901-1944), Mehr Singh (1903-1943), 
whereas the former has been recognized as rajkavi ( state poet) thus no 
copyright applies to his compositions. One title from this oral 
tradition can be there in as many cassette companies are there but the 
sales and popularity depend on the ability of the singer as to how much 
of improvisation ha can bring in for the same song which is already 
there and will be, with the coming of new companies and the singers as 
well”.

“ How do locate new singers”?

“ Well, things have changed nowadays. Earlier it was the cassette 
companies who were on the look out for singers, competitions ( live 
performances in this context, singers come and present same song in 
different ways) provided an opportunity for both companies as well as 
singers, but in 1980’s there was some reluctance on the part of singers 
not to join companies and held oral tradition in much reverence. But, 
now with the penetration of technology these singers now come to the 
companies and ask for their records to br released. Master Satbir from 
Sonepat has sung almost every song of Haryana, he has more than 200 
titles to his name but now he has left singing as he feels nothing is 
left for him, but appears in competitions”.

“ How long does it take you to record one cassette”?

“ It depends on artists, instruments. It can take anywhere from a day to 
fifteen days”.

“ How is it so”?

“ With people like Master Satbir, we can finish recording in less than a 
day, he has a very good sense of Haryanavi musical instruments and he is 
more refined, used to recordings. But in case of a new singer it takes 
much longer as he has to adjust to musicians, instruments, recording 
studio. Nowadays as we have to give new music that is Haryanavi songs on 
Punjabi tunes, which is registering huge sales, takes many days as 
Haryanavi singer has to adjust to Punjabi tunes, accent, and also some 
words are being incorporated from Punjabi songs”.

“ Isn’t then there any demand for original or say older music and style”?

“ There is, Rajendra Kharakiya sings mainly on kaccha saj consisting of 
4 /matkas /(earthen vessels) and 1 banzo but in 2000 he had a road 
accident in which he lost his legs, but his younger brother Veerpal is 
also very famous, one of his title has crossed sale of more than 10 lacs”.

“ Can you tell me about the costs involved in producing a cassette also 
VCD as these are now available in VCD/DVD format as well”?

“ Well these business details, I can’t tell you the figures”.

“ No, no, if you can give me approximate figures, even that would be fine”.

“ Costs vary depending upon the singer, instruments. If a new singer 
comes to us we don’t pay him, he has to arrange musicians on his own and 
compensate them. We invest only in launching the singer,and if title 
sells, from then onwards we pay singer and musician and also invest in 
cassette production, its sales, distribution etc.. We were the first 
ones to bring VCD’s in the market. The VCD of Rajendra Kharakiya is one 
of the costliest titles but it has been a phenomenal success. Its cost 
regarding master copy jumped one lac whereas others cost anywhere 
between Rs 20,000 to 50,000. In case of an audio maste copy, it varies 
from Rs.1000 to 15,000”.

It had been a while since we were talking and I was about to exhaust, 
but to my surprise tea and snacks made its appearance on the table, 
which I needed desperately at that time. Mr. Hansraj had too by now 
arrived and everyone followed him to his cabin, even my friend had gone 
now for mastering, a process in which artists and producer sit together 
and decide on editing and other technological modifications to be done 
after which a master copy would be ready. Our announcer had located 
another studio in the vicinity of this studio, he already had made a 
move to give his audition, perhaps. The discussion was a very fruitful 
one, that too in the absence of a questionnaire, so indispensable for 
such interviews. It seemed to me that I already had a substantial 
information to work with, yet there was an unwillingness to leave, with 
nothing more to say. This day had other things in as well in store 
me,which were unimaginable to me at this point of time. I was 
contemplating to talk to my mentor and he breaks the silence,

“ Where are you from”,

“ Delhi and you”,

“ I am also from Delhi but originally I belong to Himachal Pardesh. I am 
in Delhi for more than a decade now”.

This answer, is what I got from everyone, at one instance there is a 
sense of belongingness to Delhi yet at the very other moment there is a 
nostalgia for native place, a sense of longingness of self which I 
assume prevents many from embracing Delhi and its spirit.

“ Are you an artist” I asked.

“ No, I am a senior sales executive with WorldPac, dealing in 2D and 3D 
holograms. I have to finalize the deal today with Sonotek. Though, I 
have many trainees under me but this company will register huge growth 
in near future, I didn’t want to take chances. I finalized the deal with 
Chanda cassette company, Neelam, Nestle. For the master label/ hologram 
we charge Rs.10,000 and .45 paisa per hologram after that. After 
finalizing the deal my role is nil, I have to ensure regular supply and 
greetings on Diwali”.

This raised another question in my mind that of piracy. Does these 
holograms really ensure authenticity, what if the quality of reel 
(magnetic tape) is not good enough to long last or does the quality 
really enhance merely by putting holograms, but not going into 
questioning the quality of these cassesttes though it will be a part of 
later postings. My mentor had gone for his meeting but not before 
explaining the purpose of my visit to our dear announcer, who had 
arrived by now, thus saving me from another round of explaining my no 
pretensions of joining this artistic profession. Very soon we were 
joined by a writer and producer who has ventured into making regional 
Harayanavi and Brij films, after an unsuccessful struggle in Bollywood 
for three years. Well, this time announcer really had the opportunity to 
showcase his class which he performed brilliantly, that introducing me 
to our script writer without too much of trouble. Clappings!!!

Now, in the company of two senior fellows I had a minimal role that is 
of listening to them. As both were in their late 40’s, like me it didn’t 
take much time for them to become friends.

“ What do you do” asked script writer.

“ By profession I am an engineer in Northern Railways, a resident of 
Aligarh. You”? replies announcer,

“ I am from Bulandshahar, currently over with my home production, ‘ 
Chahat Films & Entertainment’, I spent three years in Bombay but 
sometimes your bad luck is bad that you end up being nothing”,

“ So true, look at me, I am in the twilight of my age having a very good 
job, no need to worry about my future, both of my sons having government 
job, but still so much of dissatisfaction, so much of unhappiness with 
myself. It has created so much of faction in family”, announcer,

“ ye…s, even I had a well settled business, but don’t know what 
propelled me to Bombay and is still propelling or otherwise why would 
start my own home production”.

Every now and then edifying consensus was passed on to me. Their polemic 
transcended petty problems of survival, and the discourse dwelled on to 
the issues of human desires, their failure constituting the founding 
stones of success for later generations. But one point to which both of 
them were insistent on me was the mysticism and metaphysical foundations 
of satisfaction, this satisfaction coming something only out of one’s 
own creation. This mysticism seems to have great bearings on our 
writer’s thought process manifesting in the name of his home production, 
‘ Chahat Filma….’ ( desire).

After these illuminations on the subject of desires and failures it was 
time to meet some other young strugglers, one of them being a superstar 
of regional Haryanavi films also bringing moment of blasphemy for me, 
how the hell, I don’t know this person who has four superhits to his 
credit and claims to nave more following than Amitabh and Dharmendra in 
this region. The other was a struggler having his home production in 
Bombay and ready to release his maiden Haryanavi movie in May. It was my 
fortune that I was acquitted of charges of blasphemy and was received 
very well and even being asked to see the shooting of their next films.

The next posting intends to present the other side of story, that is, 
the stories of local artistes which I think when well knit together with 
this version, would provide new insights into the emergence of cassette 
industry in Haryana. An attempt would also be made about the conception 
of Haryana in the minds of these artistes, which is very different from 
the artistes coming from Western U.P. and those coming from the 
interiors of Haryana. Another attempt would be to discern its impact on 
language as it is pointed out that there is influx of Punjabi words, so 
how far linguistic identities hold in this light.

I hope you like this posting and awaiting your responses so that it 
presents more nuanced picture than mere description.

*Deepak Kumar *