Ameen Sayani, legendary radio broadcaster whose sonorous voice was music to India's ears, dies at 91

Ameen Sayani, whose voice launched a radio revolution in India, died at a Mumbai hospital late on Tuesday night. The legendary broadcaster, 91, had been ailing for over a year.

- Ambarish Mishra

 

Sayani, who was trained in broadcasting and theatre by his elder brother, the equally illustrious Hamid, became a cult figure with India's first countdown show, Binaca Geetmala. The show launched in 1952 had an uninterrupted run until 1994, with Sayani as its weekly host. His was the perfect radio style the chummy, intimate "behno aur bhaiyo" became an instantly recognised salutation across the country. Sayani ignored the purists and developed an Urdu and Hindi syntax that closely resembled the spoken language of the Hindi film industry of the 1950s and the 1960s. He skilfully wove in words like "paaydaan", "sartaj" and "baharhaal" into his scripts - all of which were then widely used in cinema.