Therefore, to cater to the “musical appetite” and revive the glorious and memorable songs, Praveen Misra along with his core team, Reeta Almeida, Ruchi Misra and the core singers, Valentino Almeida, Sankar Gangaikondan, Shua Khan Arshad and Swati Sharma, put together a rainbow of these evergreens which ranged from a wide range of composers. In between the songs, were videos of movie scenes, interviews of famous singers and personalities, which added another distinct dimension to the songs.

The musical evening was brought alive by hit musical numbers sung by local artistes;  Valentino (Vally) Almeida a well-known and respected singer whose voice and singing style, and many will vouch, completely syncs in with that of Kishore Da. Vally is classically trained and has lent his voice for Bollywood and TV serials; Sankar Gangaikondan – fondly called the junior “Rafi, who sings with the same soft and soothing voice as Rafi Sahab and was inspired by his father, a singer himself; Shua Khan Arshad, a well-liked singer who delves deep into the nuances of classical ghazals and has performed in many shows; and Swati Sharma, a US born and raised, neuroscience graduate who loves singing, has had years of vocal training and is like a breath of fresh air in area concerts.

The Emcees for the event, Ali Rizvi and Ajay Jain kept the audiences engaged with their tit-bits, stories sher-shayri and narratives. Ajay Jain, a known theatrical personality, easily shared stories of Kishore Da. Here is an example of the few funny couplets recited by Ali Rizvi.

Ishq hai To Ishq Ka Izhaar hona chahiye,
Aapko chehre se bhee beemar hona chahiye,
Apni yaadon se kaho, ek din ki chutti de hameN,
Ishq ke hisse mein bhi “itwaar” hona chahiye..

The program started with the highlight of the evening; - playing of a unique message, specially recorded by the great octogenarian Radio personality, Ameen Sayani. We all grew up listening to him in shows as Binaca Geet Mala as much as songs of Rafi Sb and Kishore Da. Ali rightly pointed out that the history of Bollywood is as incomplete without Mohammad Rafi and Kishore Kumar as without the voice of Ameen Sayani. A personal friend of Praveen Misra, Ameen Sayani recorded the “special message” for the event in Boston in his crisp and unique style. The message had a flow and was filled with personal stories of Mr. Amin Sayani’s interactions with both Rafi Sb and Kishore da which he shared with grace and charm…

The 18 songs, which comprised of solos and duets, were performed in 5 segments. The first segment started with a solo by Valentino Almeida singing Kishore da’s serious song from Amar Prem, “chingaari koi badhke” (Amar Prem, R D Burman, Anand Bakshi) , followed by the heart -touching Rafi Sahab’s “aapke-pehloo mein aakar” (1966 film Mera  Saaya, Lyrics- Raja Mehdi Ali Khan, Music – Madan Mohan), then “ O hansini..oh hansini, followed by dil dhal jaaye and meet  na mila re manka….The audience was spell bound and amidst thunderous applause got into the “yaadon ki baraat safar…

The next segment had some awesome evergreen numbers, like “yeh raatein yeh mausam – performed by Sankar and Swati, “Churaliya liya hai tumne by Valentino and Shua, deewana hua baadal by Sankar, “pal pal dil ke paas’ by Valentino, Jawaaniya yeh mast bin piye” by Sankar, “O manchali kahan chali” by Valentino, Abhee na jaao chodh kar” by Sankar and Shua and “inteha Ho gayee” by Valentino by Swati. The teams had surely spent countless hours of practice rehearsing for the final show and it showed in their performance. If one closed one’s eyes, you could barely make out the difference between the live singing and the original tracks...

During the break, Ali Rizvi called upon the Harish Dang, of  “Harish and Binita Dang fame”, who in his own unique inimitable voice that has graced the Boston airwaves, introduced the grand-sponsors of the Evening, Vinod Kapoor and Shikha Kapoor of Masala Art, who through their exquisite Indian cuisine had been serving the New England community for nearly forty years, through their restaurants and catering business. Vinod Kapoor, thanked the audience for their patronage for the past several decades and like a gracious host, invited them to a sumptuous dinner. How very true, the buffet dinner was served steaming hot and had a huge variety with several serving staff. People did actually eat to their hearts content and also found time to network during the break. Masala Art had organized in such a way that the food lines moved fast and there was ample space. I liked the “singhara curry” and the freshly made jalebis…

Ali Rizvi, invited Praveen Misra to come on stage just before the end of the program to thank him for his engagement with the community and for bringing such technologically mastered musical events with a great selection of songs. Praveen Misra thanked the audience profusely for trusting him and coming to his shows year after year…he thanked the volunteers Ashutosh Patel, Jaya Pandey, Navneet Sharma, Sanjay Jain, Suresh Sharma, Anil Chawla, Sanjay Kaul, Rajesh Bhutani, Mahesh Goyal, the media sponsors: Radio Music India, Bipin Parekh (Gunjan Radio), IACNE, Lokvani  and the sponsors Tanna Insurance (Dinesh Tanna), Chabbra Bridal (Narender Chabbra), Sanjay Thakkar  (New York Life), and Ramesh Parwani (KayPee Jewellers). He also thanked the artistes, Valentino, Sankar, Shua and Swati for spending their many months of practice sessions to bring such a high quality program. He rightly pointed out that the program could not have been possible without the support of Ruchi Misra and Reeta Almeida.

There were several rounds of applause in between the program that lasted for over three hours. Most people were heard saying that this was one of the best overall programs that they had been to in many years specially in terms of content, song selection, performance of the singers, emceeing and food and hoped more such programs will be planned in the near future.