Thread by @Gautaamm

#Thread on Maharashtra Day:

Sometime in the early 2000’s a young Maharashtrian musician realised that Marathi songs were not being played on the FM stations, as they were not commercially viable.

He decided to address this situation by making a landmark Marathi song.

He took a unique approach. He decided to make that the sole focus of his life.Over the next 18 months, he did not take up any project.

The other decision he took was that it would be done with the best singers, in the best recording studio and with the most talented musicians.

He also planned to do a mass funding for this mainly to create an awareness movement and able to do the best he can.

A friend of his came home and he ran this idea past her. She immediately gave him a ₹500 note and was one of his strongest advocates throughout the project.

Over the next few weeks, he got a positive response from friends and family on the contribution front but then there was a lull.

Few months later, he and @KulkarniSaleel were interviewed by Mithilesh Patankar, himself a music composeron “Mouj Gappa”He publicly spoke about this for the first time. The moment he did, both Mithilesh and Saleel took out a ₹500 note and handed it to him on stage.

After the interview a lot of people from the audience came upto him and contributed to the cause.

Slowly but surely, the movement gained traction and the song was also coming together very well.

@AvadhootGupte not only sang a line but personally called a lot of his own friends and family and raised a sizeable amount.

@Shankar_Live had tears in his eyes while singing his line and insisted the young musician get @SingerHariharan Hariharan to do a line.

He went on to call Hariharan right there and convinced him to join in.
Hariharan was going to fly out to the US the next day so he asked if he come to the gym at 8.00 PM to record his line.

So the musician took all the equipment and got his line recorded in the gym at 8.30 PM!

A lot of renowned singers, music directors, musicians etc agreed to sing one line at the request of the musician.

Then they placed an ad for people to come sing in a chorus. They were hoping for 150-200 people. Well more than 350 people showed up!

The first person to register was a lady named Mukherjee. She had travelled from Pune just to sing in the chorus. She was a Bengali by birth not by marriage.

They got them all together in Yeshwantrao Chavan Kendra and suspended 4 mics to record the chorus singing the song.

In the chorus, there were Gujrathis, Marwaris, Christians, Muslims, Jewish people.

There were people from Punjab and Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan to Assam.

All united by one thing and one thing only: love for Marathi and pride of living in Maharashtra!

The musicians used were Ilayaraja’s troupe and the studio was A R Rahman’s. Neither are easily available.

A budding singer by the name of Hamsika Iyer volunteered to join them in Chennai to help with translation since the musicians would be all Tamil speaking.

At the recording, one of them asked “Who are the actors in the film for which this song is being made?”

On finding out about the project, he immediately took out a ₹500 note from his “Veshti” and handed it over.

Finally the song was ready and released.

It was an instant hit and as of today has almost 6.5 Million views on YouTube.

But the main effect it had was that it was immediately played on radio stations. And slowly but surely, Marathi songs started being played by FM stations.

The young musician was none other than @ksinamdar and the song was “Marathi Abhimaan Geet” which you can watch here:



Jay Maharashtra!

#Marathi #Abhimaan #Maharashtra #Culture