GEETanjali - Introductory Post by UVR

Article reproduced with permission from U.V.Ravindra

Posted By: U.V. Ravindra
Forum: rec.music.indian.misc (RMIM)
Date: 21st August, 1997

GEETanjali -- A (new?) series (and some apologies to RMIM) [was Re: What's
happening to RMIM?]

Tasleem, RMIM!

Part I
====
First of all, this post is VERY long. Second of all, it doesn't directly relate to 
MUSIC. Third of all, it relates to RMIM. Fourthly, please do read on.

Prince's post of yesterday set me thinking about the time when I was a newbie 
on RMIM. Like he said, our newsgroup was different at that time. It was nice 
being a newbie. The gurus welcomed you with a smil(i)e. :-) People *were* more 
civil to each other. As a newbie, I felt I was in a room full of these wonderful 
people who respected each other, and each others' opinions, even though 
they didn't necessarily agree with each other. 

Things are different today, and I am as much responsible for it as several others. 
My nitpicks were few and pertinent then, now, they are copious. I never used to 
violently jump up and get at peoples' throats the way I appear to be doing 
nowadays. I was known as a newbie-Rafian then, not as 'netpicker ad nauseam'. 
I felt welcome, comfortable, and enjoyed being in RMIM. It was like sitting outside 
in a garden with the cool evening breeze blowing and ruffling my hair lovingly. 
Today, this is not the case. A newbie who looks into our newsgroup will find 
RMIM to be a very hotheaded and rude place, teeming with multitudes of dreadful 
people eager to shove their opinionated ideas down each others throats. I too am 
part of that unfortunate multitude. When I was a "bachcha" in RMIM, it was like 
a room which one would enter to forget one's worries. Today, has become a 
room where "log auroN ka gussa kinhiN auroN par nikaalte haiN" ... this is bad, 
very bad. As a person partly responsible for this state of affairs, I apologise to RMIM f
or my contribution to what things have come to. I also apologise to Vijay Kumar K for
my "rude retort" to his post. I didn't mean it half as strongly as I said, and I am 
ashamed that I wrote something as offensive and "pompous" as that. There were, 
as Prince said, other ways in which I could have expressed my opinion of that post. 
For my part, starting today, I promise to clean up my act, turn over a new leaf, 
become a better person, and all that sort of a thing. 

It is as my first faltering step to this end that I am posting this article today. What I 
say here may be interesting to some, to some others it may be a needless, annoying, 
nonsensical, redundant repetition. I can only aver that every word of what I have 
said, or am going to say, comes straight from the deepest recesses of my RMIM 
person(a[lity]). 

Part II
=====
When I was a newbie, one of the first things that I noticed as a regular feature
of this newsgroup was Shashikant Joshi's Pankha Road se Pintu Diwana series. 
As far as regular series went, the PSRPD was my favourite after Abhay's ASAD 
and Ashish(Bokil)'s "Magic Moments". It is about the PSRPD that I am going to 
talk today. In this series, Pintu would post lyrics of songs not in the ISB. Quite
a few of my favourite songs figured in that series, and though not as eagerly as
for the ASAD, I used to look forward to each new instalment of the PSRPD.

The PSRPD series were not the only articles which posted lyrics, there were
several others. There used to be a regular supply of good songs and their
lyrics to look forward to, and a copious amount of interesting and enlightening
(to me) discussions following those. After reading Prince's mail of yesterday, 
I realised how much I miss those days. 

In honor of my "bachpan ke din" on RMIM, I am starting a (new?) series on 
our newsgroup. "GEETanjali" (very unimaginative, I know) will contain lyrics 
of those of my favorite and not-so-favorite songs that are currently absent from 
the ISB. In each instalment, I will bring you a song from my collection, duly 
ITRANSed and hopefully free of errors. I will also try to provide complete P-Stats, 
but these have been my constant Achilles' heel and I request RMIMers to correct/complete 
P-Stats of songs that I may not be accurate about. Instalments of GEETanjali will 
hopefully contain songs in their most complete form, with all kinds of rare and 
hardly-heard stanzas thrown in, but, again, if I miss something out there, netters, 
please post the relevant info on RMIM. I will consolidate articles of the
GEETanjali series as I am consolidating those of Surajit's FITB and attempt to 
send them to Anurag Shankar/Rajiv Shridhar for inclusion in future ISB releases.

Each instalment of GEETanjali will be 'released' with a subject line in this format:
GEETanjali -- song "title" ('title' defined as in the ISB) for example
GEETanjali -- biitI nA bitAii rainA

There will be no serial/sequence number associated with the articles, but
each article will still be uniquely identifiable by its subject line. 

I have decided on this format for the subject line because I do not propose 
to be the only contributor to the GEETanjali series. Any netter who has lyrics 
for a song that is not in the ISB can and should, IMO, post a GEETanjali 
instalment. I also do not propose to exercise any control over this series, 
not even the minimal control that Surajit has over the FITB. I only request that 
all articles be posted on RMIM with a subject line strictly adhering to the format 
specified above. The absence of serial numbers makes it impossible to lose 
track of sequence numbers. 

Congregating all new song material under one series will be helpful in case the
ISB maintainers prefer to pull songs out of the newsgroup directly rather than
wait for me to send them e-mail. All they will have to do is to search for the keyword 
"GEETanjali" and they will see all the songs and followups posted thereto -- 
they can then pick up the relevant articles.

I urge all RMIMers to attempt to contribute to this series liberally. I for my part will 
post at least a song per week on this series, as long as I can. Contributors are 
requested also to e-mail me a copy of the article that they are posting/have posted 
on the net. This will make my work of consolidation easy, that's all. Please also check 
in the ISB and at Rajiv's site to confirm that the song you are intending to post isn't 
already present there.

Lastly, I invite criticism/comments/suggestions from all of you. 

Regards,
Ravindra.

maiN bhi auroN ki tarah jang me.n shaamil tha, magar
aaj tak Khoon ka ek qatrah bhi Tapka na kahiN