Geetanjali

Gitanjali, in Bengali, literally "song-offerings", is a book of poems by the Nobel Prize winning poet Rabindranath Tagore. This term has come to signify a type of serenade to god.

Geetanjali is also the name of a long standing radio program on WWUH and [http://wwuh.org] at the University of Hartford.

Geetanjali is an offering.Be it a prayer or a song.It is a salutation- of respect, and of affection.

Geetanjali is the longest running radio program in the USA featuring music from India that is both lyrical & exciting in composition. It offers a new dimension in musical appreciation for the Indian fan and Western listener as well -- including classical, contemporary, devotional and Bollywood music. It has been serving the needs of Indian listeners for (by) providing wholesome entertainment for more than twenty-seven years.

Jawaharlal Nehru once said that wherever Indians go they take a little piece of India with them. Geetanjali is such an effort to maintain our cultural identity through music.

Birth

Geetanjali was born in 1977. The concept was initiated with WWUH by Vinod Gadhia, the then president of India Association of Greater Hartford. Rajas Rangnekar hosted it for a few months as a half hour taped show broadcast 8:00-8:30 PM every Friday.

Father of Geetanjali

Vijay Dixit known as the father of Geetanjali took over Geetanjali in 1978 and anchored the program for the next 20 years. A man for whom I have the utmost respect, for he (Vijay) displayed an unquenched passion, strong commitment and undying dedication in realizing his futuristic vision of for Geetanjali that gave the program its distinct identity and made the program the pioneer radio program of music of India not only in Greater Hartford but in the United States.

Vijay fondly reminisces

“My first show was in the spring of 1978 and later that year I started to do it live and injected a cultural flavor by adding special shows on major religious & national festivals, and current affairs that impacted India and the United States. Driven by tremendous community support, I was able to increase the show length to full one hour and later to 90 minutes. At that time I introduced a regular classical segment to the show which became extremely popular with the non-Indian audiences. There were suggestions that I do the show in Hindi, but I continued with the English medium mixed with Hindi nuances to preserve Geetanjali's distinctive identity.

Over the years, a number of important luminaries appeared as guests on Geetanjali, live or in recorded interviews. Among them were former Prime Ministers Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Morarji Desai, all the Indian ambassadors to USA 1980-2000, starting with the late Nani Palkiwala, P.N. Kaul, K. R. Narayan, Abid Hussain and Naresh Chandra, US Congressman Steven Solarz. Deepak Vohra from the Embassy of India in Washington was a regular guest during the turbulent eighties. I remember that was the time I was threatened by terrorist groups and University of Hartford and WWUH provided me personal on-campus security for protection.”

There were numerous artists who appeared on the show. To name a prominent few, Manna Dey, Bismillah Khan, Amjad Ali Khan, Zakir Hussain, Shiv Kumar Sharma, Hari Prasad Chaurasia, Ananda Shankar, Rohini Hathangiri, and L. Subramanian.”

Vijay Dixit retired when he had to move to Minneapolis in 1998 but continues to be an integral part of Geetanjali- his baby, even today as an advisor, guide and supporter.

A man of substance who never talked frivolously cherishes those memories with a sense of pride and nostalgia. In his own words,

“There were certainly more pleasant moments for me than the unpleasant ones, and I continue to cherish those memoirs with pride and nostalgia.”

uccessors

Kapil Taneja started as a fill in host of Geetanjali in 1984. Mr. Vijay Dixit was the primary host of Geetanjali and Kapil provided help whenever Vijay needed time off.

This arrangement continued through 1997. Kapil took over the weekly broadcast of Geetanjali when Mr. Vijay Dixit retired from Geetanjali in 1997. Kapil was an active at the Radio Station until 2002 and brought in Ms. Monica (that would be me ) as a host and also recruited Mr. Anand Shukla.

Kapil continues be a strong supporter of Geetanjali and WWUH in the Greater Hartford Community. He is a strong believer in the role Geetanjali plays in the lives of first generation Indians and American citizen with interest in Indian culture, living in the Greater Hartford area. Geetanjali not only entertains, but also informs the listeners about Indian theme events in the area and educates listeners about Indian culture and the Indian American issues.

Geetanjali: Then and Now

Geetanjali enjoyed a glorious status in the past. Although we are reaping the benefit of its success even today, frankly speaking, Geetanjali has deviated from the path and the goals it set out to achieve: To act as a cultural window to India through the medium of music with a primary purpose of providing wholesome entertainment. Of late, Geetanjali has become a synonym of popular music and more specifically Bollywood music mainly because there is a huge listener base for this type of music. There is so much abundance and variety of Indian music and it’s unfortunate that we are not able to exploit it fully. We are constantly losing our listener base of Indian Classical Music that Vijay Dixit worked so hard to build. It is my hope that we will be able to restore Geetanjali to its glorious status that it once enjoyed during the days when Vijay Dixit used to host the show.

Geetanjali is a legacy that must be preserved. Therefore, I am very pleased to inform the readers that I have decided to dedicate the last half an hour of the program to Indian Classical Music so that Geetanjali listeners are once again able to enjoy Indian Classical Music that they so dearly miss.

It is our commitment to promote Indian Classical music not only through Geetanjali and but through mainstream programming also. Therefore, when I was given the honor of co-hosting of “It’s All Live” programming on WWUH held on April 28, 2004 and later on November 3, 2004 I made it a point to invite the noted Hindustani Classical Vocalist Dr. Stan Scott, a teacher of ethnomusicology at Weseleyan University, and Ms. Kala Prasad, a vocalist of Carnatic music system to come and perform and be a part of a one-of-a-kind event that took place for the first time in the history of the radio station.

Tagore said once, “The muffled foot-steps of the past beat in our blood.” Muffled by some not so bright patches in our history of the last 27 years, it is those foot-steps which we will need to hear again. We must proceed on the age-old beaten tracks, but strengthen them to make Geetanjali a forward, progressive radio program with music pluralism. This is what historical perspective teaches us, that is the optimism which our long past can give us in our present travail.

Sit back relax and enjoy an hour and a half of Indian music that not only entertains, but also informs the listeners about Indian theme events in the area and educates listeners about Indian culture and the Indian American issues.

Written by Monica (Indian Music Director, WWUH)

External links

* [http://www.schoolofwisdom.com/gitanjali.html gitanjali]