Manish Sahi

Manish Sahi is one of India's pioneering FM radio presenters and one of a handful of high profile radio personalities who became regular fixtures on Page 3. He is married to TV newsreader and radio host Shabnam Dutta who was also known as Sonia Dutta in the UK.

Biography

Manish Sahi was born in London and educated in boarding schools in Nainital in the foothills of the Himalayas and grammar schools in England. He then spent a further few years living in Gorakhpur, India on the border of Nepal, where he spent a lot of time crossing the border to Lumbini the birth place of Buddha. (He would later spend months in Pokhara and recount on air his bus journeys from Delhi to Katmandu).

On returning to England, he studied hotel management and continued post graduate studies in management at the University of Westminster. He then moved back to Delhi to source antiques, while busking to the songs of Led Zeppelin, Floyd, Dylan. It was here that he joined All India Radio as the voice of rock, best known for "Music OnThe Rocks" with the catchphrase "Mega Rockin Hertz" and "While the others keep talking we keep on rocking". This gained him a cult following which was further cemented by the late night show the "Wicked Hour", in which he got into trouble on numerous occasions most famously for playing all 25 minutes of Pink Floyd's "Echoes" and for mixing the All India Radio FM theme jingle with the Doobie Brothers' "Listen To The Music" from which it was copied. He also presented the drive time and evening shows, as well as the jazz and country music shows. In 1997 he started the bilingual drivetime show "Citilights" which is still a popular show today, other shows included "Campus Rock", "Music mix" "Swing Time" and "All that Jazz"

At the same time Manish had also joined the biggest commercial station Times FM owned by the Times of India (TOI) newspaper group and now called Radio Mirchi,(They recently bought the UK station Virgin Radio now rebranded as Absolute Radio) here he presented a wide variety of shows including the weekend breakfast shows with VJ and Bollywood actor Gaurav Kapur and TV newsreader Shabnam Dutta whom he later married. Their romance blossomed on the airwaves and after their weekly show, over a cup of coffee and the Guardian crossword which appeared in the Asian Age newspaper. The Sunday morning Show "YFS" was pre-recorded so that tapes could be sent out to Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Goa, Delhi and other large Metros across India. He also presented produced and scripted "Panasonic Premier" a five minute capsule of a new song played at Breakfast and Drivetime. Coincidently Shabnam would do the same thing a few years later with "Bollywood Minute " which was played every hour on Sunrise Radio in the UK.

Other shows included "Three's Company", "Rockumentaries" and the cult "S&M Show" with TV anchor Sharad Sharma which was usually unscripted and unrehersed and was ultimately taken off air for being to risky.

In 1998 he was at the forefront of Internet radio in India when he worked with Radio Asianet hosting the Bollywood Top Ten.

Manish Sahi also wrote various columns for Here Delhi about living life in Delhi, and a music column for the Times of India as well as contributing to a host of other newspapers and magazines. He was also the music reviewer and critic for the now defunct "Now -India .com".

In 1998 he shot for the TV serial "Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram" though it was shelved after canning six episodes.

In 2000 Manish was a guest speaker at the International FM Conference which was held that year In Delhi.During this time he was featured in the Hindustan Times "What's Hot List"

In 2002 Manish Sahi and Shabnam Dutta Sahi (Shabbi) moved to London, where they joined Asian radio station Sunrise Radio. Manish did a course in acting for performance accredited to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (LAMDA) in which he gained a distinction , and in 2005 Manish went back to India to work on a documentary on Indian villages, and to work on a script for 'Moondust Films'. Shabbi continued on Sunrise radio as Sonia Dutta, where she presented the top twenty and is widely acknowledged as a leading bollywood expert.

In September 2006 she left Sunrise radio and sang the title track on the Indian concept album Lady Chatterjee by Sawan Dutta which has entered the Limca Book of Records.

In 2007 Shabnam Dutta Sahi became a mother for the second time with her son Rohan, her eldest son Arnav was born in 2004. Recently Manish has been working on a comedy character with a renowned Bollywood scriptwriter and Shabnam Dutta Sahi is busy shooting a documentary series in India.

Since 2004 both Manish Sahi and Shabnam have made guest appearances on All India Radio's new year celebrations.

Trivia

Manish Sahi is ambidextrous though he prefers to use his left hand for writing and the right for precision i.e. throwing darts or holding a tennis racket.

Though best known for playing classic rock he is said to be a keen follower of Bollywood remixes, Ghazals and Quawaalis especially Altaf Raja and Pankaj Udhas.

External links

• -About Manish -this is london
• Shabnam and Manish
• Times of India review
• Lady Chatterjee Video Sawan Dutta feat Shabbi
• Lady Chatterjee- sawan dutta
• Lady Chatterjee Hindi/Bollywood songs 2006

Persondata
Name	Sahi, Manish
Alternative names
Short description	Radio personality
Date of birth
Place of birth	London, England
Date of death
Place of death