- It houses one of the biggest collections of
Hindi film and non-film music...
- it is owned by Syed Zafar Shah - the
man who is acknowledged as the largest private collector of
old gramophone records
-it has a unique cataloguing system. Songs or
records which are easily available are put in a category
called Chalu, those which have gone out of circulation are
titled Cancelled, and those which belong to the pre-partition
era, that is before 1947, are categorised as Khandani.
It is easy to get lost in the endless by-lanes of old Delhi.From the famed Jama Masjid to Khari Baoli, from Chitli Qabar to Balli Maran, it is a world away from the frenetic city of Delhi. A world which still lives in the medieval ages and sets its own languorous pace.
Wedged between Jama Masjid and Dariba Kalan is Meena Bazaar, the ancient market that is a storehouse of shops selling paans, burqas (veils worn by Muslim women), caps and pictures of famous Islamic religious places. The bazaar is said to have travelled from Agra toDelhi when Emperor Shah Jahan shifted his capital here in 1638.
Though the by-lanes of Mean Bazaar are a throwback on India's colourful past, it is no longer a market for high profile shops or shoppers. Yet shop No. 256 is of very special significance to many. And the shop-owner may well be on his way into the Guinness Book of World Records.
Shah Music Centre, as the name suggests, is a one-stop shop for music lovers. But this is no hole-in-the-wall cassette and CD vending outlet. It houses one of the biggest collections of Hindi film and non-film music records from all over the world which are stacked into every nook and cranny of the shop. This fascinating collection is owned by Syed Zafar Shah - the man who is acknowledged as the largest private collector of old gramophone records---be it the 78 or 45 rpm or even the long playing variety. "I even have the rarest of rare four inch records, which were invented long before the conventional ones," says Zafar Shah and adds, " I possess most of the Hindi and Urdu labels ever produced in the world. And there are labels of many other Indian languages."
It was Zafar Shah's grandfather, Syed Ahmed Shah, who started this extraordinary collection way back in 1928. He had a shop at the time on the periphery wall of Jama Masjid which specialised in repairing gramophones. Fifty years later his son, Akbar Shah shifted to Meena Bazaar and is today fondly called Recordwale Shahenshah.
Now Akbar Shah too has retired and handed over the business to his son, Syed Zafar Shah. And the love for music has spilled over to the third generation. Zafar Shah now looks after the family business which has thrived for seven decades because of the mind- boggling variety of music available here. Says he, " My grandfather was a great lover of music. His interest in collecting records was sparked when qawwalis of Bibi Dholki and Kallan Khan were transferred on vinyl in 1930. Since he had plenty of gramophones which the Indians and Britishers brought to him for repairs he would listen to these qawwalis all day long." Over the years Ahmed Shah's interest turned to film music and he began buying records sung by stars like Noorjehan, Shamshad Begum, Malika Pukhraj, K.L.Sehgal and other singers of the era.
In the thirties and forties some of the leading Indian companies producing vinyl included HMV, Young India, New Theatres, Lahore Music Company and Hindustan Records. The 78 Rpm cost 12 annas, a princely sum at that time which could buy you six kilos of meat or a good gabardine shirt, as Zafar puts it. " My grandfather would buy two copies of each new release. One for his collection and one for his listening pleasure." By the early forties Syed Ahmed Shah had earned such fame that even leading music companies began consulting him on the kind of records they should release. Amazingly, he could almost accurately predict the number of copies a record would sell by listening to it for a day or two.
By the time he died in 1977, Ahmed Shah had a formidable collection of records which he passed on to his son Akbar Shah who proved to be a worthy inheritor of the legacy. He not just painstakingly catalogued the records but also embarked on a collecting spree which took him to Teheran, Amsterdam, London, Ankara, Lahore, Karachi, Barbados, Singapore and Hong Kong. He snapped up records from private collectors, old curio shops and even junk markets. In fact it was in the Hyderabad kabadi market (junk market) where he struck gold. A junk dealer was selling a record that Akbar Shah thought no longer existed. It was from the 1954 film Shaan-e-Haatham and contained Mohammad Rafi's soulful rendering of Sabak raza ka de gaye Kerbalawale. Between Akbar and Zafar Shah the two of them they have added to the collection manifold in the last 75 years.
It is not surprising that like his grandfather and father, Zafar Shah too is a veritable encyclopedia of popular music. Though he too is unlettered he can tell you in seconds the origin of a song, who sung it, who wrote its lyrics, who composed the music, which year it was released and, in the case of film songs, who was the hero or heroine who sang the song on the screen. " You name a song and I'll pull out the record," says Zafar proudly.One of the most unique features of his collection is that he has records of Mohammad Rafi sung in 20 different languages. Says Zafar, " I have every single song of Rafi. And I can say with some amount of certainty that we are the only people who have all the eight songs that Master Madan rendered in his brief life including two ghazals, two Punjabi songs and two ragas."
Besides, he has practically all the film and non-film songs of Mukesh, Talat Mahmood, Lata Mangeshkar, Mahender Kapoor, Kishore Kumar and many others. He has a number of private albums of many leading singers. Among the ghazals, he possesses those of Begum Akhtar, Malika Pukhraj, Kamla Jharia, Shanta Apte, Naseem Bano [Saira Bano's mother] and Shamshad Bai [Saira Bano's grandmother] who used to sing in the 1930s.
The qawwali collection has works of great qawwal of yesteryears like Habib Painter, Mumtaz Shabbir, Ismail Azad, Kalwa Banne, Abdur Rahman Kanchawala, Kallan Khan Secunderabadi and more. Most of these records went out of circulation decades ago.
The collection includes Suraiya's songs from her first film Natak, Naushad's first film Prem Nagar, O.P. Nayyar's first film Aasman, Ravi's first film Vachan, Dilip Kumar’s first film Jawahar Bhata and the first Raj Kapoor-Madhubala starrer Neel Kamal.
Zafar Shah is the proud possessor of songs from the film Saiyaan [1951] which did not hire a music company and whose songs were recorded directly from the soundtrack. " It is impossible to find this song anywhere. Even His Master's Voice (HMV), the company that produced it, doesn't possess a copy of it," says Zafar who is an equally zealous collector.
" Though my father catalogued the initial collection, the job has become virtually impossible. I have almost lost count of the number of records I have.' As he is now planning to apply to the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest private vinyl collection he would soon be listing every record he has. " I will have to close shop for several weeks to do that," says Zafar Shah.
Zafar Shah has in his possession songs of some films which even the oldtimers have not heard of. These include films like Ha Ha Hi Hi Hu Hu, Tin Tin Tin, Dr. Z, Dr. Shaitan, Rocket Girl, Rocket Tarzan and Murde Ki Jaan Khatre Mein.. The songs have been sung by leading singers like Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Mahender Kapoor and Mohammad Rafi.
He has catalogued the collection rather simply. Songs or records which are easily available are put in a category called Chalu, those which have gone out of circulation are titled Cancelled, and those which belong to the pre-partition era, that is before 1947, are categorised as Khandani.
" Nobody has this kind of record collection," says Zafar Shah and adds, " if I do not have a record, chances are no one has it. I possess records that even All India Radio doesn't have. In fact if they require an out of circulation record they come to me. Time and again, he has lent records from his collection to several music companies. In 1991-92 HMV re-copied 80 songs that the company didn't have in its library. That's because the Shah family has preserved a copy of every disc HMV has ever produced. Due credit was given to Akbar Shah on there-copied records.
For true-blue music lovers Shah has acquired a legendary status. Interestingly his shop is the only one which still repairs old gramophones. And the business is booming. This has largely got to do with gramophones becoming antique pieces in elite drawing rooms. But he also sells records. " If I have two copies of a record, one is up for sale. And there is no dearth of buyers," says Zafar Shah. Most of the records are still available between a reasonable Rs. 20 and Rs. 150.
The only regret Zafar Shah has, is that he has not been able to lay hands on the 1972 Feroz Khan-Mumtaz starrer ‘Apradh’. "Curiously that has been eluding me. And that's the only thing which is stopping me from staking a claim in the Guinness Book of World Records."
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