Harmonica lover of the week: Ravibabu

Ravibabu, a harmonica lover of Hyderabad, is ex-servicemen in Indian Army and is currently working in a multinational telecom company. He is our harmonica lover of this week.

First Love for Harmonica:

When Ravibabu was studying in 9th Std at Gorakhpur (UP), his school-mate (a Nepali) used to play the harmonica. At that time he was attracted to the harmonica because of its sound and tiny size. He became desperate to feel the harmonica but it was'nt available anywhere in the surroundings. His brother used to own a guitar. He gave the guitar to that school-mate and borrowed his harmonica. That was his first experience with this instrument. Within a very short period, he picked up few numbers like "Kanchi re kanchi" and "Hai apna dil to awara".

Experience at HaLoH:

After he joined Indian army as a wireless operator, harmonica gradually disappeared from his life for about two decades. One fine day, he happened to know about HaLoH and joined our group. Now, he is a full fledged harmonica player. He has a huge list of songs which he enjoys playing on his collection of harmonicas which includes Suzuki SCX56,Suzuki SCX48 in A,G,Hohner Super hromonica in D,F,Super Chromonica Deluxe,Hohner CX-12 in C,Swan 10 holes chromatic,Suzuki pure harp diatonic, Suzuki pro-v diatonic,Hohner puck and a silver song diatonic in G. He always expresses his thanks to HaLoH members, especially Vinayak and Ramana who inspired him to use chromatics and octave playing on harmonica. He feels HaLoH has motivated him to play a wide range of songs on harmonica and is a proud Harmonica Lover of Hyderabad. HaLoH wishes Mr Ravibabu all the best in all his future endeavours in his career and passion.

Please watch Ravibabu's video. He's playing "Lakhon hain nigahon mein"

HaLoH pays tribute to the Indian harmonica legend (Late) Shri Milon Gupta

Harmonica Lovers of Hyderabad paid tribute to the Indian harmonica legend (Late) Shri Milon Gupta who breathed his last on Feb 18th in the year 1995. It was a small gathering at Rajkumar Gavvala’s residence. Milon da is the man who popularized harmonica with his melodies and taught harmonica to many harmonica lovers including Shri Vinayak B. HaLoH members M/s Vinayak, A. Rajkumar, Kailashnath, Ashwin, Mahendra Gala, Ramana attended the meeting. Shri A. Rajkumar introduced another harmonica lover to HaLoH who is Shri Shyamala Rao, Branch manager for a Govt. General Insurance company at Hyderabad. He shared his love and passion for harmonica with all of us. One of the greatest harmonica players of this country Mr Swarup Mitra called HaLoH team at the same time to pay his tribute to the harmonica legend Shri Milon Gupta whom he calls as “the Bhagwan of harmonica”. He played the tune “Aaj koi na apna” over phone. Another Milon Da’s fan from Kolkata Mr Shubmay Das Gupta sent a message to HaLoH team “I still remember that fateful evening. I was at Rabindra Sadan at that time, a stone’s throw away from Milon Da’s residence, when he passed away. I took my last class from him only on the evening before and was unaware that he was no more. Hence, could not pay my last respects." Smt. Sujata Dutta, daughter of Milon da expressed her feelings regarding the tribute paid to her late father by harmonica lovers to Shri Vinayak. Mr

Ajay Vijh(MP), Mr Ashok Kulkarni (Maharashtra), Mr Debasis Dutta (Banglore) also expressed their respects for the legend.

Let us pray for the departed soul of the gentleman musician MILON GUPTA on his 16^th death anniversary.

Rendezvous with Milon da’s associate- Shri Karun Chakraborty

Our team member Ramana along with harmonica lover Rameshwaram Bharadwaj visited Chandan Nagar, Kolkata to meet Milon da’s close associate and one of the greatest harmonica players of India. Karun Chakraborty, a resident of Chandan Nagar (West Bengal), a painter by profession, has been following his hobby of playing the harmonica for more than 50 years now. He is a member of SPAH(Society for Preservation and Advancement of Harmonica), headquartered in Michigan (USA) and was invited to perform everyday in the week long 37^th Annual convention held in Romulus, Michigan in August 2000. The renowned harmonicist of Kolkata , Late Milon Gupta was his teacher and guide.In Milon da’s absence,He used to train his(Milon Da’s) students.

Mr Chakraborty was awarded the Gold Medal in the West Bengal Youth Festival in 1965 and has been performing at many venues in India as well as overseas all through. In the US, he has performed at University of Utah, Salt Lake City in 1997 for the "Fifty years of Indian Independence Celebrations", at Hartford, Connecticut and at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut in 1988. In the same year, he was invited to become an honorary member of the Golden Age Harmonicats of Chicopee, Massachusetts which had been founded by the late Sam Sheppard, and played at several functions all over the New England area as part of the group. He is equally skilled in playing Indian tunes as well as Western tunes. Very painful to share with you- now he is visually handicapped due to macular degeneration since his early 30s. However, this hasn't discouraged him to play the harmonica which he feels is his life.
Mr Karun’s better half- Smt Dipali Chakraborty, HOD Dept of English,Shillong College(Retired), also a music lover always accompanies Mr Karun Chakraborty at all the events. She has special interest in Rabindra Sangeet and has translated around 50 songs to English and those were published in Kolkata local magazine- "KRISTI".

The couple extended a warm welcome to our team members and this meeting was one of their most memorable meetings.

We do hope you'll enjoy watching these videos

Thank you.