Bipin Pandit, the COO of The Advertising Club, launched his coffee table book about music titled Khumaar sometime back. The book was launched on the same day as his show Khumaar on 19^th April 2013 at Savarkar Hall, Shivaji Park, Mumbai. Music maestro Pyarelal Ramprasad Sharma of famous music duo, Laxmikant-Pyarelal launched Bipin Pandit’s book Khumaar. The coffee table book has 30 articles contributed by stalwarts from the Advertising, Marketing and Media fraternities.

His shows of Khumaar were attended by all the bigwigs of the Marketing, Media, Advertising, P.R and the communication world. While conversing with them at length he sensed that passion for music also runs very high amongst them. Infact a few also started mentioning Ragas and classical music to him.  Being a passionate music lover himself and having been on stage for 23 years as a professional compere and mimicry artist having performed at all the auditoriums and most of the banners, he thought of compiling a book and give something back to the industry. He was quite sure as to which people can write well and communicate their point in an articulate fashion. Thus the project of Khumaar book was born. 

Bipin sent out a brief to all the writers to write about either their favorite playback singer or music director or lyricist. So you had Chaitanya Padukone write about Dev Anand and Rajesh Khanna. The other writers bring out well known personalities well, so that many will get to know the unknown side of these famous people. Bipin has left the writer to choose the singer he wanted to write about, as he wanted the book should have a piece on each of the great singers. Bipin shared his list of wannabe singers to feature in the book and it was do carefully by the few writers who took up the task.

Thus this collectors issue has an article on Amitabh Bachchan (Piyush Pandey), Rafi vs. Kishore: A Photo Finish (Ayaz Memon), God created Lata &Asha (Nandkishor Desai), Hemant Kumar (Prit Nair), Talat Mahmood (Narendra Kusnur), KJ Yesudas (Madan Sanglikar), S.P.Balasubramaniam (MG Paramesawaran), Talat Mahmood, and Geeta Dutt (Meena Kapoor Biswas).

Some writers are lucky enough to have a chance to write on two personalities like Bollywood critic Rajiv Vijayakar who pens his work on Laxmikant – Pyarelal: The Longest playing Record and The Genius of Kalyanji - Anandji. Bipin has also contributed his own chapters in the book in the form of two interviews, first with the legendary music composer Pyarelalji and second with Ruhan Kapoor the son of the legendary Mahendra Kapoor. In the article on the Rafi and Shammi Kapoor he has poured his heart out and yes not to forget the preface that is written impeccably well.

Understandably Rafi and Kishore have got more written about because of obvious reasons. 

The primary reason for bringing out such a book is because Khumaar is Bipin Pandit's brand under which he does shows. In an interview with this writer, Bipin Pandit stated, “Khumaar means intoxication and I wanted people to feel musically intoxicated after reading my book just as they feel after attending my shows.”

Bipin is also a versatile orator and communicator. He is also a good mimic and has been comparing stage shows. Besides his strong personal attributes Bipin is extremely methodical at planning and organizing. One can gauge that by looking at his career which has started from Baroda Rayan, Castrol to the top slot of Advertising Club of India and also his association with Welingkar’s as faculty for Event Management.

The book is targeted to all, music lovers all across the world. While the book deals more with the yesteryear singers and performers, in a book like this, there is no comparison. The singers of the old times were in a league of their own. 

Book – Khumaar

Author – Bipin R Pandit

Publisher - Khumaar

Hardcover – 129 pages

Price - Rs. 1200/-

Reviewed by Verus Ferreira