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Magical voice

Compereing is cinch for Hameed

Comperes' dream is to captivate the audience with their voice. For Abdul Hameed, it is just cinch. Be it on air or stage, his magical voice enthrals the audience.

"Voice is the index of the mind," he says. He feels if a compere comes up with the right attitude, half the battle is won. His 32 years experience in the Sri Lankan Broadcasting Corporation has made him a versatile personality in news reading, production and compering. Hameed played a perfect host and regaled the audience recently in `Golden Nite,' a musical concert organised in the city.

Gameshow

He revamped the concept of `Antakshari' in the gameshow, 'Paatukku Paatu,' which was the only such show broadcast in television and radio simultaneously. "The concept was derived from the Tamil poetry genre, `Andadhi,' a lyrical continuation starting off from the previous sentence," he explains.

Playback singer Karthik, once as the guest for the show, dedicated his fame and name to this show, in which he made his debut concert. Hameed counts this among his unforgettable moments.

Owing to its popularity, the gameshow was renamed `Antakshari' and broadcast in Hindi radio channels but commercial broadcasting began in Tamil at SBC.

No magic

His ability to remember the verses of all Tamil songs has astonished many. "There is no magic," he quips. "It is just a matter of how often one hears the song. I keep hearing the songs and it becomes easy to identify a mistake when others sing." Again, he owes this to his habit of listening to radio. He feels radio is a powerful medium. "It is the only medium which never interferes with our activities. Innovative programmes are need of the hour to revive it," he says.

Proudest moment

What worries him the most is the priority of private radio channels. He feels that importance must be given to human-interest programmes rather than film songs. Veteran actor Sivaji Ganesan was an admirer of Hameed's way of scripting the skits. "My proudest moment was when he called me and appreciated a skit that was broadcast in SBC." Incidentally, Abdul Hameed gave the running commentary on Sivaji's funeral procession.

He fondly reminisces his experiences during the making of Kamal Hassan's `Tenali', in which he helped Kamal with the Sri Lankan accent. "It was a pleasant experience to teach a perfectionist. He made it a point to speak a pure Colombo accent and did it," Hameed recalls.

But his association with cinema seems to stop with this. For those, who expect him to act in films, the compere affirms that it is definitely not on his priority list.

S. AISHWARYA

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