Are you a fan of old songs and spend hours scouring the Net to find them? Do you associate songs with a particular memory? Then Bhoole Bisre Geet, an online song sharing platform on Facebook, is a site to check out. BBG was born during a random conversation that city-based entrepreneur, B.K. Birla, had with some of his colleagues. “It started as a personal pursuit to reconnect with music, that I listened to when I was growing up. I wanted to dedicate 15 minutes a day to listening music. I started with sharing songs on my Facebook page. I soon discovered that many people liked these updates and created an independent Facebook page.”
The community has grown tremendously and the Facebook page has more than 342,884 likes, a lakh followers from 35 countries. A self-confessed Talat Mahmood fan, Birla contends, “Memory and nostalgia are important to create associations. For some people, an old song may remind them of the lullaby their mother used to sing, while for some, it might remind them of their college days. These aspects helped us build a strong network offline as well. People also shared their experiences and memories related to various songs on the page. We also discovered that there was a strong fan base for golden oldies from Bollywood in Pakistan.”
As the community grew, the team decided to take the interactions offline as well. “We had almost 25,000 people and were interacting with each other on a daily basis. One of the first BBG meet-ups was conducted at my office, post work. Everyone who came to the event sang songs, made suggestions and the community became active both online and offline. Many people liked to not only talk about old songs, but also sing them out loud for five to six hours. We realised that people get happiness by singing songs. Many of the members of the community were able to overcome their stage fright and gained confident after by these meet-ups. We share a passion for music and a love for food — that is the thread that binds us together. We conducted similar meet-ups across the country.”
The group soon found a purpose. “We decided we wanted to spread happiness through music. We have always wanted to be completely non-commercial. We ventured to help out in the NGO sector and conducted a session at an old age home in Mumbai. They loved the performances and we were approached by many such NGOs for performances. We also conducted a concert to raise money for cancer awareness. We have recently started to conduct performances at home for elderly people, who cannot leave their homes. Apart from all this, we conduct regular meet-ups, where everybody gets an opportunity to sing.”
Birla contends, “Though most of the music we put up online is old Hindi music, we also make an effort to weave in songs in the local languages, depending on the city we are conducting the meet-up in. I think that the internet should be also given credit for the success of this venture. It helped in creating such a large community for scratch.”
The BBG team is also working on enhancing the user experience on TheSongPedia, an online magazine devoted to music.
“We are in the process of generating interesting content revolving around music on this platform. The success of this venture is also due to the efforts of many homemakers, who have taken time out to help us arrange the logistics and conduct regular programmes and meet-ups in cities across the country. It changed their perspective about their life as well. We are also making efforts to discover and support independent music.”
