Radio Mirchi Mumbai RJ Anmol:

The year 2012 had a difficult beginning for me as my beloved veteran actor Dev Anand passed away on 3 December 2011. The start of the year was quite mellow, as the flashes of my numerous meetings with the legend were still lingering in my mind. Going on air on listeners popular retro show Purani Jeans on Radio Mirchi’s was nothing less than a task for me with my voice cracking and my heart getting heavier with every song of his.

Gradually, I realized that things could not get worse from this point of time and geared myself to look ahead. The year took a turn for the better for me as we at Radio Mirchi hit upon a new innovative and a novel series called “Agar Tum Na Hote”. In this series an artist from the present time would share their thoughts about a legend and the importance of that person in influencing their lives. I was very excited about this unique initiative as I always used to wonder about the insight our music fraternity of today would have about the legends from the Golden era. Who would be their idol and what do they think about them. Their perspective about the work of legends will be different from mine so why not explore that facet for Purani Jeans.

In the series of shows, we had Shantanu Moitra talking about Salil Chaudhary, Shaan on Kishore Kumar, Shreya Ghosaal on Lata ji and Swanand Kirkire on Shailendra. The way these people talked about the work of these legends in detail and the influence on their work took the series to a different level altogether!

On the 24th death anniversary of Raj Kapoor I wanted to say "Agar tum na hote" to the legend and so I interviewed Rajiv Kapoor that culminated into the special screening of his one of the most iconic movies in Indian cinema "Awara" at PVR Oberoi. Present for the special screening were the Kapoor Brothers Randhir Kapoor and Rajiv Kapoor with 350 listeners of my show Purani Jeans. It was a wow moment for me as Awara was the first Black and White movie and the Seventh movie I had shown during the four years of my RJ profession with Radio Mirchi.

Asha Bhosle's birthday is a mind-blowing example to share. As Asha Ji’s birthday was approaching I was thinking of the different things that I can do. I met Asha Ji for the same and it was her idea to connect with the fans on her birthday through Radio Mirchi phone lines. We received calls from across the world and the experience of connecting the listeners to their favourite singer and being the mediator was soul satisfying. Coincidently, I also got the opportunity to repeat the activity with Lata Mangeshkar and we were inundated with calls from people across Australia, Pakistan, London, Kolkata and Bareilly on Purani Jeans. The experience was exhilarating.

Post my experience with these two great personalities, I hit upon another exciting activity in my radio career - "Bus Itna sa Khwab hai". The idea of Bus Itna sa Khwab hai was on my mind since 5 years where an RJ hosts a show while travelling in the city with listeners. I am glad to be the 1st RJ in the country to execute this on air with my team and listeners. 'Bus Itna sa Khwab Hai' is an initiative to explore the lives of these retro stars. Every week we gave our listeners once in a life time opportunity to live life of one of their favourite artists by being in the same space where these Legends lived or worked. We also gave them a chance to meet friends, family, colleagues and other close associates of these stars; and all of this not from studios but while travelling in a bus. This is unarguably the first time in the history of radio industry that a show was conducted LIVE on the move, hopping from one locale to another. I am happy that our listeners felt closer to the Legends after every bus journey. I
promise to offer more similar opportunity in the coming days.

With my radio career on Radio Mirchi’s Purani Jeans I feel truly blessed by all the legends of yesteryear as I am able to connect my listeners to the hit old songs of the Golden Era and recreate the magic of the evergreen legends.