It was an evening when cricket was played on a musical pitch. It was the launch of a musical compilation Howzat brought out by a group of city engineers. Cricketer Srinath graced the event that took place at Mahila Seva Samaja Auditorium on Saturday. Attending cricket enthusiasts talked about the game, its past and present.
The album is the brainchild of Arakere Suresh, a top-level executive and a cricket buff. He says, “I have followed cricket since childhood and treated this game as entertainment. When I thought of giving something back to it, I realised the only way I can show my love is by way of music. I shared my thoughts with some of my friends and that’s how Howzat came about. The album has ten songs of which nine are based on legends from Karnataka including G R Vishwanath, Brijesh Patel, E A S Prasanna, Javagal Srinath, Roger Binny, Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid, B S Chandrashekhar and Syed Kirmani. One song is dedicated to the cricket fraternity as a whole.”
The event also saw some medleys and rendition of evergreen songs from Kannada movies as young and aspiring singers, a few related to Srinath, who lent their voices for Howzat performed live.
Interestingly, the album comes along with a booklet of players’ profiles and statistics compiled by H R Gopalakrishna, historian and a cricket statistician. “I was approached by Suresh through one of our common friends and when I heard about this concept, I was keen to give every detail about the players,” he says.
Lyricist B N Satyeesh, senior vice-president of an IT firm, has written the lyrics. “I am also a poet and have authored a few books. As a cricket enthusiast, I enjoyed writing the lyrics. The songs talk of the cricketer’s strengths. It took me three months to write my first song, after which I completed the rest in a month’s time. Our music directors BV Praveen and Pradeep BV have scored some good tunes.”