HYDERABAD: Come January and Hyderabad gets a little breathless. Not because the new year has dawned but because the cheapest entertainment is in town. Yes, one can get all the fun and frolic at jaw-dropping price - just Rs. 20. Can you beat that one?
Hyderabadis always ring in the new year along with the All India Industrial Exhibition. Popularly called ‘Numaish’, it is perhaps the most inexpensive entertainment one can ask for. For the last 76 winters it is regaling Hyderabadis without a break. Step into the sprawling Numaish maidan and you get a front row seat to the biggest consumer fair. Some 25 lakh persons visit the exhibition during its 46-day run.
But not everyone goes there to shop. A good number of people visit the Numaish to revel in the pleasant ambience. Many prefer to simply ensconce themselves in a cosy spot and let the music wash over them.The real trouble with life is that there is no background music. And in the exhibition ground you get an earful to enliven your mood. It is perhaps the only place where you get to listen the all time hits of Hindi movies.
Nibbling popcorn young couples enjoy the melody as they stroll along. Yonder an elderly woman has a tough time keeping in sight her grandkids running here and there. Suddenly, the song stops and anannouncement blares “teen gumshuda ladke yehan radio station par hai jis kisi ke hain aakar lejayen” (there are three boys at the radio station who have lost their way, whoever they belong to, please comeover and take them).
If music be the food of love, play on. The Exhibition Society plays yesteryears melodies which everyone enjoys irrespective of age. The radio station carefully chooses songs to suit every mood. Listen to the soulful Rafi number Aaj mausam bada beiman hai, swing to the raunchy Kishore Kumar song khaike paan Banaras wala, get carried away by the haunting Mukesh tune Main to ek khwab hoon or simply give into Lata Mangeshkar’s melodic song Tera mera pyar amar phir kyon mujhkolagta hai dar.
Numaish is the time to shed mundane concerns and get transported to another place. And what helps is the soulful tunes that trigger a flood of memories. After silence that which comes nearest toexpressing the inexpressible is music. And the one good thing about music is - when it hits you, you feel no pain.
The sequence of songs aired may change from day to day but one song is invariably played every night. Old timers know it is time to call it a day. As it gets on 11 p.m the Pakeezah number Chalte chalte yunhi koi mil gaya tha goes on the air. When Lata croons the line ye chiragh bujh rahe hain mere saath jalte jalte lights go off in the Numaish maidan one by one. The watch and ward staff start blowing whistles signalling visitors to leave the place.The songs are often interspersed with missing children announcements and various product advertisements. There is also funny exchange of dialogues between Chote Nawabs who pass on good messages in their inimitable style. All this has become part of Hyderabad tradition.
Started with just 50 stalls in 1938, the ‘Numaish Masnuaat-e-Mulki’ has grown beyond the wildest dreams of its founder, Mir Osman Ali Khan, the seventh Nizam. Neither shopping malls nor multiplexes have taken away its charm. Seventy-six years on people continue to flock it.