KOCHI: Playback singer Mohammed Aslam led the crowd on a nostalgic journey through the golden age of Bollywood music at the Government General hospital on Wednesday at the weekly ‘Arts and Medicine’ show organised by the Kochi Biennale Foundation. Groovy as it is, the high tempo, foot-tapping music of today hardly matches up to the Kishore Kumar or Mohammed Rafi numbers from the golden era of Hindi music, which was the choice of songs today.
Arts and Medicine is an all-Wednesday joint initiative of the Kochi Biennale Foundation and Mehboob Memorial orchestra, sponsored by CAFS (Casino Air Caterers & Flight Services), aimed at providing solace to patients through therapeutic music. The 195th edition of the programme this week featured the noted singer who entered the music field at the age of six and started performing by 13. He was inspired by singers Mohammed Rafi, Kishore Kumar and Mukesh.
The South Indian playback singer from Bengaluru has performed all over India, the Persian Gulf and also has done playback singing in Tamil and Bollywood film industries. He has worked with A R Rahman for Rang De Basanti and Jodha Akbar and was also a part of Rahman’s world tour. Aslam gained international acclaim after performing over 2,000 stage shows in different parts of the world.
“Mohammed Aslam, an internationally acclaimed singer came to Kochi from Bengaluru to sing for the patients and bystanders of the General hospital on his own. This gesture will take ‘Arts and Medicine’ to new heights and is a great achievement for the organisers of the show,” said Bonny Thomas, KBF research coordinator.
He sang 18 songs, mostly Hindi melodies of Kishore, Rafi, Mukesh and Talat Mahmood with a Malayalam and Tamil song thrown into the mix.