Expat's record-breaking collection in Dubai

Gulf News

Expat's record-breaking collection in Dubai. 72-year-old expat has largest collection of recordings of concerts dating back to 1907  Read the full Gulf News article: http://gulfnews.com/news/uae/society/world-of-indian-classical-music-concerts-in-this-man-s-wardrobe-1.2181872  See more at: http://gulfnews.com/gntv

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00:00I have more than about 20,000 23,000 concerts. If you hear for six hours a day

00:10then it will take 140 years for the first concert to appear, to hear again.

00:17It will take more than one generation. So if you hear 24 hours then it will take

00:2248 years to complete one round of concerts which I have recorded. I started

00:27my collection during 1965. I used to record all the radio programs and

00:35whatever I could grab from the market and all those were all in cassettes.

00:40All these gems of music which I have collected is mainly for starting a music

00:46library in memory of my father. I wanted to keep a library which will be one of

00:51the best in the world. That is my aim. So I sit for four to five hours every day

00:55in the computer feeding the data and the details of each and every concert

01:00which I have. I have almost completed about 60% of my job. I think it will take

01:08another two years for me to complete the entire job to my satisfaction. Now I am

01:13I have changed all the cassettes to CDs, CDs to mp3s and now to a hard disk.

01:20The most important thing, aim is to propagate this particular Indian music to the

01:26entire world. Most important thing is majority of all these recordings are all

01:31old recordings, not the present-day generations. The ones which have become

01:36very difficult to get. I have tried my level best to collect the best cream of

01:42music and I have spent more than 30-40 hours for each concert filtering them

01:48using the best filters and then using the best system available. Once I had a

01:53discussion with another recording company who told me that you can, to get

01:59a copy of all your recordings, how much should we pay? I told okay you may pay me

02:04my money but can you give me back my time? The years which I have spent, the

02:07years of this one, so many hours I have sat and then done this recording, written

02:13down all these things but all this you cannot bring me back. So I am not for

02:18sale I told. This is what it is.

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