Anandji of the legendary Kalyanji-Anandji duo reminisces about his association with late Kersi Lord and meeting him four months back
Anandji Virji Shah
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Considered one of Bollywood’s finest, yet unsung, music arrangers and instrumentalists, Kersi Lord, 81, passed away on Sunday (October 16) morning. He was hospitalised for nearly a week. While tributes poured in from several members of the Indian music fraternity, a close associate, Anandji Shah of the legendary Kalyanji-Anandji duo is upset with Lord’s demise.
“We worked together on a lot of projects. He was a great musician. He was very sincere and disciplined. He was an accordion before he made the synthesiser popular in India. Since Kalyanji and I depended a lot on synthesisers for our songs, we got to work extensively with Kersi. We got him on board to handle the background score of Dharmatma (1975),” says Anandji, as he praises the late musician. “He was a great arranger. He was very lively, and the best thing about him was his punctuality. We also worked with his father,” he adds.
Anandji mentions that Lord also worked with legends like RD Burman, SD Burman and Naushad. Reminiscing about his last interaction with Kersi, Anandji says, “Since he was also a member of the Music Composers Association of India (MCAI), we would meet quite often. In fact, I met him around four months back. We had a long chat. He told me he had stopped playing any instrument.”
Anandji hoped to meet Lord again. “I never thought he will go away so soon. You tend to have an instinct when you meet someone for the last time. But when I met him, I never felt like that. I thought we would meet again. I was shocked when I learnt about his demise on Sunday,” he says.
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