Ameen Sayani: A voice that brought a nation closer

Most of the obituaries on Ameen Sayani, who passed away this week, recalled a “golden voice of the yesteryears”. Ameen Sayani’s mother, Kulsum, met Gandhi in 1917, and since then, she weaved threads of nationalism on the charkha and spread the message of Hindustani. Kulsum’s son, as a much sought-after broadcast voice, would one day flip Gandhi’s famous call to Indians, bhaiyon aur bahnon to bahnon aur bhaiyon. A shoemaker sitting in front of Akashvani Bhawan in Delhi’s Parliament Street once told me how Ameen Sayani became a fraternal voice for him and his brother, a tailor who migrated to Lahore after Partition.