Mehboob Memorial Orchestra

Mehboob Memorial Orchestra is housed in a brown building at Calvetty, across the road from Aspinwall. The building takes its name from the singer Mehboob, but he never lived there. Hussain Koya is one of the group’s founding members.

Kochi knew the singer as ‘Bayi’. He grew up in Pattalam, the part of Fort Kochi where the military camped during the Second World War, and he is believed to have learned his first Hindi songs from soldiers there. He sang at weddings and mehfils, mostly ghazals, and wrote songs with two poet friends, Nelson and Balan, which he then sang. He was a Deccani Muslim who spoke Urdu at home, part of a community whose ancestors came to Kochi from Hyderabad.

The orchestra’s office keeps the original track of ‘Akale aarum kaividum’, the 1951 song from Jeevitha Nouka. The version on YouTube is a remix. Years later K. J. Yesudas recorded a second version, which loyalists of Mehboob frowned upon.