Arunji has been a loyal follower of this blog and has always been very much encouraging with his comments and suggestions. This is his second post here on this blog in the role of an author. It is an honour for me that he agreed to do this post. His personal reminiscences as usual makes this post more dear to me. Thank you Arunji!
Arunkumar Deshmukh’s ten favourite songs with “interesting” lyrics
Words like ‘Dumbak dumba’ or ‘chidi chapata ‘ or Ding dong etc always attracted me in Hindi songs. In the early 50s I was an avid listener of Radio Ceylon. They used to have a weekly programme of ‘ Anokhe Bol ‘ for 15 minutes. I waited thru the week for this programme. it was my favourite programme. Songs played in this programme had odd words in it and those songs haunted me for the entire week till the next programme, when next set of songs took over.
From my early childhood i was very fond of seeing films and enjoying its music. We were in Hyderabad State. This being a Muslim ruled state; there were many peculiar things in those days. For example, in most Theatres, there used to be a class called “ZANANA “(Ladies Only). This was like a balcony. It was meant for those Burkha-clad Muslim women who wanted to see the films, without being seen by the men folk. A huge cloth curtain was dividing the Zanana Class and the rest of the Theatre. A She-male or a He-female (I don’t know which! ) was appointed with the exclusive duty of removing the huge curtain once the film started and closing it before or as soon as the Interval or the end of the film, so that the women could see the film and still not get exposed to the prying eyes of the men folk in the theatre.
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Tags: Aawaz, Ajit, Aka baaka chidi chadaka, Asha, Asha Bhosale, Ashok Kumar, Aye Ichak Beechak Churr, Aziz Kashmiri, Bawre Nain, Bhagwan Sinha, Bimal Roy, C Ramchandra, chhupa chhupi agad bagad, Cuckoo, Denewala Jab bhi deta, dev anand, Dhitang Dhitang bole, Dholak, Do Bigha Zameen, Eena Meena Dika, Ek Do Teen, Ek Thi Ladki, Funtoosh, geeta bali, Gupchup gupchup pyar Karen, Halla Gulla Layilla, Haryala sawan aaya, Hemant Kumar, Hyderabad State, k. n. singh, Kidar Sharma, Kishore Kumar, Lara Lappa, Lata, Majnu, Manna Dey, Meena Kumari, Meena Shorey, Mehmood, Nimmi, Prem Dhawan, Rafi, Raj Kapoor, Rajendra Krishna, Roshan, S. D. Burman, Sahir Ludhiyanvi, Sailesh Mukherjee, Salil Chaudhary, Sandhya Mukherjee, Satish Batra, Savera, Sazaa, Shailendra, Shamshad Begum, Sheila Ramani, Shyamsunder, Vinod, Vyjayantimala, Zanana Class
Fruits arise from flowers. Well not really, they arise from the ovary of the flower, but you get the drift of what I want to say, right? Thus, this post was supposed to be the successor of the loved-by-all flower post – flower power. Dear readers, I wanted to give you such a wealth of knowledge about fruits and their origins and uses and the stuff. But alas, I couldn’t find enough songs to really inspire me. But, still I collected some songs with fruits in it. I won’t say they are all good, most of them are outright bad and could be used as weapons of torture. Still, be my guest and go through them and maybe lament with me for a while.
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Tags: Ambuva ki dali jhoom rahi, Ambuva Ki Dari Pe Bole Re Koyaliya, Ambuva pe Koyal Bole, Anaar dana, Angoor Ka Dana Hoon, Anokhi Raat 1968, Baazi 1968, Bagiya ke amruud kahe, Bahut Din Huwe 1954, Bangle ke pheeche teri beri ke neeche, Ber, Ber lo, Chori Mera Kaam, Cuckoo, Dahej 1950, Ek anar do bimar, flowers, Fruits, Ghar Kaa Chiraag 1989, Grapes, Guava, Henna 1991, I love you, jujubes, Kanchan, Khatta Meetha 1978, Lata Mangeshkar, Madhubala, Main Kachhe Angoor Ki Bail, Mango koyal, Mere Sapnon ki Rani 1997, Moorti 1945, Mulberry, Narangi le lo ji, O meri beri ke ber mat todo, Paisa ya Pyaar (1969), Pomegranate, Pomegrante, R. D. Burman, Samadhi 1972, Sanam Bewafa 1991, Sirens, Tanuja, Tuutak Tuutak tuutiya, Vidyapati 1934, Yeh Jeena Hai Angoor Ka Dana
It is so hard to decide if I like this film or not. The story is anti-feminist and traditionalist. But at the same time the director/story-writer’s take on “upper-class liberal reformers who seek to impose their ideology on society at large”, as Philip Lutgendorf puts it, in the form of Abrar Alvi’s witty dialogues are simply great. It is simply difficult to have a single opinion on this movie. Dustedoff has also provided a nice review of this movie on her blog. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Al Nasir, Anwaribai, Bir Sakhuja, Cuckoo, divorce, guru dutt, Guru Dutt series, Hinduism, Johnny Walker, Kumkum, Lalita Pawar, Madhubala, Moni Chaterji, Mr. & Mrs. 55, Mr. & Mrs. 55 film review, Radhika, Rooplaxmi, Yasmin
From my early childhood i was very fond of seeing films and enjoying its music. We were in Hyderabad State. This being a Muslim ruled state; there were many peculiar things in those days. For example, in most Theatres, there used to be a class called “ZANANA “(Ladies Only). This was like a balcony. It was meant for those Burkha-clad Muslim women who wanted to see the films, without being seen by the men folk. A huge cloth curtain was dividing the Zanana Class and the rest of the Theatre. A She-male or a He-female (I don’t know which! ) was appointed with the exclusive duty of removing the huge curtain once the film started and closing it before or as soon as the Interval or the end of the film, so that the women could see the film and still not get exposed to the prying eyes of the men folk in the theatre.
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