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
My ten favourite bangala (bungalow) songs
A dream of one’s own house/cottage in the suburbs has been and is the motor of many middle class households all over the world. Maybe it is the security it offers or the need for privacy, to have a garden and the cosy life which one associates with it and thus to achieve ultimate goal of every human being to be happy. If one really ‘achieves’ all these things with the acquisition of this cosy house is secondary. I think the dream in itself the best part of it.
Like many of the dreams and aspirations of the common man (whoever or whatever he/she is), even this aspect has not been neglected in the Hindi film songs. Here are my favourites!
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Tags: aag lage bangle me, aaiye aapko main apne bangle ki sair, Aap Ki Khatir [1977], Aji Bas Shukriya [1958], Anand Bakshi, Asha Bhosle, Asha Parekh, bangala, bangla, Bappi Lahiri, Basu Manohari, Bengal, dariya kinare ek bangalo, dev anand, DevAnand, European settlers, Farida Jalal, Farooq Qaiser, G. M. Durrani, ganga ki reti pe bangala chhawaai, geeta bali, Ghulam Mohammed, hai lagaa, House No. 44, hum to tere dil ke bangale me aanaa maangtaa, Iftekhar, ik bangala bane nyaara, Johnny Walker, Joroo Ka Ghulam, K. L. Saigal, Kaala Paani, Kalyanji-Anandji, kanta lagaa, Kidar Sharma, Kishore Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar, Magroor [1950], Majrooh Sultanpuri, Meena Kumari, Mirza Ghalib [1954], Mohammed Rafi, My ten favourite bangala songs, My ten favourite bungalow songs, Nalini Jaywant, Nanda, nazar laage raajaa tore bangale par, o daata o daataa de hamko bhi ek pyaara bangala, Pankaj Mullick, President [1937], pyaara ek bangala ho, R. C. Boral, R. D. Burman, Raja Mehdi Ali Khan, Rajesh Khanna, Rehman, Rekha, Roshan, S. D. Burman, Sabse Bada Rupaiya [1976], Sahir, Samadhi 1972, Shaili Shailendra, Shakeel Budayuni, Shamshad Begum, Sudha Malhotra, Suraiya, Vinod Khanna, Vinod Mehra
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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