My 10 favourite Madan Mohan-Asha Bhosle songs
When one thinks of Madan Mohan, one invariably thinks of Lata Mangeshkar. Their cooperation has brought out many a gem, but his partnership with the younger Mangeshkar sister still remains in the shadow of the bigger tree. Here I have listed some of my favourite songs resulting from this collaboration.
I have included only her solo numbers in this list. Enjoy!
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Arunji has been a loyal follower of this blog and has always been very much encouraging. With this post he makes his debut 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 makes this post more dear to me. Now, without much ado I give the microphone to him.
It is said, that Indian Films represent the life in India. There is, however, a section of people who believe that the society emulates what is shown in films. So, what is the truth?
When the Talkie came to India and films were made, only one thought was there in the minds of the producers and that was to make films based on Mythological and Historical stories.
This went on for first 5-6 years, but then film makers realised that people will like their films if they could relate their lives with it. So, films based on stories with village background, the caste system, dowry, the moneylender and the farmers were made. These became popular. The urban and the city viewer who was educated were looking for something different. Thus, films were made on love stories set in cities and bigger towns.
Those days middle class was growing in India by leaps and bounds and these were the people, who could spend the money. Now these were the people the films were aimed at.
In the 40s and 50s, the most common transportation vehicle was CYCLE. Almost everybody knew how to ride a cycle. Few people had cars and motorcycles had not yet become popular. Scooters were yet unknown.
I remember, I got my first Cycle when I was in school. My school was 3-4 miles far and I used the cycle to go to school in the morning and to go to friends in the evening. There were many cycles on the road and there was a Traffic rule that every cycle must have a Lamp on the Cycle’s handle as a caution to other vehicles. These lamps were kerosene and Cotton-batti lamps in the night. Sometimes, the lamps got extinguished due to wind. Unaware of this, the police used to catch us. On hearing our plea about the lamp, wind etc, the police would touch the glass of the lamp. if it was still warm, we were let out with a warning only. This was the life in late 40s and early 50s, when I was in Hyderabad State.
It was natural that now cycles too should feature in films. Imaginative Directors used cycles for the heroes when they chased the heroines and for the heroines when they went on a picnic with sahelis. In many films, the village affluents would be shown as cycle owners and the city people using it for moving about.
Up to the 70s, cycles were part of many films. Slowly, cycles were replaced by scooters, Mopeds and motor cycles in films and by 80s, it was only cars and fancy Mobikes for the heroes. Poor cycles were reduced to be shown, only used by the doodhwalla bhaiyyas (milk-men).
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My five favourite S. D. Burman sung songs
Either I am just too indecisive or I love all his songs, which makes a list of 10 favourite S. D. Burman songs so difficult. That is why I took the easy way out and went off to make a list of 10 favourite songs sung by him. That in turn would have been too easy, because I found only around 13 songs where he has lent his voice and only eleven of them were solos.
The first song sung by him for a Hindi film I found was for Eight Days [1946]. (Anu informed me later that he sang for the film Taj Mahal [1941] under the baton of Madhavlal Damodar. The song was ek prem ki pyaari nishani.) After that it looks like he took a 12 years break and lent his voice to Dev Anand in Kala Pani [1958] for the song dil laga ke kadar gayi pyaare. He sings dhin ta ta between the stanzas. The first Hindi solo of his after Eight Days is most probably sun mere bandhu re for Sujata [1960]. After this nearly all of his songs appear as background songs. Mere saajan hai us paar, although sung by a waysider, the camera stays on this character only at the beginning of the song, giving it a feeling of background song. While compiling this list, I realised the big impact this singer has left on us. He sang around ten solos in Hindi films and still one has at least five songs of him at the tip of the tongue.
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My ten favourite Dharmendra songs
Dharmendra had his birthday on 8th December, but unfortunately it was shadowed by Dev Anand’s demise. Happy belated Birthday, Dharmendra!
So much has been written about Dharmendra’s good looks. What shall I add to it? When I think of his fine appearance, the song that comes to my mind is:
chaand aahen bharega (the moon will sigh)
phool dil tham lenge (the flowers will clasp their hearts)
husn ki baat chali to (when the talk is of good looks)
sab tera naam lenge (your name will be mentioned)
What I find enchanting about him is his dazzling smile. When he smiles it has an assurance of ‘everything will be fine’ and one just melts away. He was not only good looks; he also made some splendid movies, till he went into the kutte-kaminey mode.
Choosing songs from his films was not easy, since many good songs by Mohd. Rafi have picturised on him. So to make things easier for me I had to put in some rules
a) One song pro film
b) Only solo songs
c) Songs to which he lip syncs, i.e. no background songs,that is why pal pal dil ke paas from Blackmail [1973] is conspicuous by its absence.
After the correction by Samir, I’ll put another clause:
d) Songs, where he is not “in Rakhee’s imagination, or just floating around”, that is why pal pal dil ke paas from Blackmail [1973] is conspicuous by its absence. 😉
Ten favourite Dharmendra songs is not a very original post. Sunehriyaadein and Greta have also done a similar post some time ago. Here is my take on it. So, here we go…
My ten favourite Dev jodis
I got the news at fellow blogger Madhu’s site about Dev Anand’s sad demise. I just couldn’t believe it. The tag of ever-green hero suited him so well, that one thought that he was immortal. Just two days back, I wrote at Greta’s blog that Dev’s films from the 50s and 60s hardly let one down.
Dev was a good actor dominating the film industry for three decades. He had his own school of natural acting which endeared him to the masses as well as the critics. He remained for most part true to his genre of a slick urban hero, but he was versatile as far as the different fields of film production was concerned. He was producer, director, actor and once even a singer!
Dev, I think, must have had the most number of female co-stars in the history of the Hindi film industry. He acted with many new faces but also with established actresses. And he looked good with everyone of them. Here is to Dev and his female co-stars
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This post is on the same lines like Dustedoff’s ‘Some thoughts on the songs of Pyaasa‘. Bandini is a classic film, about which much has been written and said. It is always a treat for the eyes and the soul to watch it. As I was returning from Germany last Sunday, I was humming O jaane wale ho sake to laut ke aanaa and the thought crossed my mind to write up on the songs of the film, since they are so much like companions for me.
The music is by S. D. Burman and the lyrics by Shailendra and Gulzar (Mora gora ang lai le) It is interesting, that of the seven songs only two are picturised on the main character of the film. The two male protagonists don’t get any songs. Of the remaining five, four songs are sung by junior artistes and one is a background song.
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Since I have read about this book on Yves blog, I’ ve wanted to buy it. My sudden trip to Bombay (also the reason for my rather irregular presence in the blogosphere) helped me to get hold it. Thanks Yves for the tip. And I know this is not going to make Yves jealous, but rather happy that a fellow-fan has managed to get hold of this.
Forgot to write that the book is Nutan’s biography by Lalitha Tamhane in Marathi. The title is: Asen Mi… Nasen Mi… (I may be there… or may not be…)
Also got this book: Hansa Wadkar’s autobiography: Sangte Aaikaa (Listen… !), which is also by the way the name of her last film. Shyam Benegal’s Bhumika is based on this book.
Looking forward to read both! The question is: when?
My ten favourite moon songs
Tomorrow is full moon and we all know what it does … ahem…, to the lovers. No wonder that the moon features in so many songs. It also has different roles in it. The moon is at times the messenger, at times it is an intruder, sometimes it is a catalyst or also be addressed as the beloved him or herself. It can be different things, but one thing is for sure, it doesn’t leave the lovers cold and nor it does me.
The moon songs genre belongs to one of my favourites. There are so many songs with chaand in it, that it is really very difficult to choose ten. So I had to use the following criteria:
1. The songs have to blatantly call out to the moon.
2. Not included are comparisons with moon (so, no chaudhvin ka chaand ho),
3. nor indirect allusions to the moon (no o jaanewale chaand…),
4. nor mere confirmation of its presence (no chaand akela jaye sakhi ri),
5. nor be a lullaby (no chandaa o chandaa kisne churayi).
So here are my favourite 10 ‘chaand’ songs (in chronological order) from Hindi cinema.
My 10 favourite ‘maanjhi’ songs from Hindi cinema
To say that I love the maanjhi songs would be an understatement. Particularly “O re maanjhi” from Bandini takes me to a different dimension. Maanjhi (also pronounced as maajhi) is a boatman. In songs and poems they are often pleaded to by lovers (mostly women) to take them across the river to meet their beloved. In devotional songs he is the spiritual master who is being begged by the seeker to give him/her that shift in consciousness, which will take him/her from the body consciousness to brahman. These two different levels give the songs a certain spin.
So here are my favourite 10 ‘maanjhi’ (in chronological order) songs from Hindi cinema. Read the rest of this entry »
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