Deewar [1975]

Thoughts on a wall on Mother’s Day

Growing up in Bombay as a small kid in the 1970s meant knowing your Sholay [1975] and Deewar. I had allegedly seen Sholay, but I couldn’t remember a single frame of it. It is quite possible that this was again a trick by my siblings to console me since they often went to films without me. After all who would like a eight years younger brother tagging along. I never had a chance to see Deewar. All the same I think I knew all the dialogues of both the films. One just couldn’t escape them. One thing all the same always rankled me that I hadn’t seen Deewar, this fact was remedied by the post on Parveen Babi, where in the comment section, pacifist provided me with the link to the movie (bless her!).

In this post, I will just write down some thoughts to this landmark film and not write much about the story, I think many of my readers know it. If some don’t, Anu has given an excellent (nearly frame to frame) narration of the plot on her blog. Good insight in the film has also been provided by Philip Lutgendorf and at Upperstall. All three articles make good reading.

Possible Spoilers Ahead

 

Drunken Quiz and Clever Answers

First of all I would like to thank everybody for their good wishes to my/our blog on its birthday.
The quiz got a nice response. Shashi and Samir sent me the answers the very next day. They had some sophisticated techniques to get to the answers. Samir in his feedback to the quiz elaborated on it. Samir, would you be so kind to post it also in the comments section below? It is very enlightening!
Lalitha was very industrious and worked till the last hour and sent me her answer four hours back.
Totally eight persons sent me their answers and it was fun going through them. Lomo and Andi were new for me. They told me that they usually read my posts and the comments by the readers and that they enjoy it a lot and at times more the comments than the post itself (so says Andi).
Here are the scores
Archana = 128,5
Pacifist = 126
Shashi = 124
Samir = 106
Lomo = 100
Lalitha = 93
Andi = 93
Anu = 55
Congratulations Archana for scoring the most points and thanks to all participants! The email communication with you regarding the hints and clues was a source of great pleasure for me!

Well, here are the answers!

 

Happy Birthday, Parveen!

My ten favourite Parveen Babi songs

Parveen Babi would have turned 63 today (4th April). She was a wonderful actress and a beautiful one at that. Born in Junagadh, Gujarat, she made her film-debut with Charitra [1973] opposite the cricket player Salim Durrani (is he related to G. M. Durrani, the singer?). I couldn’t find any video from Charitra but here is a song and here another one from her second film Dhuen Ki Lakeer [1974] opposite Ramesh Arora. Both the films flopped but she got noticed and had her major hit with Amitabh starrer Majboor [1974]. From then on there was no looking back. She not only had looks and sex-appeal but also good acting skills. If it were not for her impulsiveness and her illness, she would have reached heights, which other actresses could only have dreamt of. Instead she got reduced to playing the seductress and heroines in multistarrers like Shaan [1980], Do Aur Do Paanch [1980], The Burning Train [1980] and Mahaan [1983] or playing bit roles in Kranti [1981] and Razia Sultan [1983]. Nonetheless she left a big impression on the viewers and is still remembered for her mesmerizing looks and fabulous screen-presence.

I won’t go on about her sad end to her life and other tragic details of her life. These things can be read about in internet. Here is a post dedicated to this exceptional actress. Ten of her solo songs, which I like. Enjoy!

 

blind women songs

My ten favourite blind women songs

I got the idea for this post when I read Yves’ review of the Sparsh [1980]. Blind people abound in Hindi cinema mostly as some blind chachas (uncles) in slums or are poor sisters or mothers, for whose eye-operation the hero commits some crime. Then there are the female leads, who are blind, where the story follows one way or the other the plot of Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights. Of course there are stories, where the story follows a different path altogether. All the stories have one thing in common that mostly the curing of the blindness plays a central role in the story. Exceptions as usual confirm the rule.

In my post Mala Sinha song list, while commenting the song from Patanga. I wrote that the species of blind heroines became rare in the 80s. I didn’t know that they had become so abundant in the last decade. My favourites though, as you would guess, are not from the last decade but earlier. Well, here they are! Enjoy!

 

Sun Mere Bandhu Re… !

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.

 

Happy Birthday Nanda!

My ten favourite Nanda songs

It is not only Nanda, who has birthday today (Jan. 8) but also fellow-blogger Madhu-Dustedoff. Happy Birthday to you as well, Madhu! Many of the films mentioned here in this post (and others) are linked to Madhu’s excellent reviews on her blog. Incidentally, Nanda is also one of Madhu’s favourite actresses, so it fits in quite well.

Nanda had a sweetness about her, which one hardly sees nowadays. She had something about her, which made men and women feel all protective about her. She was the girl-next-door of the 60s. Even the glamour of the later 60s didn’t affect this image. Unfortunately, such were also the roles, which came her way. Ittefaq changed it, but till then a new crop of actresses had arrived. All the same, just like she helped Shashi Kapoor’s career start, she helped through out her career other leading actors like Sanjeev Kumar, Sanjay Khan and Deb Mukherjee.

Now she lives away from the glamour of the Hindi film industry and still looking good. The last I heard of her was in August in Times of India gossip columns, where it was mentioned that she was a generous tip-giver. That is nice to hear, that she doesn’t live secluded somewhere unattended, but living and enjoying life. May she celebrate more such merry birthday celebrations!
The rules for choosing the songs were
a. solo songs
b. one song per film
and blah, blah, blah! 😉

 

My ten favourite Hindi film loris (lullabies) and Merry X’mas!

For Christmas, I was thinking of doing a Christmas song list. But I could come up only with aao tumhe chand pe le jaaye from Zakhmee [1975]. But then I thought Mother Mary and Joseph must have also sung some lullabies to baby Jesus, so why not a list of my ten favourite loris (lullabies).

Lullabies have not always been my favourite songs. Once when a 6 year old child at a friends place asked me to sing an Indian lullaby to him, I realized that I knew only few authentic lullabies in my mother tongue and soon I ended up singing filmi loris!  The child must have been pretty deaf or a great fan of off-tune singing. More evenings followed and made me realize how sweet basically loris are.

Some rules, which I followed for my list:
a) The person singing must be singing it to a child and not to a grown-up person
b) Only one song pro film

Well here they are! Try not to fall asleep while reading it! Yawn! 😉

 

Belated Birthday Wishes to Dharmendra

My ten favourite Dharmendra songs

Dharmendra had his birthday on 8^th 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…

 

R.I.P Dev Anand

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

 

Biwi-O-Biwi (1981)

In the Quest of a Wife

Anu, Richard and Yves‘ influence and ‘prodings’ made me buy a Raj Kapoor DVD collection the last time I was in India. It contains all films directed by Raj Kapoor (except Prem Rog). I was so happy to have got it, that I am still sitting before it like a mouse in front of a snake and don’t know where to start. I had to take a decision and I did it in a way, which any grown-up and mature person would do. I took the easiest route out and chose a film, which was not in the collection and still qualifies as an RK film.