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!

 

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! 😉

 

Ghunghat Ke Pat Khol… (Raise the veil and behold…)

My ten favourite hindi film bhajans

Hindi film bhajans are not my cup of tea. They are mostly preachy and weepy, and in worst cases, also very demanding. God give me this and god give me that, as if God is a servant to be ordered around. 😉 That is why I thought this will be any easy list to make. In fact dustedoff and I spoke about it some 2-3 years back.
While collecting songs for this list I did find some soulful music going with some good bhajans with content.
So as to boil the list down to 10, I had to make some rules. Well, in fact only one rule that the songs/bhajans must be sung by person(s) sitting/standing in front of an idol of a god or goddess (or something equivalent). Songs of wandering monks, ascetics or mendicants will constitute a separate list.

So, here is my list of 10 favourite Hindi film bhajans