Archive for July 2012
Wo din yaad karo
Posted on: July 4, 2012
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
We all know that Mukesh was regarded as Raj Kapoor’s voice. The film audience accepted it, though in my view, Raj Kapoor’s voice matched more with that of Manna Dey. I came across a somewhat similar situation albeit on a smaller scale in the 40s with reference to a lead actor of that time viz Ragini and the playback singer Zeenat Begum. It is said that Zeenat Begum’s voice matched so much with that of Ragini that many filmgoers of that time felt that it was Ragini who was singing for herself on the screen. Obviously, during that period, Zeenat Begum became the main playback singer for Ragini and with this tag, she became the playback singer for many lead actors of that time. For those to whom these two names do not ring any bells, here are their brief profiles (with inputs from various sources on the internet).
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Dil ki baat kahin lab pe na aa jaaye
Posted on: July 3, 2012
When I was growing up in 1970s then I had propounded a theory about the actors and movie makers of Hindi movies. My thoery was that the movie makers needed to take the movie going janta for a ride by serving them fare that they liked. In cruder terms, movie going public had to be fooled into partonising their movies. And the movie makers needed to be on their toes because it was obviously not possible to keep serving them the same fare.
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Jaan e jaan dhoondhta phir rahaa
Posted on: July 3, 2012
Watching old Hindi movies (and its songs) is a good way to look back at the past and see how things were back then. Another way of looking back at the past is by going through the publications of those days.
I recall that I was an avid reader of books in my younger days, viz 1970s. I would read each and every book, whether they were meant for kids or grown ups. In addition to being an avid reader, I was an avid collectors of children’s magazines in Hindi. The children’s magazines in Hindi those days used to be “Bal Bhatri”, “Nandan”,”Champak”,”Parag”, “Lotpot”, Chandamama”, “Indrajaal Comics” etc. You name the children’s magazines and I collected them. I not only collected them, I catalogued them systematically too. They were my prized possessions. I would not be averse to get hold of magazines not in my collection, but I would be quite reluctatnt to lend my magazines to others, because the likelihood of the borrower returning the book were remote in most cases. One needed to pester the borrower hard, sometimes by visiting his home, before one could get your book back.
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Kaa jaanoon main sajaniyaa
Posted on: July 3, 2012
“Hum Paanch” (1980) was a S K Films Enterprises production. It was produced by Surinder Kapoor and directed by Bapu. The movie had an impressive cast consisting of Sanjeev Kumar, Kanhaiyyalal, Naseeruddin Shah, Mithun Chakraborty, Raj Babbar, Geeta Siddharth, Shabana Azmi, Uday Chandra,Deepti Naval, Gulshan Grover, Amrish Puri, Aruna Irani, A.K.Hangal, Roopesh Kumar, Sunder, C.S.Dubey, Harjeet, Dulari, Ranjeet Sood, Komal Soni, Gurbachan, Sunita, Dev Sharma, Suman, Meghdoot, Yasmin, Vinod, Jamboora, Aditya Sharma, Jugal Kishore, Amir Ali, Yusuf, Raju, C.L.Shah, Kalpana Iyer, Leena Das, Phiroza Cooper, Sujata Bakshi etc.
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Dhaley din aise
Posted on: July 3, 2012
“Laal Kothi” (1978) was a movie produced by Tollywood, as the Bangla movie industry is known. The movie was produced in Bangla and Hindi both. Most of the actors were from the Bangla film industry and/or those conversant with Bangla. This movie, produced under the banner of Peacock Films was produced by Ashis Roy. It was directed by Kanak Mukherji and Mohinder Batra. The starcast had Tanuja, Ranjit Mullick, Danny Denzongpa, Utpal Dutt, Anil Dhawan, Tarun Kumar, Master Partha Mukherjee, Swaraj Chatterjee, Arun, Ranjan Mukherjee, Gupte etc.
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Chadhe chanda to tum bhi chale aana
Posted on: July 3, 2012
“Aplam Chaplam” (1961) is a movie about which very little is known. Fortunately we can count on our beloved inhouse encyclopaedia Mr Arunkumar Deshmukh to provide us all the details about such obscure movies. Here is what he has to say about “Aplam Chaplam” (1961):-
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Phoolon se dosti hai
Posted on: July 3, 2012
In old Hindi movies, especially those of 1950s and 1960s, we often see songs picturised on “Taanga”, also called “Tonga”, not to be confused with a country of this name. 🙂
“Taanga” was actually a mode of public transport in India those days. With time, Taanga has all but vanished as a mode of public transport in India. But they have not become extinct. One can still find them in some small towns of India. I have noticed them in small places in Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh etc. In fact, one can see them in Fatehpur Sikri near Agra in UP. I recall that we (I, my wife and daughter) actually rode on a Taanga to go to Fatehpur Sikri a few years ago.
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Aise machal ke nain badal ke
Posted on: July 3, 2012
Today (3 july) is the death anniversary of Raj Kumar. Raj Kumar made his debut as an actor in 1950s and his most productive decade as an actor was the decade of 1960s. There are actors who are remembered for songs picturised on him, but Raj Kumar is often remembered for some of the immortal dialogues picturised on her. For instance, the dialogue of “Waqt” (1975)- “ye bacchon ke khelne ki cheez nahin hai Chunar seth…”, and the “Paakeeja” (1971) dialogue’ “Aape paaon dekhe…”.
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“Ham Matwaale Naujawaan” (1961) was a Rover Films production. It was directed by L R Asthana. This movie had Shekhar, Sayeeda Khan, Jeevan, Agha, Chaman Puri etc in it.
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Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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