Posts Tagged ‘Saraswati Devi’
Udi hawaa mein jaati hai
Posted on: September 11, 2012
“Achhoot Kanya” (1936) was made at an era far far removed from the present day. It was produced by Bombay Talkies. Its producer was Himanshu Rai and it was directed by a German director called Franz Osten. It was a case of an indophile German directing a Hindi movie on a sensitive topic like untouchability and doing a great job. And those were the days when India was under British occupation too. And Ashok Kumar, a lab assistant with Bombay Talkies found himself being made the hero of the movie when the heroine Devika Rani eloped with the original hero, only to come back subsequently. And she was the wife of Himanshu Rai ! And the music director of this movie, a Parsi lady faced stiff resistance from members of her community who were against her decision of joining the film line as a music director.
Read more on this topic…
“Achhoot Kanya” (1936) was a Bombay Talkies production. It was produced by Himanshu Rai and directed by Franz Osten. The movie had Ashok Kumar and Devika Rani in lead roles with P F Pithawala, Kamta Prasad, Kishori Lal, Kusum Kumari, Pramila, Anwari, Ishrat etc also there in the movie.
Read more on this topic…
Mere dil ki duniya ujad gayi
Posted on: September 9, 2012
“Janmbhoomi” (1936) was a Bombay Talkies Production. Little is known about this movie today. I became aware of this movie thanks to a lovely song picturised on Devika Rani and a cute dog. It was then that Mr Arunkumar Deshmukh, our beloved inhouse encyclopeadia, shared details about this movie. Here is what he has to say about this movie:
Read more on this topic…
“Achhoot Kanya” (1936) was a Bombay Talkies movie. It was produced by Himanshu rai and directed by Franz Osten. The movie had Ashok Kumar, Devika Rani, P F Pithawala, Kamta Prasad, Kishori Lal, Kusum Kumari, Pramila, Anwari, Ishrat etc in it.
Read more on this topic…
Khet ki mooli baag ke aam
Posted on: April 13, 2012
This article is written by Ava Suri, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular conributor to this blog.
Here is another song from Achhoot Kanya. This has to be one of the first bullock cart songs. In the early years of the past century, the hero and heroine did not, or could not get physical during romantic numbers. Despite that constraint, Ashok Kumar and Devika Rani share a lovely chemistry during this song. They sit close together, lean into each other and smile often.
Read more on this topic…
Choodi main laaya anmol re
Posted on: April 12, 2012
This article is written by Ava Suri, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
A few days back I found myself translating a song from Achhut Kanya for Raja who is subtitling the movie for the famous DVD restorer Tom Daniel.
The movie is one of the most celebrated ones of Hindi Cinema, an early classic, and an Indo-German collaboration that starred Devika Rani and Ashok Kumar. However, what I didn’t know was that it contained a dance by Mumtaz Ali, the father of Mehmood and Minoo Mumtaz. I found Mumtaz Ali so captivating, his dancing and singing so natural and so impromptu that I went off on a google fired discovery of facts about him. As is often the case, any information on artists of this era is not easy to come by. After a day of looking high and low, I managed to unearth only one thing, that he was a scion of the royal family of Arcot.
Read more on this topic…
Ye pyaari pyaari paati
Posted on: March 2, 2012
I have discussed it in the past that there are very few songs in Hindi movies which are picturised on dogs. Now that I have mentioned this fact, our alert contributors are bound to inform me when they come across any such songs.
Read more on this topic…
“Azaad”(1940) is a movie that was directed by N R Acharya. This movie had an impressive cast including Leela Chitnis, Ashok Kumar, Hansa Wadkar, Rama Shukul, Mumtaz Ali, Nazir Bedi, Arun, Ramchandra Pal, D V Surve etc.
Read more on this topic…
I found that both I as well as Sudhir jee came up with articles for this song ! I have combined both the articles in this write up. The first half (discussing Ashok Kumar’s career), is written by me. The second half, discussing this song is by Sudhir jee
—————————————–
Atul’s write up
—————————————-
A few days ago (13th october to be precise), we discussed Kishore Kumar’s songs on the occasion of his death anniversary. It was mentioned in passing in one of the articles that 13th october also happened to be the birthday of Ashok Kumar, Kishore Kumar’s elder brother. As a result of this death of his kid brother on his birthday, Ashok Kumar would no longer celebrate his birthday.
Read more on this topic…
Main to Dilli se dulhan laayaa re
Posted on: August 27, 2011
There are a few milestones in this blog that I eagerly look forward to. One of them is the obvious milestone of century songs. Every song that marks the completion of a century is a special song for this blog and we celebrate it by discussing a special song on that occasion. There have been 44 such occasions for this blog.
Read more on this topic…
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
Recent comments