Bahaaron ke Sapne (1967)

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I can blame my not having watched Bahaaron ke Sapne all these years on my father: when I first expressed an interest in the film because it had been directed by Nasir Husain (back then, a teenaged me associated Nasir Husain only with frothy and entertaining films like Dil Deke Dekho, Tumsa Nahin Dekha, and Phir Wohi Dil Laaya Hoon), my father said, ‘It’s a serious film.’

And that was that. Because, back then, I didn’t care to ask how serious. Anything that smacked of reality rather than escapism was not to be touched with a barge pole.

Rajesh Khanna in Bahaaron ke Sapne

My tolerance for ‘serious’ films—provided they’re well-made—has risen considerably since those days. So, when a couple of years back a friend gifted me the DVD of Bahaaron ke Sapne, I told myself that should be impetus enough to finally watch the film. My friend had already told me the main plot of the film, and it didn’t seem all that depressing, compared to some of the fare that’s come my way in these past few years.

It starts off, though, depressingly enough: with a frail Bholanath ‘Bhola’ (Nana Palsikar, who could give Leela Chitnis a run for her money in the frailty department) coming home to his hut ‘in an industrial township near Bombay’, coughing alarmingly.

Within the next few minutes, we are introduced to not just Bhola, but several of the people who live in this basti. There’s the bicycle repairman Lachhu (Anwar Husain); there’s his assistant, the comical Pandu (Rajendranath); and the pretty banana-seller Jayshree (Padma Khanna) whom Pandu is besotted with.

Lachhu and his assistant

There is the local prostitute, Sundari (Jayshree Gadkar) who sits outside her house, at the bottom of a staircase, and calls out to every passing man, enticing him in.

And there is, as always, the local bad penny disguised as a gold guinea: Shankar (Madan Puri), who is kind and friendly to Bhola, and whom Bhola does not for a moment suspect of perfidy.

Bhola on his way home

Within Bhola’s own home, there is his long-suffering wife Gauri (Sulochana Latkar) his elder daughter Champa (Azra), and two younger children, a boy and a girl. There is also, though we do not see him right now, the ghar ka chiraag, the man on whom all the fond hopes of his father rest: Ram (Rajesh Khanna). On the evening on which the story opens, Bhola is excited: Ram is now a BA Pass! He has done them proud, and now, armed with his graduate’s degree, when he applies for a job and gets a warm welcome into some plush office, life is going to be so much better for all of them.

Gauri, the anxious and rather more pragmatic voice of reason, tries to tell her husband that he should temper his enthusiasm a bit, but Bhola isn’t listening.

Gauri tries to be the voice of reason

And, sure enough, when Ram comes home, it’s apparent from his face: he is still among the unemployed. Bhola’s optimism isn’t affected, however; he is certain that Ram will soon get a really good job somewhere. In fact—a brainwave—he, Bhola, will take Ram with him the next day to the mill where Bhola has been working for the past 30 years. They are in need of managers and supervisors, and who better than Ram, not just well qualified but also loyal, the son of an old employee?

A disappointed Ram comes home - but Bhola refuses to be disappointed

Bhola is upbeat, but Ram, more realistic, does not seem too hopeful. He goes off by himself, and soon meets his childhood sweetheart Geeta (Asha Parekh), who consoles him. Ram cheers up a little and tries to tell her he didn’t want her to worry for him, but Geeta asserts her right to be worried.

Geeta with Ram

Geeta is an orphan and lives with her henpecked uncle (Shivraj) and his harridan of a wife (Manorama). Chacha is sweet, though submissive; Chachi is constantly berating Geeta and yelling at her for spending all her free time with Ram. He’s no good; he doesn’t even have a job. In Chachi’s opinion, at least, a degree is utterly worthless.

Chachi tries to throw a spanner in the works

Geeta also has to contend with the very unwelcome attentions of the lecherous Shankar, who keeps pestering her to marry him. Geeta, though, is not one of your timid and spineless sorts; she is as good at telling Shankar to get lost as she is at grabbing Chachi’s wrist (when Chachi tries to hit her) and telling Chachi that she, Geeta, is the one who does all the housework and looks after Chachi’s brood of brats all by herself. The next time Chachi tries to be bossy, Geeta will leave—and then Chachi can figure out how to manage all by herself.

Meanwhile, the next day, Bhola takes Ram with him to meet the manager of the mill. Mr Kapoor (Premnath) is a busy man, and refuses to even see Ram. He allows Bhola to come into his office, though, and gets increasingly impatient as Bhola, trying to be polite, ends up being long-winded. ‘Don’t waste my time!’ Mr Kapoor yells. ‘Time is money!’

Mr Kapoor gets impatient

Bhola still doesn’t get the message, so that by the time he gets around to saying what he wants, Mr Kapoor is so furious that he wastes no time telling Bhola the truth: there is no work here for yet another BA graduate. Graduates are nothing exceptional these days; everybody’s a graduate, and everybody’s doing menial work: working as a coolie, polishing shoes, anything.

By the time a dejected Bhola leaves the boss’s office, Ram (who has overheard everything) has already left. Bhola goes home, where Champa’s wedding has been finalized and there is much rejoicing.

Ram has not yet come home. After a while, when he’s still not returned, his worried mother asks Geeta to go look for him.

Geeta does—and finds Ram walking in the middle of the train track, right into the path of an oncoming train. She runs forward, pulling him away, saving him. When, half-sobbing and half-angry, she yells at him for trying to kill himself, Ram laughingly convinces her that she must have been seeing wrong; he was walking by the side of the track, not in the middle. He was in no danger. Geeta so badly wants to believe that, she accepts it as the truth.

Geeta stops Ram from killing himself - or does she?

Soon after, Bhola goes one morning to the mill to draw his salary, and is given two months’ salary by the cashier. Bhola, too naïve to understand what this means, is delirious with joy: he knew Kapoor Sahib could not be so heartless! So what if he hasn’t given Ram a job; at least he has given Bhola enough money to enable him to prepare for Champa’s wedding.

Bhola cannot contain his joy and gratitude, and immediately goes off to the boss’s office to thank him…

… Where, of course, the blunt and impatient Mr Kapoor breaks the news to him. Bhola’s 30 years of hard work, Bhola’s having been a loyal worker since the days of Kapoor’s father—all of these are of no significance. What the mill needs is new blood, young workers to operate the machines, not a ‘chalti-phirti laash’ (literally, ‘a walking corpse’), as the boss cruelly puts it.

Mr Kapoor tells Bhola he's been fired

Bhola is devastated. He walks out in a daze, but realizes on the way home that the news of his being laid off will wreak havoc at home.

So Bhola goes home, says that this money is an advance on the next month’s wages, and hands over all the cash to Gauri, who is pleasantly surprised at this windfall. It still won’t be enough to cover all the expenses for Champa’s wedding—they will probably need to take a loan from the local moneylender, exorbitant interest rates at all—but this will at least get them somewhere.

Gauri and Bhola worry over the money for Champa's wedding

Bhola cannot bring himself to tell anybody he’s no longer working at the mill. Every morning, therefore, he dutifully takes the lunch Champa packs for him, and goes off towards the mill. Nearby, sitting under a tree, is a beggar who invites Bhola to sit with him and pass the day, and this Bhola does. Everyday, for a month, until one day, by chance, Gauri happens to come there to buy vegetables from a nearby vendor. Unnoticed by Bhola, she sees him getting up—just as the day’s work at the mill ends and the workers stream out. She hears Bhola bidding farewell to the beggar, telling him that yes, this is a good way to pass the day.

Gauri is shattered. But shattered in the way of a strong, mature woman, a woman who realizes that there is no point haranguing her husband for something beyond his control. She quietly goes home without letting Bhola know that she knows…

Gauri discovers the bitter truth

And, shortly after, Bhola brings home news for Ram. The mill owner’s son, Rajan, who was a collegemate of Ram’s, is getting engaged. Ram should go for the engagement, taking a gift: Bhola even takes out a few rupees and gives them to Ram. Ram protests; he only knows Rajan by face; they aren’t acquainted, because even in college, social barriers were maintained. The offspring of the rich didn’t mingle with those of the poor. Besides, it isn’t good manners to barge in where one hasn’t been invited.

Bhola is too stubborn (and perhaps too desperate?) to listen. No, he tells Ram; just by virtue of being an old classmate, and because his father works for the mill, Ram should go.

So, on the day in question, Ram goes hesitantly into the party hall, sticking out like a sore thumb amidst the suits and silks and heavy jewellery. He makes an attempt to introduce himself to Rajan (who looks puzzled, and then gives Ram the cold shoulder, especially when Ram offers his present—a small model of the Taj Mahal). Within minutes, Ram finds himself being humiliated so roundly by everybody around, that he loses his temper, yells curses at all of them for their callousness, and storms out of the party.

Ram flings scorn at the haughty rich

On his way home, Ram finds a drunk staggering home from the local tavern (run, stereotypically enough, by a man named John). The drunk’s raving about how drink helps him forget his misery for a while. Ram, by now desperate, decides that he better go and drown his sorrows in drink too. He goes into John’s and happens to meet Lachhu, jovial as always.

At John's tavern

Ram, even as he’s sinking deeper into drink, has pangs of conscience when he begins to see Geeta’s face in that of Mary, John’s mute niece, who works as a waitress. That doesn’t last long; Ram is soon really tipsy. By the time he stumbles out of the shack with Lachhu, he is raving about how he’ll show the world, and blah blah blah… his drunken raving is interrupted by a furious Geeta, who finds him and berates him for drinking.

Soon, Ram’s world is racing ahead faster than he can imagine. When he goes home, not yet sober, and rages at his father for educating him—and leaving him neither accepted by the rich, nor by the poor—Gauri cannot take it anymore. She follows Ram out and chastises him, confronting him with the truth: does he not see that his father went hungry for years so that Ram may be educated? Does he not see that his father, rather than cause pain to his family, has hidden the fact of his being laid off?

Ram learns the truth

This sobers up Ram very quickly. So quickly, in fact, that in a fit of remorse, he leaves home and goes off to Bombay, determined to find a job there… but Bombay is even more brutal. Graduate or not, Ram is repeatedly faced with rejection wherever he goes.  What will become of him? Will his education prove useful? Or is it hard-earned money gone down the drain?

Ram wanders Bombay in search of a job

If you’re used to the frothy, romantic masala films, with their predictable lost-and-found tropes, their wolves in sheep’s clothing, that Nasir Husain was known for, Bahaaron ke Sapne may come as a surprise. This is nothing like most of Husain’s other films, even though some of the elements—the ensemble cast, the fabulous music—are there.  This is a film, instead, that is often thought-provoking, as well as a reflection of the aspirations and dreams of the poor.

What I liked about this film:

The music, by RD Burman (with lyrics by Majrooh Sultanpuri). From the gently comforting Aaja piya tohe pyaar doon to the folksy Chunri sambhaal gori udi chali jaaye re, to the peppy, Western-themed Do pal jo teri aankhon se peene ko mile, there are several memorable songs here. Among the lesser-known songs of the film, one I especially liked was O more sajna o more balma (which has the added attraction of being picturized in an unusual locale—against a backdrop of women sifting piles of salt).

The many themes of the film. The dominating theme is of rich versus poor (and, interestingly, not always the rich being irredeemably bad or the poor being absolute saints), with the theme—surfacing in the second half of the film—of socialism, trade unionism, and Gandhism.

Other than that, there are other topics touched upon, in a more subtle way, the most important being the burden of expectations. Bhola has done what he thinks (and which is, actually) the best thing for Ram: he has educated his son. The problem arises from the fact that Ram’s poverty versus his education comes in his way of getting a job ‘worthy of his education’.

That joblessness leads to intense frustration and anguish for Ram, especially because Bhola goes on and on, crowing about how proud he is of his son, how he knows his son is going to get a good job, and so on. Not that Bhola is to be blamed, too: it is a huge achievement, and a sign of his sacrifices, that he’s been able to educate Ram to such an extent. Perhaps, too, Bhola realizes that it’s not easy to get a job, despite one’s education: perhaps, deep down, his own anxiety results in this constant need to reassure himself and all around him that it’s just a matter of time before Ram gets a job.

And, the third thing I liked about Bahaaron ke Sapne: the cast. So many respected names, so many well-known faces, even if they’re in mere cameos. Jayshree Gadkar, for instance, as the prostitute (the scene between Ram and her, where she shows Ram the reason for her ‘shamelessness’, is memorable). Or P Jairaj, usually typecast in historicals, but here so convincing as the trade unionist, Das Kaka.

P Jairaj as the trade union leader, Das Kaka

What I didn’t like:

The occasional ‘aside’, which dilutes the main plot. It’s pretty much expected that a Nasir Husain film will have Rajendranath and a side plot involving his romance with a pretty lady; here, it could have been done away with, since the main plot is a grim one. Also, the Mary angle does little for the film’s main story, except possibly to add another story of the plight of the poor.

A little more focus, that’s what I would have liked.

The other thing I didn’t care for was the suddenness with which Ram becomes a trade union leader. The first hour, and more, of the film has Ram trying desperately to find employment; then, when he finally gets a job, before you know it, he’s taking an active interest in trade union activities, and then—wham!—he’s the leader. A somewhat more balanced approach, with a gradual building up of his interest in trade unionism (and, perhaps a sense of how his education helps him in that?), and it might have been more believable.

Still, all said and done, a film worth watching at least once.

57 thoughts on “Bahaaron ke Sapne (1967)”

  2. And I’d thought you’ve already reviewed this one, I realised afterwards, it was Greta.
    I saw this film many years back on DD. There are two versions of the end, I think, one happy and one sad. As far as I can remember, we’d the sad one on TV. I just can’t remember the Jayshree Gadkar track though. The songs of the movie are just great, more than the others (at least now) I like, kya jaanu sajan, with its double track and all.
    Thanks for the review., Madhu!

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    • The Jayshree Gadkar role is actually a fairly small one, so it’s not surprising that you forgot it, Harvey. She has only one major scene, and even that is short, though it’s extremely poignant. And the songs are so good, I agree. I haven’t seen the sad end, though I can well imagine what it must be – watching the happy end, I can tell (I think) at what point additional scenes were tacked on to make it all end happily.

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    • The film was made with the sad ending, following a prediction by a soothsayer that Geeta will never be a suhagan. The film did so badly that within a week the print had to be withdrawn and reissued with the alternate ending .

      Baharon ke Sapne did very badly overall, in as much, the songs, apart from Aja piya & Chunri sambhal gori were almost lost to time , till the resurrection happened post early 1990s. I have a special bonding with the songs as these connect me to my childhood – esp Aja piya and O more sajna. While on O mere sajna, you would notice the breezy prelude having no or little connect to the main song – except that it was bridged with santoor notes. The phase was an experimental one for RD, he was trying out multiple variations within a song.

      There are many stories of Baharon ke Sapne and its music. Some I have mentioned in my RD book.. some more I have been using in quizzes :)

      Well very nice review Madhu, though I always felt BKS was a bad film.
      Except for some starling B&W photography by Jal Mistry and the ethereal music, there was hardly any takeaway for me. I have seen the film more than 10 times.. VHS (I could manage to find one in a shop in Central Calcutta in the 1980s at 70 rupees and was ecstatic), TV, VCD, DVD…irrespective of how I feel about it.

      Check the RD book, have mentioned when the story was written and why.

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      • There is a good bit about Bahaaron ke Sapne in Akshay Manwani’s book on Nasir Husain as well… must read that sometime soon. Personally, I prefer Nasir Husain’s more ‘usual’ films; this is not his typical style, and while I didn’t find it outright bad, I would much rather watch frothy stuff like Dil Deke Dekho and Tumsa Nahin Dekha. The music, of course, is superb – easily one of the biggest (if not the biggest) highlights of the film.

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        • Hum kisise kum naheen followed by YKB for me.

          I could not bring myself to love BKS. I tried hard. Real hard. Parts of it , like sharing groundnuts during the workers strike and the open air salt warehouse were very romantic and did connect to me deeply. But that’s about it.
          Music – very layered. Difficult to explain in the form of blog comments

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  3. I remember seeing this film years back (in 1981-82) on Doordarshan and thought it was a really good film. But the end was incredibly sad – just saw another post about there being a happy ending as well. Jayashree Gadkar is a standout in her role. Amazingly, this was the first Asha Parekh film I saw in my life, and I really liked her. So I was pretty disappointed to not like her as much in a lot of other more famous films. The music is one of R D Burman’s best. I always knew the Lata solo “Aaja piya tohe pyaar dooN”, but the surprise for me was the lovely “Kya jaanooN sajan hoti hai kya gam ki shaam”. What a lovely song. (As an aside, Kavita Krishnamurthy’s recent rendition of this song in “Dil vil pyaar vyaar” is extremely good as well).

    So how does the happy version of the film end?

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    • I agree, Jayshree Gadkar’s role, though small, was superb. That one scene, and it was memorable.

      If this was the first Asha Parekh film you watched, I can well imagine why you didn’t much care for most of her other films. Nearly everything else she worked in was pretty formulaic (though I think Kati Patang gave her some scope to be more than the usual ‘heroine’).

      Spoiler ahead:

      The sad end of the film, I suppose, is when both Ram and Geeta die in the violence at the mill. Does he fill her maang with blood as sindoor there? In the happy end version, after all the stampeding workers have gone, Lachhu and some of the others come rushing up and Ram and Geeta are taken off to the hospital. The next scene, they’re in operating theatres, undergoing surgery, while everybody – including Mr Kapoor, the mill manager – waits nervously outside. The surgeon finally emerges to say that both of them will be fine now. Operation kaamyaab raha.

      Spoiler ends.

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  4. “It starts off, though, depressingly enough: with a frail Bholanath ‘Bhola’ (Nana Palsikar, who could give Leela Chitnis a run for her money in the frailty department)” – LOL… this is too funny..

    Rajesh khanna looks stunning here even in the stills. My favorite song from this movie is kya jaanu sajan which I believe was a dream sequence that was shot in color. I wonder how this would have received because the whole movie is black and white! I love this beautiful composition and I can see how RD mixed lata’s voice so masterfully. Clearly way ahead in the industry for this type of work.. I find it very impressive.

    The other song which never took off but I lIke it a lot “Zamane ne maare”..great work by rafi RD and majrooh…

    Great review as always!

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    • Thank you, Ashish! (But seriously, Nana Palsikar does look frail, doesn’t he? I mean, Nazir Hussain is the one who keeps clutching his chest and suffering heart attacks in every other film, but it’s Nana Palsikar who always gives me the impression that if one stiff wind came along, he’d be chaaron khaane chit, as they say). :-D

      Rajesh Khanna is stunning here. I just noticed that someone commented on my book review of Gautam Chintamani’s biography of Rajesh Khanna, and you and I were discussing there about how Khanna’s ‘superstardom’ went to his head, so that he was soon not acting characters, but just being himself. I liked the fact that here he’s being Ram, poor and frustrated.

      The insertion of one song in colour in an otherwise black and white film isn’t terribly unusual – I’ve seen it in other films as well (Pyaar kiya toh darna kya is an example). I think it works especially well in Kya jaanoon sajan because it’s a dream sequence, so while bleak reality is stark, black, dreams can be colourful and vibrant, whatever one wants them to be (including Ram in a tux!) Or that’s the way I interpret it.

      I agree, Zamaane ne maare jawaan kaise-kaise is also an excellent song. Cynical – could’ve been on my list!

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      • Oh yes, I do remember that discussion and checked the comments again… it’s funny(sad) how fanatics come out of woodwork and attacked without even paying attention to what you were actually saying…

        I really feel that we got deprived of seeing his quality work post namak haram/avishkar, the artist Rajesh Khanna really was capable of.

        That dream sequence in color is actually a good way to show it. I get you.. yes, it makes sense.. I just can’t get over how beautiful that song is..

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        • What I cannot understand is why people feel being rude and uncivil is going to convince people of the correctness of their opinions. It’s impossible to expect everybody to agree on a topic; when that agreement is expressed logically and in a dignified manner, it has more of a chance of being at least heeded. (There was a massive row on my review of Sahib Biwi aur Ghulam a couple of months back, which was a fine example of one person being utterly uncouth on the one hand, and – on the other hand – someone else putting forward pretty much the same idea in a more gentle and civilized fashion).

          You’re right about Rajesh Khanna being capable of some really good work – I wish we’d had the chance to see more of it before stardom (or SuperStarDom, as many of his fans would put it) got to his head.

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  5. Lovely film, but its failure drove Nasir Hussain back to his patent one-line plots. :( Like many of the other commenters, my favourite song is also Kya janoon sajan.

    Loved the little asides. :)

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    • Yes, such a shame, really, that this film fared so poorly. It would have been interesting to see Nasir Husain strike a balance between his usual fluffy films and more of these ‘serious’ ones.

      Glad you liked the asides, Anu. ;-) Too irreverent, I am – can’t help it!

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  6. Baharon ke Sapne, one of the earlier films of Rajesh Khanna like Aakhri Khat was unusual with a wide variety uncommon songs and was a serious film drawing good performances.

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  7. Sorry for the late comment Madhu didi I just finished my last medical exam today. Wonderful review as usual. Although I had got to know about this movie after hearing ‘aaja piya’, I never thought it would be such a grim film. Thank you so much for this review didi its an eye opener.
    Looking at your screen caps (or is it screen shots?) the lighting too seems very good so it looks like a very well made film only… Which made me realize that actors of the golden era consistently acted in serious meaningful movies as well apart from the usual run-of-the-mill fare didi.. Uttam Kumar even acted in two Satyajit Ray films. I guess in today’s time Ranbir Kapoor is the only one who does that (and maybe Ranveer Singh or Sushant Singh Rajput).
    Thanks once again didi.. Your trademark flow and wit are once again on display here :)

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    • Thank you, Rahul – I’m glad you liked the review. Yes, you’re right about the lighting etc being good. Despite making the film in black and white, Nasir Husain does not seem to have held back when it came to the other aspects of the film (I don’t know his reasons for making it in black and white, but I think, given the subject matter of the film, it fits very well. A colour film might have had less of an impact.

      I also agree about actors back then working in very varied films. (Incidentally, I have seen one of the two films Uttam Kumar did for Satyajit Ray. Chiriakhana isn’t one of Ray’s better films, sadly). In Hindi cinema, one person, I think, whose contribution to more offbeat cinema is often overlooked is Dharmendra – most people associate him only with either the romantic roles of the 60s, or the bash-’em-up ones of the 70s. Satyakam, Anupama, Majhli Didi etc tend to get forgotten…

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    • Thank you. I do think Bahaaron ke Sapne was somewhat different from most of the films of its period, though. It always seems to me that the 1950s were the time when there were more socially relevant films being made; by the 60s, the social relevance seems to have become more of a ‘let’s tag this on, just to complete the formula’ thing.

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  9. I royally like kaka ji pre aradhna. cause he was acting and not being Rajesh khanna. i am happy that this film has been reviewed. Naseer hussain formula di you told about his regular actors. a canteen owner in Pune was saying on tv for his customers like yeh naseer hussain ki filmey hai na miley bicahd guye. everybody knows his formula. on chunri sambhaal gori. pancham daa listened the song and said agar lata didi agar a aa kar dey toh kaisa rahega. second i think its well known that aasha ji mother asked her about kaka ji her new co actor. with whom are you working. she was not convinced about newcomer Rajesh khanna. my favourite movie of Rajesh will be Aakhri Khat only. i appreciate naseer saab for making movies in black and white when 7 years have passed since colour came. i am so happy that film has been reviewed.

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    • Glad you liked this review. And I completely agree with you about liking Rajesh Khanna here because he was ‘acting and not being Rajesh Khanna’! Just a few years down the line, and that winking, head-shaking manner was dominating every screen appearance of his.

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  10. Oh, I haven’t seen this film too. Can’t think why? Same reason as you, maybe. :) Will watch it now. I’ve always loved the songs too. Specially aa jaa piya …

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  11. As read earlier I also feel that in his pre Ittefaq days or pre Aradhana days he performed much better and was more realistic. In any case his films pre 1975 were quite entertaining as compared with his later films and that could have been the reason for their success.

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    • I suppose he was also very lucky in that his first films (first nine, if I remember correctly) were those with United Producers, which had been part of that contract from when he won the competition that brought him into the film industry… nearly all of those producers and directors were known for good films.

      Also, of course, by the mid-1970s, with the rise of Amitabh Bachchan (and a completely different type of hero, no longer the romantic hero Rajesh Khanna had embodied in films like Aradhana), things had changed otherwise, too.

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      • if suppose luck, he would have worked in Upkaar. then he would have been a villain. i don’t think he fitted in a villain mode.

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    • Yes, the actor before the star days, though I liked him in Anand (despite him being OTT at times) and Bawarchi in the later films. Actor Naseeruddin Shah was sadly targeted for his comments on RK’s later recently. Thought it was uncalled for (interesting piece I just read on it http://www.huffingtonpost.in/2016/07/26/why-im-happy-naseeruddin-shah-doesnt-give-a-sh-t/?utm_hp_ref=in-homepage ).

      This was an interesting take on RK and AB’s different fans/films http://trishagupta.blogspot.in/2012/08/rajesh-khanna-and-women-who-loved-him.html (not sure if it has been discussed earlier). Hope fans won’t take umbrage and post furious comments here, something that I saw happen in the Gautam Chintamani’s book post :(

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      • I saw that Naseeruddin Shah article being mentioned on Facebook (didn’t have the time to read it then, and still don’t), and saw some comments lambasting him for being so acerbic. I reserve judgment, since I haven’t read it. Personally, I make it a policy to not go about passing judgment on my peers and fellow writers, at least not in public. I may think what I do, but those are my thoughts. ;-)

        Oooh. Don’t even remind me of what happened on the review of Gautam Chintamani’s book. Horrible.

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  12. Performance wise all the nine films were the best in his career especially his acting in Ittefaq was really outstanding and deserved any award.

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  14. Azra was an ethereal beauty but unfortunately was reduced to minor roles as in this movie. She had also done a Bengali movie with Biswajeet and Kishore Kumar as the main lead but I don’t know what happened to the movie . Any information about it

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