Monthly Archives: August 2024

Ten of my Favourite Bathroom Singers

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If ‘bathroom singer’ refers to ‘a mediocre or amateur singer’, then Hindi cinema belies that definition: because old Hindi films have plenty of instances of songs sung by people in bathrooms, while bathing, shaving, washing up, whatever—and all perfectly in tune. These bathroom singers are no bathroom singers at all.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s my list: ten songs that illustrate the point. Barring one song, all are from pre-1970s Hindi films that I’ve seen; the exception is a song from the cusp (1972), but I’ve included it because the film in question (Dil Daulat Duniya) always strikes me more—in tone, look, fashions, actors, etc—as a late 60s one.

The only other criterion I’ve kept in mind is that at least one verse is sung inside the bathroom.

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Parasakthi (1952)

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Many years back, shortly after I began blogging, this film had been recommended to me. I don’t recall who told me about it, but the recommendation came with a caveat: that it was apt to get melodramatic at times, and the histrionics could seem over-the-top for anybody unused to Tamil cinematic styles of that period. But it was Sivaji Ganesan’s debut film, and not just a classic, a cult classic, a film that defined Tamil cinema and set a benchmark.

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Sanjog (1943)

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I came to this film quite by chance. Back in April, when I reviewed Jhansi ki Rani, blog reader Maitreyee Mishra, commenting on that review, asked if I’d watched any other films featuring its lead actress, Mehtab. I had had to admit that I hadn’t; in fact, it seemed that most of Mehtab’s films were nowhere to be found—at least not online. I did find one film, though: AR Kardar’s Sanjog (1943), which starred, alongside Mehtab, Noor Mohammad ‘Charlie’.

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My Man Godfrey (1936)

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And also, to some extent, My Man Godfrey (1957).

My Man Godfrey—the original one, starring William Powell—is one film that I’ve been meaning to watch for a long time now, mostly because so many people have told me what a lot of fun it is, and how it seems to have shades of PG Wodehouse in it (an author in whose pursuit I have watched several films, not always with the most satisfying of results).

It did seem to me, within the first few minutes of My Man Godfrey, that there were shades of a Wodehousian sense of humour here.

The film begins at a riverside dump, where a rather ragged, unshaven and tattered Godfrey (William Powell) is among several homeless men standing about when a fashionable high society lady, Cornelia Bullock (Gail Patrick) comes flouncing along, with a formally-dressed man in tow. Cornelia takes one look at Godfrey and tries to get him to come with her. She’s participating in a ‘scavenger hunt’ at a posh hotel, and the first person to bring along a ‘forgotten man’ to the hunt stands to win the prize.

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