Author Archives: dustedoff

The LO Goes to the Little Rann of Kutch

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We ushered in the New Year this time in Ahmedabad (see my blog posts, on Historic Ahmedabad and on more around Ahmedabad). But Ahmedabad, really, was just on the way—for a place I’d been looking forward to visiting for a while now: the Little Rann of Kutch, which is home to the Wild Ass Sanctuary, India’s largest wildlife sanctuary.

The Little Rann of Kutch is just about 95 km from Ahmedabad along a very good highway, so it can take less than two hours to cover the distance. We had booked a cottage at a resort (in the village of Dasada) named Rann Riders by Kaafila, and had arranged for them to have us picked up from Ahmedabad. Given that we are interested in history, we opted to take a longer route to get to Dasada: through Patan and Modhera, which are home to some of Gujarat’s most iconic historical structures.

Rani ni Vaav, Patan
Section of carvings at Rani ni Vaav
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The LO Goes to Gujarat, Part 2: More Ahmedabad

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(Part 1 of this travelogue, Historic Ahmedabad, can be read here).

Our sojourn in Ahmedabad stretched across most of four days: a day and a half after we landed in Ahmedabad from Delhi, and another just-over-two days before we left again for home. In between, we did a memorable trip to the Little Rann of Kutch (about which I’ll be posting in next week’s blog post, the last of these travelogues).

Ahmedabad is a city of extremes. On the hand, there are parts of it which, frankly, looked far more upscale and posh than even Delhi: wide boulevards, stylish malls and boutiques, fancy restaurants serving global cuisines.

Ahmedabad, high street at night.
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The LO Goes to Gujarat, Part 1: Historic Ahmedabad

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A couple of years ago, my husband and I took our daughter (whom I refer to as the ‘LO’: the ‘Little One’, though given that she’s now ten and no longer little, she suggests that that now be ‘Loved One’) to Corbett National Park. The LO had been on wildlife safari before, but this one was special: she was deep in the jungle, she was old enough to appreciate it all and to retain memories of it. We decided we had to notch up more wildlife adventures. ‘Visit one Indian wildlife sanctuary or national park every year,’: that was a goal we set for ourselves.

This time, I decided to do something different: not a jungle, not a place we might see a tiger. Instead, I suggested we visit the Little Rann of Kutch. And since all of us are very interested in history, we figured it would be good to combine that with a stopover at Ahmedabad: the historic walled city of Ahmedabad is on the UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Cities, and its list of stunning old monuments seemed too good to pass up.

Our flight from Delhi to Ahmedabad arrived early enough for us to be able to get to our hotel (the Taj Skyline) by noon. Since this was just a week after Christmas, the lobby was still all decked up for Christmas, with a tree, a gingerbread house, and more. The LO was in seventh heaven.

Christmas decorations at Taj Skyline
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Howrah Bridge (1958)

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Aaiye meherbaan baithiye jaan-e-jaan, and Mera naam Chin Chin Choo. Two great actresses, two iconic songs.

When I was doing the Helen tributes last month, I was reminded of Mera naam Chin Chin Choo all over again—and remembered, too, that I had never reviewed Howrah Bridge on this blog. It has also been many years since I last watched the film (before I launched Dusted Off), so I decided it was high time I revisited this.

Howrah Bridge begins very far from the bridge, and in fact from Kolkata: in Rangoon, where Prem Kumar (Ashok Kumar) finds his father (Brahm Bhardwaj) in a flap. Daddy is distraught because Prem’s elder brother Madan (Chaman Puri, in a cameo role) has run off from home, taking with him an invaluable family heirloom, a dragon which has been in the family for generations. We later discover that the dragon was crafted in China many centuries ago, and from there came to be owned by the king of Burma, after which it passed into the possession of Prem’s family.

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Sleeping Car to Trieste (1948)

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This little-known British film was recommended to me by YouTube, and given that I am a fan of train films (The Lady Vanishes is a favourite, as are Murder on the Orient Express and North-West Frontier), I decided I had to watch.

The story starts off with a bang (actually, almost literally: there’s a fatal gunshot in the very first scene). In an unnamed embassy in Paris, a party is in progress, when one of the guests, a Captain Zurta (Albert Lieven) slips out of the ballroom, makes his way to one of the more secluded rooms in the embassy, and having broken into a safe there, purloins a diary. He is caught red-handed by a footman who enters just then.

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Ten of my favourite flower songs

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Over the years, I’ve done several songs that focus on my love—and, it would seem, the love of some film-makers and lyricists, too—for nature. I have done lists of nature songs; tree songs; and bird songs. Over the years, too, I’ve several times been told I should do a list on flower songs. I’ve always ducked that one, because Harvey, years ago, did a superb post on flower songs, and how I could I possibly hope to even match, let alone excel, a botanist writing about flower songs?!

But over the past couple of years, my interest in flowers has grown exponentially, and while I may not know a hundredth of what Harvey knows, at least I can depend upon my enthusiasm to steer me through. So here goes.

Flowers are, to put it bluntly, the sexual part of a plant. Contained in them are the female and male reproductive organs, plus (often) nectar, to entice pollinators such as bees, butterflies, bats, other insects, small birds, and so on.

Flowers are beautiful, flowers are useful (there would be no fruit without flowers), and human beings have admired and used flowers in a myriad ways since time immemorial. We’ve decorated with them, we’ve used their designs to fashion everything from jewellery to embroidery. We’ve painted and carved them, we’ve celebrated them in literature and in song.

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Great Expectations (1946)

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Charles Dickens was one of those authors whose books, I think, might be very difficult to adapt to cinema. Most of his works have a plethora of characters, and characters, too, who are described in great detail: people who play an important part in the proceedings. The books are long and involved, and there’s a style to them that would be more suited, I’ve always thought, to a television series rather than a film.

But every now and then, there comes along a fine adaptation of a Dickens novel that manages to retain the essence of the original, and translate it effectively to screen. Adapted for the screen (along with several other people) by David Lean, and directed by him, Great Expectations was a film I’d approached with some trepidation, wondering how it would work as a film.

The story begins with orphaned Philip Pirrip ‘Pip’ (Tony Wager) running along near the marshes that border the village he lives in. Pip’s parents died years ago, and Pip has been brought up by his very hot-tempered, sharp-tongued sister, Mrs Joe Gargery (Freda Jackson) and her husband, the blacksmith (Bernard Miles). What Mrs Gargery lacks by way of human kindness, Joe makes up for: he’s a sweet, gentle, wise man, who is very fond of Pip.

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Zindagi (1964)

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The main reason I watched this film was because of the songs, which include some very good ones. And Vyjyanthimala, whom I invariably enjoy watching. The two male leads, Rajendra Kumar and Raj Kumar, are not favourites of mine, but they aren’t absolutely unbearable either. And there was a star cast of several other people I like, such as Prithviraj Kapoor and Helen. Ramanand Sagar, who wrote and directed Zindagi, also has to his credit one film I really like (Aankhen) and some (Aarzoo, Ghoonghat, Charas) that I don’t mind too much. I figured there might be enough here for me to enjoy.

The story begins with Beena (Vyjyanthimala) coming home to her mother (Leela Chitnis) with the news that she has found a job, finally. Ma is happy, until Beena tells her what the job is: Beena is now a theatre actress. Ma is very upset and goes into a long harangue of how it’s better to be poor than to be in the theatre; their name will be mud, blah blah.

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Introducing a new blog: Madhulika Reads

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As some of you probably know, I am not just a writer, but an avid reader as well. On an average, I read more than a hundred books a year, and that too just about every genre, every style: crime and detective fiction, humour, romance, historical fiction, horror. History, popular science, food and food history. About nature and wildlife, about old cinema. And much more.

For the past ten years, I’ve been a member of the book reading and reviews site, Goodreads.com. There, I’ve reviewed more than a thousand books over the years. I also review books for several publications.

About time, I decided, that I began a blog on which I review books (no, don’t worry; Dustedoff isn’t going anywhere; I’m still going to be blogging about old cinema).

Therefore: Madhulika Reads. Here, my reviews are somewhat different, longer and more detailed, from what I post on Goodreads. You can click this link to learn more about this blog.

I began writing reviews on this a few weeks back, so now there are several (not many!) reviews on Madhulika Reads. You can explore further by clicking the Fiction Books Reviewed and Non-fiction Books Reviewed pages to see what I’ve reviewed so far. I read at a speed of at least one book a week, so you can expect frequent additions to these pages. If you’re as avid a reader as I am, do follow this blog to look out for (and offer) recommendations, compare notes, and generally chat about books.

Helen and a Male Star: Ten Dances

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If Helen danced with many other female dancers—several of them also major actresses, besides being dancers—she also did her fair share of dancing with men. Not just with the ‘dancing extras’ like Herman Benjamin and Abe Cohen, but also men who were stars. In some cases, Helen was the one doing the dancing while the man stood around and wriggled awkwardly (Dev Anand, who was not the best dancer of them all, comes to mind). In other cases, with better dancers (Shammi Kapoor, Feroz Khan, Mehmood) Helen got rather more support from her fellow dancer.

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