The funny side of blogging

Posted on by

52

I’ve been blogging for more than five years now, and over the years, I’ve discovered a lot of things that make me want to continue. One is the enthusiasm and support of readers. Another is the vast amount of knowledge I’ve gained, simply by blogging and watching so much cinema—a lot of which I’d probably never have seen otherwise.

And, there’s the laughter one gets out of logging into my blog’s dashboard and checking out the day’s stats. WordPress has a fairly comprehensive statistics page, with detailed information on stuff like how many views my blog got, which have been the most popular pages and the most popular posts, who comments the most on my blog—and, the icing on the cake—the web searches that bring visitors to Dusted Off. Most of these are fairly innocuous: o p nayyar songs list, madhubalasongs, humraaz, and so on. Fairly predictable search terms to arrive at Dusted Off.

Occasionally, however, there are absolute gems, stuff that makes me laugh. For instance, on November 10, 2013, according to my stats page, someone arrived at Dusted Off using the search term song tum mere paas aa naa shaky video.

Let's shake! Continue reading →

Book Review: Farah Ghuznavi’s ‘Fragments of Riversong’

Posted on by

2

In a conversation with a very experienced journalist the other day, I was told, “I can’t imagine why publishers should be so wary of publishing short stories. They’re so much more difficult to write.” The implication being that if a … Continue reading →

Ten of my favourite wind songs

Posted on by

172

The other day, with a storm in full force, I could hear the crash and rumble of thunder, the pitter-patter of raindrops (and, as it grew more stormy, huge splashes of water against the windows)—and the wind, gusting and whooshing all around. It struck me then that nature, even when it’s not living nature—not birds and animals, but water and wind and clouds—makes its own music.

Wind, in my opinion, wins when it comes to ‘natural music’. From the soft swoosh of the breeze blowing through the leaves of a tree, to the howling, gooseflesh-inducing gusts that can be well mistaken for a banshee: the wind has a life all its own. Appropriate, then, that at least two types of musical instruments—wind chimes and Aeolian harps—are played by the wind.

And the wind, of course, has long been an important motif in Hindi film songs. There have been songs addressed to the wind, songs about the wind. Here are ten of my favourites, in no particular order. The only restrictions I’ve imposed on myself are:
(a) As always, the song should be from a film I’ve seen, from before the 1970s
And (b) the song should have a word synonymous with wind (hawa, saba, pawan, etc) in the first line of the song.

Hawa mein udtaa jaaye... Continue reading →

Nakli Nawab (1962)

Posted on by

51

Muslim socials are among the genres I can never have too much of. Back in their heyday, they had some of the best music around (remember Chaudhvin ka Chaand? Barsaat ki Raat? Mere Mehboob? The inimitable Pakeezah?) There was the chance to savour the mellifluous sound of Urdu; to peek into a social structure and lifestyles that often went otherwise unexplored in cinema; and to see women in shararas and men in achkans [the latter, like military uniforms, equipped with some inexplicable means of making even Bharat Bhushan and Rajendra Kumar look good].

pic1 Continue reading →

Shijibganeun Nal (1956)

Posted on by

27

In English, The Wedding Day. Also known (ironically, as it turns out) as A Happy Event in the Maeng Family.

I’ve been watching a lot of (relatively new) Korean films—most of them frothy romances and romcoms—over the past several weeks. They reminded me that I’d never reviewed a Korean film on this blog, and they also reminded me that the first Korean film I ever saw was a romantic one; or what I could remember of it was romantic. The film was shown on Doordarshan, India’s sole television channel back in the early 80s. Doordarshan, back then, showed an interesting mix of foreign cinema: all the way from films like Red Sorghum (which my parents should probably not have let an impressionable 12-year old watch) to Fedora, which bored me to tears. And a Korean historical about a wedding in a family.

The Wedding Day Continue reading →

Intequam (1969)

Posted on by

47

When Anu listed her favourite Sadhna films, I remarked that another Sadhna film I like—though it’s from later in the actress’s career—is Intequam. Based on Vendetta, a Marie Corelli novel (the only film adaptation of a Corelli work that’s in colour), Intequam is a story of vengeance. Though it features a Sadhna whose gorgeousness had begun to suffer because of her medical problems, she’s still interesting—and the central character in this film.

Sadhna with Sanjay Khan in Intequam Continue reading →