Happy Diwali! With Diwali around the corner, it seemed appropriate to post a little ‘did you know’ about the festival, since the Mughals celebrated this festival with a good deal of enthusiasm.
Festivities in the Mughal court
Railway Platform (1955)
Railway Platform begins, not on a platform, but in a train.
It starts with a song, Basti-basti parbat-parbat gaata jaaye banjaara, lip-synched by a philosopher and poet (Manmohan Krishna) as he rides in a crowded train compartment. This man, only referred to as ‘kavi’ (poet) throughout the film, acts as a sort of sutradhar. Not strictly the holder of the puppet strings, not always a narrator, but a voice of reason, of conscience, of dissent. His favourite saying is that “Two and two do not always make four; they sometimes make twenty-two.”
Manna Dey: In Tribute
I am listening to Poochho na kaise maine rain bitaayi as I write this. I am hearing Manna Dey’s voice, bringing so much emotion, so much frustrated longing into “Ut jale deepak, it mann mera; phir bhi na jaaye mere mann ka andhera”. And I am remembering all the other songs of Manna Dey that I’ve loved over the years. Songs that I grew up with (and, more often than not back then, didn’t know who sang them). Songs that I loved from the very first moment I heard them. Songs that have grown on me. Songs that make Manna Dey immortal, even though he’s no more.
Les Quatre Cents Coups (1959)
This is the 400th post on this blog.
And, what with my penchant for honouring precedents, I couldn’t pass up this opportunity to watch a film that has that number—400—in its title. Les Quatre Cents Coups (known in English as The Four Hundred Blows, though the actual translation would be closer to ‘the four hundred dirty tricks’) was directed by François Truffaut, one of the most prominent pioneers of French New Wave cinema. It was Truffaut’s first full-length feature film, a work that not only won much critical acclaim, but also led Truffaut to make a series of sequels featuring the same lead character…
…who is, in Les Quatre Cents Coups, the twelve-year old Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud).
Ten of my favourite boat songs
Some of you may know that I’ve recently returned from an exhilarating time at the Bangalore Literature Festival—one of the highlights (at least for a cinema fanatic like me!) of which was that I got to meet Nasreen Munni Kabir. (And was introduced to Farhan Akhtar, and met Sidharth Bhatia, and got to get photographed within the same frame as Gulzar… but that’s a different matter). Nasreen Munni Kabir and I actually shared a cab for the two-hour trip from the airport to the hotel, and spent most of it chatting about all things cinema. I told her about this blog, of course, and happened to mention that among the most popular posts seem to be song lists.
Which reminded me: it’s time for another list. And because this popped into my head while I was travelling, I decided to do another ‘sung in transit’ list. But because I’ve already done car songs (not to mention ghoda-gaadi songs and train songs), I’m going the water way this time: with boat songs. The criteria here (besides my usual ones, of the films being all pre-70s ones that I’ve seen) are:
(a) The singer(s) should be on the boat for at least three-fourths of the song’s duration
(b) All types of boats are allowed—shikaras, rafts, motorboats, ships, anything. Moving or not.
Back from the Bangalore Literature Festival
I’ve been absent from this page in the recent past, but all for a good cause (I think!). Firstly, I’ve been hard at work on the fourth Muzaffar Jang book. Secondly, I’ve been spending some quality time with other authors, readers (and potential readers, I hope) at the Bangalore Literature Festival, 27th-29th September 2013.
A session with Gulzar and Prasoon Joshi at the Bangalore Literature Festival
Waaris (1954)
As frequent visitors to this blog would know by now, one of my weaknesses is good music—and there have been, over the years, dozens of films that I’ve watched primarily because they had good scores. In some instances, just one song that I really liked. More often than not, my luck’s been pretty shoddy and I’ve ended up sitting through frightful films like Akashdeep, Saaranga, and Akeli Mat Jaiyo.
With Waaris, which I watched mostly because of Raahi matwaale, I had hopes [cautious, considering my track record, but hopes nevertheless]. It stars Suraiya and Talat Mahmood, both favourites of mine, and it was produced by Sohrab Modi, who even if (when acting) had a penchant for ‘declaiming to the skies’, did make some good films.
Charly (1968)
This was not the film I’d been intending to review this weekend.
The film I’d meant to watch was, instead, quite a different one: a Viking/King Arthur historical, the Robert Wagner-Janet Leigh-Debra Paget starrer Prince Valiant (1954). Why, then, am I reviewing this film, which has nothing to do with Vikings or history? Simply because Prince Valiant turned out to be—as a blog reader had so succinctly described The Long Ships in a comment—a ghanta film. (ghanta, for those not familiar with this particular usage of the Hindi word, refers to something cheesy, inferior, and generally avoidable).
Besides the fact that it consisted of slightly pointless (not to mention extended) violence and some very predictable romance, Prince Valiant had Robert Wagner looking like a masculine Amelie, which really put me off. To recover, I decided to watch Charly instead.
A Short Story Published: ‘Just Like Hutton’
“Simla, newly-washed by the afternoon rain, sparkled in the sun. As they made their way through Lakkar Bazaar, Kishore and Bhaskar saw shopkeepers wiping down shop fronts and lugging out wares that had been pulled inside when the storm burst.
‘Ma will be furious,’ Bhaskar said as they passed an old Bhutia, hunched under a load of skins as smelly and weathered as him. ‘We’ve never been this late before.’
‘It’s never rained so hard before. Chaachi knows we can’t play cricket in the rain.'”
Continue reading
Dharmputra (1961)
Several readers have told me, over the past couple of years, that I should watch this film. It is, if you go by just the details of cast, crew, and awards won, a promising film. Directed by Yash Chopra, starring Mala Sinha, Rehman, Ashok Kumar, Shashi Kapoor (in his first role as an adult), Nirupa Roy, Indrani Mukherjee, Manmohan Krishna—with guest appearances by Rajendra Kumar and Shashikala. The winner of the President’s Silver Medal for Best Feature Film in Hindi at the National Film Awards.
And with lyrics by Sahir Ludhianvi, set to music by N Dutta. I could well imagine Dharmputra would be a film worth watching. So when I finally managed to lay my hands on it, I didn’t waste much time getting around to seeing it.
Dustedoff 
