Happy Independence Day!
…and, since the Red Fort is the venue of the Prime Minister’s annual address to the nation on this occasion, how about some facts about this set of buildings?
First, the very basics, and then we’ll move on to five interesting but relatively little-known details about the Red Fort (commonly known as the Lal Qila now, but in Shahjahan’s period, also referred to as the Qila Mubarak and the Qila-e-Mualla).
Looking towards the Lahore Darwaza of the Red Fort.
I’d been thinking, for the past few months, of doing a post on songs that a person uses to introduce himself or herself in Hindi cinema. Not the “Awaara hoon” or “Main rangeela pyaar ka raahi” type, which actually use a set of adjectives to describe the singer, but an actual introduction: this is my name, this is where I live, stuff like that. I can think of a number of songs along those lines, and it seemed like a good idea to do a list.
When I watched Love in Bombay last weekend (and saw Kishore Kumar belting out Maazaa naav ahe Ganpat Rao), I was reminded of that long-pending list. So here it is: ten of my favourite songs, mostly from pre-70s films, where the singer introduces himself/herself by name. These are, as I usually stipulate for my lists, from films I’ve seen. Not all of them are necessarily good songs, music-wise, but they invariably have something or the other—lyrics, picturisation, situation, whatever—which sets them apart for me.
Or 1971, if you go by the year the film was made, not the year the film was released. Or 1974, which was when the censor certificate dates from.
I came to know of Love in Bombay a few months back, when a newspaper article mentioned that Joy Mukherji’s sons were finally going to be releasing this film. I forgot about it until I discovered that it had finally been released this last Friday—and then I was in a quandary. To see or not to see, as I put it. Various friends urged me on: Harvey, for instance, said that with Agha Jani Kashmiri having revised the script, it may be pretty good. Beth said that she’d heard the costumes were good. Sidharth Bhatia suggested that the presence of Joy Mukherji and Kishore Kumar might be one reason to watch.
Do you know what this is called? If you’ve been to Delhi’s Red Fort (or to some of the other Mughal-era forts, such as the fort at Agra), you might have seen this odd-looking architectural element, typically positioned high up … Continue reading
Considering the last film I reviewed—about Genghis Khan’s grandson, Halaku (Hulegu Khan)—it seemed to me about time that I watched this one. What strengthened my resolve was that I happened to watch the Julie Andrews-Omar Sharif starrer The Tamarind Seed last week, and I was reminded that Omar Sharif starred as Genghis Khan here. ‘And Omar Sharif as Genghis Khan’, as the credits read. [An uncanny coincidence there, with—as in Halaku—the lead actor’s name appearing at the end of the credited cast].
Bunny Reuben’s biography of Pran, as many Pran fans would know, is called …and Pran: A Biography, a nod to the hundreds of credit sequences in which Pran—invariably one of the most prominent artistes in whichever film he was in—was listed at the end of the credits. A nod, not just to the fact that his character was more often than not at odds with the hero and heroine and their parents/friends/well-wishers listed first in the credits, but also that Pran deserved to be credited separately. A sort of ‘leaving the best for the last’? I like to think so.
In this film, even though he plays the title role, it’s no different. And Pran as Halaku.
You could say Pran played, in a way, an important role in shaping my early film-watching days. My parents tell me that when Majboor (1974) was released, I—then a toddler—completely fell in love with one of its songs. My rendition of Michael daaru peekar danga karta hai (“Michael creates a ruckus after a few drinks”) was a little flawed. I cheerfully (and innocently) sang Michael daadu peekar ganda karta hai (“Grandpa Michael creates a mess after a few drinks”). But I thought the song was fabulous. I thought Michael was a good ‘un. And I thought—as I still do—that Pran (February 12, 1920 – July 12, 2013) was in a class by himself.
Pran, of course, was the quintessential villain. But in a cinema that had as many ‘invariably villains’ as ‘invariably heroes’, Pran stood out. Amongst the Madan Puris, the KN Singhs, the Jeevans, the Prem Chopras (and, to a lesser extent, or later, people like Prem Nath, Ajit, and Rehman), Pran was one of those who just had to appear onscreen for that moment of epiphany: Ah, here’s the villain.
The other day, a fellow blogger, mentioning her distaste for Manoj Kumar’s films said that while she has “nothing against the man himself”, she really hates his films. I know what she meant (at least I think I do): I hate that insufferably xenophobic “all that is Indian is good, all that is Western is bad” philosophy espoused by films like Upkaar or, even worse, Purab aur Pachhim.
But I tend to shove that lot of films to the boundaries of my recollection of Manoj Kumar’s films. For me, his best films are the outright entertainers, the romances and suspense thrillers he worked in. Especially the suspense thrillers: Woh Kaun Thi?, Anita, Gumnaam—and this one.
[This is a version of an article I wrote for the June 2013 issue of National Geographic Traveller India]. It is a sunny summer day, and my husband and I are in Strasbourg’s Palais Rohan. After the Nôtre Dame Cathedral, … Continue reading
It is May 31, 1944. In London, the plans for D-Day have been finalized. The Allied invasion of Europe—and, hopefully, the subsequent collapse of the Axis—cannot be far. Things are looking bright. Perhaps a bit too bright? Perhaps the Allied top brass have been a trifle too complacent. Perhaps they’ve not realized exactly how far the Germans will go to find out more about the plans for the invasion.
A week or so ago, a cousin of mine who thrives on films about World War II, sent me a list of all the WWII films and documentaries he owns. He asked me to add to the list. With some caveats. He (like me) doesn’t like gory and gruesome films; he prefers films about missions, espionage, and adventures à la Where Eagles Dare. And he prefers films from the 60s, when colour and better special effects made films more realistic than they’d been in the 40s and 50s.
Dustedoff 