This post is ten days late. January 4, 2025 marked the 100th birth anniversary of an actor who, in an industry dominated by Punjabis, was one of just a handful of Bengali leading men. And, unlike—say, Biwasjit or Joy Mukherjee—to have a respectably long innings as an actor, playing lead roles right through the 50s and 60s, and then continuing as a character actor up to the last years of the 1900s. Impressive.
Many years back, I’d begun doing a series of posts on multiple version songs in old Hindi cinema. Songs that seem to have struck their composers/film directors as so impactful that they needed to be repeated, in different scenarios, sometimes in different moods and even with different singers, singing differing lyrics. I did two of those posts, then something cropped up (I don’t remember what) and the project got abandoned.
But I’ve got back to this now, and here’s a third post on multiple version songs. My earlier posts focused on solos: two-version songs sung by a male singer and a female singer; and the same song, sung by the same singer but in two versions.
This time, I’m focusing on songs that appear at least twice in a film, but at least once in the form of a solo and the other time as a duet (or more: one of the songs in this list has three singers).
The idea for this post came to my mind when I’d finished writing up my review of Anirudha Bhattacharjee and Balaji Vittal’s Gaata Rahe Mera Dil: 50 Classic Hindi Film Songs. For me, one of the songs that was conspicuous by its absence from this enjoyable book was Tum pukaar lo, from Khamoshi. I love that song so much that I posted a Youtube link for it on Facebook—and found a lot of love for it among other friends and family members. A brief discussion with a friend, and we both agreed that it was one of those iconic songs of waiting. Out of that thread arose this idea: a compilation of good songs that are all about waiting.
Waiting, of course, can be of different types, and for different things. It can be a patient wait, for something one knows is coming one’s way. It can be restless, dominated by an urge to do something to alleviate one’s own suffering. Or the restlessness can be one of hopelessness, of knowing that one waits for something that can never come to be.
Including some recommendations, and some warnings.
This post was sparked off by a comment, by blog reader and fellow blogger Ava, on my review of the Sunil Dutt-Meena Kumari starrer, Ghazal. Like me, Ava ‘adores’ Muslim socials, and in her comment, suggested that I make a list of ten of my favourite Muslim socials. A great suggestion, I thought. And then thought some more. Were there ten Muslim socials I loved to bits? Were there some which were fabulous when it came to certain aspects, and horrendous on other counts? Were there some, perhaps, that I wouldn’t watch again (except possibly at gunpoint)?
All that thinking, I decided, had to be shared. Also in the hope that it might elicit some responses from those reading this blog post—please do comment, share your thoughts, and feel free to disagree. With the tameez and tehzeeb one would expect in a Muslim social.
…which could probably have been more appropriately titled How to Jump to Conclusions and Mess up Lives. Or Never Trust a Sinister Mamu. This is one Muslim social – a genre I have long admitted to being very fond of – which has been recommended to me so often, I’ve lost track of the recommendations. On the one hand, I wanted to see it because it has some lovely songs; on the other, the thought of watching Meena Kumari in one of her last few films – well, that wasn’t something I was really looking forward to with anticipation. But all those recommendations tilted the balance.
Dustedoff 