In the 17 years this blog has been in existence, I’ve created song lists for a large number of music directors: OP Nayyar, Madan Mohan, Naushad, Ravi, SD Burman… but somehow, I had never got around to creating a Salil Chowdhury song list. I realized this lacuna some years back, but then, realizing that Salil’s birth centenary was in 2025, I told myself I’d plan a list to mark that. I could not ignore Salil, who has long been one of my favourite music directors.
(Coincidentally enough, I watched Aaye Din Bahaar Ke some weeks back, just after I’d posted my review of Phool aur Patthar. Back then I’d not known that we would be mourning the passing of Dharmendra so soon after. Consider this a tribute).
When I watched Phool aur Patthar some weeks back, I was reminded of the many fairly entertaining films Dharmendra worked in through the mid- and late-1960s. Not all of them were good (some, like Chandan ka Palna, were terrible), but quite a lot of them had at least good songs, a fair deal of entertainment value, and an undeniably handsome male lead to make them worth at least a one-time watch. Some of these (like Aankhen, arguably my favourite Dharmendra film) I’ve reviewed already; there are several others.
Here’s one. I last watched Aaye Din Bahaar Ke perhaps about 20-odd years ago, and actually remembered a fair bit of it. That I didn’t mind watching it again, even though the film is far from perfect, says a lot for it.
The story begins in Darjeeling, where Ravi (Dharmendra) lives with his widowed mother (Sulochana Latkar). Ravi is devoted to his mother: so much so that when Ma is doing her pooja, he tells her, “You may worship your gods, but I will worship only you.” She has devoted her life to looking after Ravi, educating him, etc, which is why this somewhat OTT sentiment.
RIP, Kamini Kaushal. Ms Kaushal, probably the oldest of Hindi cinema stars still living, passed away at the age of 98 on November 14, 2025.
Over the years I’ve been blogging, I’ve seen one after the other of some of my favourite stars pass out of our lives: Shammi Kapoor, Sadhana, Dilip Kumar, Kumkum… but with Kamini Kaushal, I have to admit to a somewhat pronounced sense of loss. Not because she was a particular favourite of mine (though I admitted to being quite impressed with her acting when I watched Biraj Bahu some months back). But because with her passing, the door seems to have shut firmly on those who heralded the start of the Golden Age in Hindi cinema.
Anyhow, a tribute seemed in order. A tribute to Kamini Kaushal, and to a film that I’ve been meaning to watch for a while now.
A couple of years back, I watched (and later reviewed) the Meena Kumari-Dharmendra starrer, Bahaaron ki Manzil. A good suspense thriller, it put me in mind of another film starring these two: Phool aur Patthar. I had seen the film many years ago, as a child (implication: this would have been in the early 80s, when Doordarshan’s sole TV channel was our only entertainment besides books and radio, which meant we watched anything that was aired, no matter how mediocre). I remembered nothing of it except that Dharmendra played a thief who ends up being cared for by Meena Kumari, playing a widow.
I have to admit I have never watched this film in all my years of watching and blogging about old Hindi cinema. Part of the reason is, I suppose, that this film—directed by Bimal Roy—somehow always tends to get sidelined in all the praise that’s showered on his better-known works: Do Bigha Zameen, Bandini, Devdas, Parakh, Sujata, Madhumati… then, too, there’s the fact that Kamini Kaushal has never been one of my favourite actresses. I’ve always found her a little affected, her diction and expressions too exaggeratedly innocent.
Today, September 8, is International Literacy Day. In 1967, this day was designated as such by UNESCO to emphasize the importance of literacy in maintaining dignity and as a matter of basic human rights. Every year, a different theme related to literacy is used as the focus of special programmes and initiatives across the world: women’s empowerment, for instance; or the connection between literacy and controlling epidemics.
So what does that have to do with Hindi cinema? Not much, I admit, though there have been Hindi films—especially in the 50s, when India under Nehru was trying very hard to haul itself up into modernity—when there was the occasional film which made an attempt to underline the importance of being literate. Anpadh, for instance; or Bahurani, both of which showed how literacy can enlighten people. Similarly, Nartakee, and Ek ke Baad Ek, which too had literacy and education as important elements of the story.
While literacy may not be the point of most Hindi films, there’s no denying that few films go by without at least one character shown reading something. A book (to be seen in many films, even clearly identifiable books, as I’ve mentioned in these posts). A letter—at times so incriminating. A newspaper, often carrying some very vital piece of news, sometimes even shown rolling off the presses or being sold on the streets. A magazine (Life? Everybody fashionable in 60s cinema seemed to read Life).
When, for May 31st this year (the 100th birth anniversary of film director Raj Khosla), I wanted to review one of his films, Anita was on my shortlist. Over the course of the years I’ve been writing this blog, I’ve reviewed several of Khosla’s films, including two of the three films (Woh Kaun Thi?, Mera Saaya and Anita) that comprise Khosla’s Sadhana suspense trilogy. Since Manoj Kumar had also passed away earlier this year, it seemed fitting to watch and review Anita, the last of the three films, and a film that starred Manoj Kumar opposite Sadhana.
For a tribute to Khosla, I ended up reviewing Kaala Paani instead. But I did watch Anita (a film that I’d last seen so long back, I remembered only the basics of it). And it seemed appropriate to review it too.
Therefore…
The film begins with a short, rather abrupt scene in which Seth Biharilal (Sajjan) visits a somewhat shady-looking pandit (Ulhas). Biharilal has brought along the horoscope of his 19-year-old daughter Anita for the pandit to have a look at, and to comment upon. The pandit has a peek, and says that this year is going to be really vile for Anita.
I saw this on the big screen, on August 10, 2025.
Given that getting to see a Hindi film as old as this on the big screen, as a proper commercial release (re-release, in this case), is a very rare treat, it needs to be put up front.
To mark the birth centenary of Guru Dutt, the National Films Division Corporation of India (NFDC) and the National Film Archive of India (NFAI) collaborated to restore and re-release several of Guru Dutt’s films. These were shown at PVR and Cinépolis cinema halls across India on August 8th through to 10th. Left to myself, I would happily have seen all the films that were being screened; but duty calls. August 9th was rakshabandhan, and we had family coming over for lunch. I was busy all through the previous day cleaning and cooking and generally preparing, and then again through half of the next day. But, once our guests had eaten, I scurried off cinema-wards to watch Sahib Biwi aur Ghulam. The following day, I managed to watch Aar-Paar.
Many years ago, on this blog, I’d posted a list of boat songs. Boats happen to be fairly popular ‘platforms’ (so to say) for songs. For philosophical songs, for romantic songs, for songs of everything from despair to hope. There are songs on motorboats, on rafts, on rowboats and shikaras and whatnot. Many of Hindi cinema’s most famous songs from before the 70s were boat songs.
Much rarer, though, have been ship songs. Ships, after all, aren’t usually a part of most narratives (they’re less easily accessible, plus of course require a greater outlay on the part of whoever’s financing the film). Shipboard songs, I’ve realized, fall into a few fairly specific brackets. Either the singer(s) is/are employed on board a ship (as naval officers, deck hands, even pirates), or they are wealthy people travelling overseas. The latter, especially, became a more common theme in the late 1960s, when several films had a cruise as an important part of the storyline, invariably as a setting for a blossoming romance.
Today, July 9, 2025, marks the 100th birth anniversary of one of Hindi cinema’s best-known film directors. Born in Mysore on this day in 1925 as Vasant Kumar Shivshankar Padukone, Guru Dutt studied in Calcutta before joining Uday Shankar’s India Culture Centre (in Almora, present-day Uttarakhand) to train in dance. By the time he turned 19, he had moved to Pune, where he began working as a choreographer for Prabhat Studios. By the time Prabhat Studios folded up (in the early 1950s), Guru Dutt had formed a close friendship with Dev Anand, because of whom he received his first break as a director: in 1951, he directed Navketan’s Baazi, starring Dev Anand, Geeta Bali and Kalpana Karthik in a noir thriller that was to become a defining film for Navketan: edgy, stylish, dark, very urban.
Guru Dutt is today revered more for the hard-hitting, cynical cinema he made: films like Pyaasa, Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam and Kaagaz ke Phool hold up the mirror to a world that is selfish, cruel and opportunistic. These are bitter films, films that plumb the depths of human nature; films that—despite following most of the standard tropes of commercial Hindi cinema (a romance between the lead couple; a fair number of songs; a comic character invariably played by Johnny Walker)—were quite different from other Hindi films.
These, too, are the films for which Guru Dutt is mostly remembered today. Is that because over the decades, people have seen how the tragedy and turmoil of Guru Dutt’s personal life was probably reflected in films like these? Is there a voyeuristic tendency to try and spot the man behind the director?
But Guru Dutt also made other films, on other subjects. This one, for instance, an adventure/patriotic film set on the high seas, with Geeta Bali starring as the eponymous ‘Baaz’ (falcon), a woman who becomes a pirate to free her land of a colonial tyrant.
Dustedoff 