Tag Archives: Meera

Meera (1947)

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I am not a one for mythologicals or devotionals.

If you go through the list of Hindi films I’ve reviewed in the sixteen years this blog has been in existence, you’ll probably only find a handful of films that fit the bill (offhand, I can only think of Mahabharat, though in Telugu, I’ve also reviewed the excellent Maya Bazaar and in Tamil, Karnan). I have watched more than that, but nearly all I have found to be so ho-hum, I couldn’t be bothered to review them.

The story of Krishnabhakt Meera, wife of Bhojraj, was not one I expected to be any different. A woman, so completely devoted to the deity she has chosen to worship that she gives up everything, down to her husband and the kingdom of which she is queen, in order to go to Vrindavan to fall at Krishna’s feet… I was quite certain this film would be a hard slog. There was only one reason I wanted to watch it, and that was MS Subbulakshmi, who played Meera. I knew that Meera had originally been made in Tamil (in 1945), and was later (in 1947) dubbed in Hindi, with some scenes being reshot. MS Subbulakshmi, of course, given her stature as one of the greatest vocalists the Indian subcontinent has ever produced, sang all the songs.

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Top Ten Songs Sung by Actors Themselves (or by Singers Appearing Onscreen) – Guest Post by Abhik

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Some weeks back, fellow blogger and reader Abhik Majumdar suggested an idea for a song list: songs actually sung by (not merely lip-synched by) actors. Not singer-cum-actors, but people who were known only for their acting. I couldn’t think of too many songs that would fit my criteria (and those I could think of, were more often than not, from films I hadn’t seen). It did sound like an interesting topic, though (and wouldn’t it be fun to hear the singing voices of people we invariably ‘heard’ only in the voices of playback singers?). So I took the easy way out: I asked Abhik to do a guest post. And here it is. Since this one’s a guest post (and atithi devo bhava and all that…), I allowed Abhik a bit of a free hand. No need to stick completely to my blog’s time lines, for example.

Over to Abhik:

Madhulika’s blog is what a friend calls a ‘time black-hole’ – you get completely immersed randomly browsing through, and then you’re left wondering just where all that time went. Some time I had suggested to her a ‘top-ten’ post on actors singing their own songs or singers appearing onscreen. Most generously, she responded by asking me to do a guest-post instead.

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