Asha Bhonsle: Ten Duets, Ten Co-Singers: Part 2

When I posted this list  of ten Asha duets last week, the plan had not been to post a follow-up list as well. But then, blog readers began commenting on the post, and several of them posted songs that I really like, with playback singers I hadn’t mentioned. After all, when you’re doing a list of just ten songs, the tendency—and I admit I succumbed to this temptation—is to include your favourite songs. All the duets with Rafi, Kishore, Mukesh, et al, featured there. And those songs with these singers that didn’t actually get listed, I at least made it a point to mention.

Even when I’d posted that list, I was ruing the fact that I had still not got around to writing about Asha’s songs with, say, her sister Usha Mangeshkar. There were, in addition, a few rare songs with relatively little-known singers, too, that I had had in mind, but hadn’t written about.

So many good songs on the back burner. I decided a Part 2 was in order. So here it is. Ten duets sung by Asha Bhonsle with a fellow singer who wasn’t listed in the earlier post. As always, these songs are all from pre-1970s Hindi films that I’ve seen. These are in no particular order.

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Paigham (1959)

This is a film that’s been on my radar for a while now. Dilip Kumar, Vyjyanthimala. A cast also boasting of Motilal and Johnny Walker. Some good songs. Paigham, I thought, might be worth a watch.

I will admit, though, that my heart sank a bit when I saw the opening credits and discovered that this is a Gemini Studios release. Like AVM, I now approach Gemini with trepidation: while their films often had great casts and excellent music, they were invariably just too melodramatic for my liking.

But I persevered.

Paigham begins by introducing us to Manju (Vyjyanthimala) who, along with her best friend Malti (B Saroja Devi), has just finished college: Manju at the top of her class, Malti at the bottom. Malti isn’t fazed by this; she’s a wealthy girl, her father Seth Sewakram (Motilal) a prosperous cotton mill-owner. Malti, in fact, has promised Manju that she will ask her father to give Manju (who’s done a course in shorthand and secretarial work) a job at the cotton mill, which is in a town named Rangpur.  

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Hindi film characters with books, Part 2

Just last month, on the occasion of World Book Day (in Britain and some other parts of the world), I published a post on characters in English-language cinema who are readers. This post had been inspired by a much earlier post, from some years back, where I had listed characters from Hindi cinema who are shown with books. This time, for the English books post, a blog reader suggested I do a sequel to the post on books in Hindi cinema.

And why not, I thought. After all, books aren’t all that uncommon in Hindi films. True, Life magazine or newspapers do seem to rule the roost when it comes to people reading, but there are books to be seen now and then.

Today, April 23, is the day designated by UNESCO as World Book Day. And here is the sequel to that long-ago post on characters in Hindi cinema with books: another instalment of screenshots of Hindi film characters with books; and not just characters with books in the background, such as this:

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