Hindi Film Characters with Books, Part 3

In 2018, for World Book Day, I compiled a post on Hindi film characters depicted with books. I had not meant it to be the first part of a series of posts; not at all. It had taken me a good bit of effort, many days of trawling through films, much research, to come up with those ten books on that list. To be honest, besides those ten books, those ten characters, I couldn’t think of any other Hindi film characters I’d seen with books.

I don’t know how it is with you, but I have noticed one thing about myself: as soon as I’ve done a post on some theme (or even thought of one), I keep noticing that theme again and again in films I watch. After 2018, I found myself spotting books in several old films I watched. Enough to enable me to post a follow-up list: ten other books.

And now another ten. As I’ve done for the other book lists I’ve made, these are all from films I’ve seen, and (barring one film, Dil Daulat Duniya, 1972), from before the 1970s. I’ve made an exception for Dil Daulat Duniya because (like—say, Sharmeelee—it has a very 60s look and feel to it, and is anyway on the cusp of the decade). These ten books are all real books, and can be bought online even today; I’ve provided links to buy, wherever possible.

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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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