Today, December 24, 2024 marks an important birth centenary: that of one of the greatest singers ever to hail from the Indian subcontinent, the inimitable Mohammad Rafi. Born on December 24, 1924 in Kotla Sultan Singh (Punjab), Rafi would go on to dominate the world of Hindi playback singing in a way few of his contemporaries could, singing thousands of songs, winning awards by the dozen—and rarely (a rarity in itself, in a competitive industry) antagonizing those he worked with.
This song list actually had its genesis many years ago, when I posted my list of jewellery songs. Back then, it had occurred to me that there were also songs that celebrated other ways (less expensive ways!) of adorning oneself. Cosmetics, most of them the ‘traditional’ ones, rather than those that came to us, along with their names, from the West, are not all that uncommon in Hindi film songs. And with reason: after all, romance plays a major part in old Hindi cinema, and where there is romance, there is shringaar ras: the very essence of attraction. A woman (mostly, though there are instances of men too) is often praised for her beauty, and that beauty is accentuated by cosmetics: by kaajal (kohl) in the eyes, mehendi on the hands, sindoor in the parting of the hair, and so on.
I love it when blog readers suggest themes for song lists: it invariably provides food for thought. For instance, about a couple of years back, one of my readers, Ashish, sent me a mail with a suggestion: songs about people selling their wares (he was spurred onto that by listening to the song Zindagi hai kya sun meri jaan, in which Dev Anand is selling ice cream—the point being that the song is used as a means of promoting the wares of the seller). A very good post on songs like that had already been done by Pacifist (as a guest writer on Harvey’s blog), but it made me think: goods, after all, are not all that’s sold. Services, equally, are sold. And the service can be anything: from transportation to tailoring, from entertainment to—well, something rather more intimate.
Why not begin, I thought, where I left off in my last post? The last song I listed in my post on my ten favourite Waheeda Rehman songs was Jaane kya tune kahi, from Pyaasa. Interestingly, this was also the first song in the film. It’s a film I’ve seen a few times – always with increasing appreciation, as I begin to see more nuances, more things to admire about it. But do I really have anything new to say about Pyaasa that hasn’t been said before?
When I first began blogging about old cinema, my husband asked me, “So will you do a list of Johnny Walker’s songs sometime?” I thought about it (not long; I didn’t need to) and decided yes. Badruddin Jamaluddin Qazi, aka Johnny Walker, definitely deserves a ‘top ten’ list all his own. This, therefore, on what would have been his 83rd birthday, is a list of songs through which he frolics and flirts, teeters and tumbles—just, generally, keeps me glued to the screen. These are all from films of the 50’s and 60’s that I’ve seen, in no particular order.
Dustedoff 