Tag Archives: Thandi hawaayein lehraake aayein

Ten of my favourite Nalini Jaywant songs

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Nalini Jaywant is one of those actresses about whom I’ve changed my opinion over the course of my watching of her films. I remember, as a child (which includes my early teens, which was a peak period when it came to Hindi film viewing), not especially liking her. I was a callow youngster, and as shallow as I was callow. To me women like Madhubala or Meena Kumari were the ultimate in beauty: Nalini Jaywant, with her heavy-lidded eyes and her pouting mouth, didn’t strike me as beautiful. Also, even if I put aside the purely superficial aspect of her looks, there was the fact that I didn’t think her a good actress. I found her voice affected and thin, nothing to write home about.

Thank goodness I grew up. Grew up, widened my horizons, and realized that there are different kinds of beauty. Realized, too, that one shouldn’t pass judgment on the worth of an actor without having watched a wide-ish spectrum of their work. Nalini Jaywant, when I had watched Munimji, seemed just another effervescent filmi female, no more than arm candy; it was through Shikast and Kaala Paani, through Hum Sab Chor Hain and Railway Platform (and many more), that I discovered just how versatile she could be. Goofy, flirtatious, tragic, long-suffering, feisty… Nalini Jaywant aced so many roles, brought so many of her characters vividly to life.

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Ten Songs from ‘One-Song-Wonder’ Films

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I get requests for song lists from readers all the time. Often, it turns out that the person hasn’t been through my list of lists I’ve done. Occasionally, the suggestion is something that’s either so difficult to do (songs about war, one I’ve promised myself I will someday achieve) or so ludicrously easy (songs about broken hearts) that I don’t even want to begin.

Very occasionally, though, a reader writes in with a suggestion that makes my eyes light up. Sometime back, a reader named TN Subramaniam wrote, asking me if I’d like to do a list of songs that were the one major hit song in a film otherwise characterized by forgettable songs. As an example, Dr Subramaniam suggested a song: Tum jo aao toh pyaar aa jaaye from Sakhi Robin, a lovely song, but one which wasn’t merely from an obscure film, but also from a film that had no other songs that readily come to mind.

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Ten of my favourite wind songs

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The other day, with a storm in full force, I could hear the crash and rumble of thunder, the pitter-patter of raindrops (and, as it grew more stormy, huge splashes of water against the windows)—and the wind, gusting and whooshing all around. It struck me then that nature, even when it’s not living nature—not birds and animals, but water and wind and clouds—makes its own music.

Wind, in my opinion, wins when it comes to ‘natural music’. From the soft swoosh of the breeze blowing through the leaves of a tree, to the howling, gooseflesh-inducing gusts that can be well mistaken for a banshee: the wind has a life all its own. Appropriate, then, that at least two types of musical instruments—wind chimes and Aeolian harps—are played by the wind.

And the wind, of course, has long been an important motif in Hindi film songs. There have been songs addressed to the wind, songs about the wind. Here are ten of my favourites, in no particular order. The only restrictions I’ve imposed on myself are:
(a) As always, the song should be from a film I’ve seen, from before the 1970s
And (b) the song should have a word synonymous with wind (hawa, saba, pawan, etc) in the first line of the song.

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