Tumse Achha Kaun Hai (1969)

Lalita Pawar plays an ageing and very wealthy woman who employs a man (played by Shammi Kapoor) to reform her granddaughters, who are getting too wild for her liking. The man, poor and in desperate need of money to pay for the treatment of an ailing family member, takes up the offer, even though it will require him to pretend to be someone he’s not. In the process, he ends up falling in love with one of the granddaughters—much to the annoyance of the indignant grandmother.

This was the gist of the story of Professor (1962), though with one qualification: Shammi Kapoor’s Preetam in that film is initially hired just as a tutor for the younger brothers of the granddaughters; it’s only a little later that he’s also given the task of tutoring the young women. It was, as I’ve said on more than one occasion—and of course in my review of the film—a delightfully entertaining film, romantic and fun and with absolutely fabulous music.

Seven years later, Shammi Kapoor acted in another film with a somewhat similar plot. Here, in Tumse Achha Kaun Hai, he is Ashok, a musician; and Lalita Pawar plays Sarojini Devi, the very wealthy woman who approaches him with a proposition: that he take on the task of setting to rights her granddaughters, all three of whom (she feels) are a disgrace to Sarojini Devi.

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Ten of my favourite songs that became film titles

This song list had its genesis in an earlier song list, my ten favourite title songs. In my introduction to that list, I had listed the criteria I had set for that post, and one of them was that I wouldn’t include songs for which the lyrics gave rise to film titles for a completely different film. As examples, I mentioned Yeh raat phir na aayegi (Mahal, 1949) and Dekh tere sansaar ki haalat (Nastik, 1954), both of which led to films with those lyrics as title.

That attracted the attention of several blog readers, and Harvey even suggested that it might be an interesting idea to try doing a list of such songs: songs which had lyrics that were turned into film titles. Harvey suggested a couple of songs that would fit, and so did a couple of other blog readers as well.

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Ten Ganga songs from classic Hindi cinema

My husband and I are avid travelers. Give us a few days’ holiday and some funds, and we’re eager to race off somewhere. This past year, however, has been unbelievably hectic, what with one thing or another, and after an entire 365 days of not travelling anywhere, we were ready to crack. So we eventually took a holiday—to The Glasshouse on the Ganges, an idyllic little place we’ve visited before, just slightly above Rishikesh. Sitting there one evening, with my feet lapped by the cool waves of the Ganga, I was humming Ganga behti ho kyon (yes, I’m not making this up; I actually was doing that!) when it struck me: there are several songs in Hindi cinema about the Ganga. And that’s where the idea for this post originated.

The Ganga flows for a distance of 2,525 km, all the way from the Himalayas (it begins, officially, at the point—in Devprayag—where its two major tributaries, the Bhagirathi and the Alaknanda, join). Most devout Hindus consider Gomukh, at the foot of the Gangotri Glacier, where the Bhagirathi arises, as the birthplace of the Ganga. The fifth most polluted river in the world, this one is one of Earth’s major rivers (it even appears in classical Western art—the imposing ‘Fountain of the Four Rivers’ sculpture at Rome’s Piazza Navona includes the Ganges). Millions of people live alongside it, millions come from far and wide for a dip in the Ganga.

The river.

The river.

And Hindi cinema has embraced it wholeheartedly, all the way from the dozens of filmi children lost at the Kumbh, to Ganga ki Saugandh, Ganga Tera Paani Amrit, Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai, etc. Plus, the songs. Here are ten songs from pre-70s (mostly, with one minor exception from 1971) Hindi films which mention the Ganga. In different contexts, to different extents. All from films that I’ve seen.

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Ten of my favourite ‘Kashmir songs’

Some of you may have noticed my recent hiatus. Some of you may even know the reason for that—a trip to Kashmir (or, to be more specific, Srinagar). I lived in Srinagar for 3 years, beginning with when I was about 9 years old. I loved Srinagar. It was a beautiful place, and the beauty of it changed with the seasons: from the golds and reds of the chinars in autumn to the billowy white of winter (winter also meant teeth-chattering cold and long power cuts and occasionally no water, but never mind). From the masses of narcissi and daffodils, and the flowering fruit trees in spring, to the gardens bursting with poppies, roses and pansies in summer.

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