Dev Anand: A musical interview (Part 2)

Interviewing Dev Saab is not an easy task! Once part 1 of the interview was done, I was certain that part 2 would only take me a couple of hours. I hadn’t, of course, taken into account one thing – every time I tried asking him a question, he’d just belt out one of his intoxicatingly romantic numbers, and I would be umm… distracted.

Sach kehta hun bohut haseen ho – Jaali Note (1960)

It took a herculean effort in exercising my will power to continue our chat on a normal plane. That is why this part has taken so long to come to you…

Dev Anand: A musical interview (Part 1)

I was shocked when I read about Dev Anand’s death. He may have been the superstar of my parents’ generation, but he certainly looked like he would outlive me! If I’d ever thought about it, I’d have said that he’d go on making movies forever. Over the years, he’s spent so much time in my living room, bringing so much fun and entertainment with him, that it is impossible not to feel a bit sad that he is no more. I am only "a bit" sad because the Dev Anand I knew is forever young, handsome, and always there in his lovely films. (I refuse to even admit the existence of his post-1960s career!)

Of course, his sad demise reminded me that it was high time I paid him a visit in the 1960s. While I was there, I took the opportunity to quiz him about his great romances with women and wine.

My ten favourite Geeta Dutt songs

Yaad karoge yaad karoge, ek din humko yaad karoge (you will remember, one day you will remember me). I wonder if Geeta Dutt ever realised how prophetic these words from her first big hit album (Do Bhai, 1947) would prove to be. She’s left such a wealth of lovely songs, sung in that rich, fluid, and incredibly beautiful voice of hers, that it is hard not to remember her, every time you think of songs of yore. She started her playback career at the age of sixteen when she sang two lines in a song for the movie Bhakta Prahlad (1946). Success came just a year later, with Mera sundar sapna beet gaya (Do Bhai, 1947). The rest, as they say, is history. Geeta Dutt was soon one of Hindi film’s leading singers, and ruled the Hindi song-waves through the 40s and 50s. She lent her lovely voice to an incredibly wide range of songs and sang everything from ballads to bhajans, club songs to ghazals, sad songs to frothy, fun numbers…

Gaban (1966)

Have you ever watched a film with an impending sense of doom, heart thumping, waiting to see how the hero makes a bad situation worse? And this when it’s not even a thriller? That pretty much sums up how I felt watching this film! All I knew before was that it was based on Munshi Premchand’s story of the same name, and that it starred my favourite onscreen couple (Sunil Dutt and Sadhana). The film’s title meant that there was to be an embezzlement (gaban = embezzlement), and knowing that it was based on Premchand’s writing made me suspect the worst. As it turns out, it is a lovely film. But if I’d known just how bad things were going to get, I could’ve stopped expecting the worst and relaxed enough to enjoy the film! So for those of you who prefer to be forewarned, here goes…

Of monsoons and things filmi…

Have you been wondering whether this blog can be listed as abandoned property? Wonder no more. OiG is still very much alive and well. I’ve just been busy trying to move clouds and have had no time for film-watching or blog visits.

 

It’s a tie

I haven’t been in much of a film-watching mood, what with all the TV series I needed to catch up on. But today, watching Maha Badmash, one thing caught my interest and made me want to watch more films, if only for academic research. No, it was NOT Vinod Khanna’s famous swimming trunks (and the figure that went with it). It was his stupendous bow tie that intrigued me. Clearly, for a Bollywood hero, a tie is not just a tie but a statement of machismo and size does seem to matter in these things! Here, take a look at it. Can you honestly say that this piece of cloth would not draw your attention?

Man’s Favorite Sport? (1964) – fishing fun!

What happens if a leading expert on sport fishing turns out to be someone who’s never been fishing in his life, never even touched a real live fish? If he were a scientist, you’d call him a theoretician. In everyday life, you’d call him a fraud! Sounds fishy? You bet it does. It’s all the fish, you know…