Updates from Masala Punch

Originally published: 12 Apr 2023; Last updated: 27 Oct 2024

Keeping two blogs running at the same time is not working out for me. To be honest if I could just keep the one up and running, I would be immensely satisfied with myself! Till I figure out how to combine the contents of the two blogs, here is an update of the latest posts on Masala Punch.

Blog revival

Eight years ago, my sister Bollyviewer decided to move from Blogger to Wordpress and start a new blog – Masala Punch. She blogged there intermittently till she passed away in 2021. With more than a hundred of her posts here, this blog still remains a treasure for me. To keep her words alive, I have decided to revive this blog and keep it going along with Masala Punch.

I am moving

For any visitors I still have left: Thanks for visiting during my long and unscheduled hiatus. I got busy at work, then with moving and travelling, and before I knew it, it was more than a year-and-a-half since my last post!

Its time to blog again. But this time, I’ve decided to start afresh, with a new blog. I am tired of Blogger’s poor comments utilities and do not have the energy to deal with disqus and it’s comments-swallowing tendencies. So you can now find me at Masala Punch on Wordpress. Hope to see you there!

Let’s make Pride and Prejudice in Hindi!

It all started when my sister and I were watching Biswajit and Rajshree cavorting in Do Dil (1965). They both played such vanilla-smelling dumb sweet and simple characters, with nary a bright spot between them, that I couldn’t help but compare them to Mr. Bingley and Jane Bennett (if you haven’t read Pride and Prejudice yet, what are you waiting for?). Once Jane and Bingley were cast, it was absolutely essential that we cast the rest of the leads too! Naturally, that meant we had to pause the film while we debated the relative merits and demerits of our choices. Here’s how it went…

 

Sis: But who will be Darcy? Dharamendra is the best romantic leading man in the 60s, but he wouldn’t do arrogance very well. And he was kind of thin in '65.

 

Me (hesitantly): Rajendra Kumar?

 

Sis (dubiously): Yeah. Maybe. Who else? If it were the 50s, Ashok Kumar would be the best. He was so charismatic and such a good actor. But Dadamani was too old for Darcy in the 60s.

Dev Anand: A musical interview (Part 2)

Updated (links): 17 June 2022

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)

Updated (links): 18 June 2022

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

Updated (links): 26 Nov 2022

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…