Parvarish (1958) – upliftment of fallen MEN!

Anyone who’s seen enough old Bollywood films knows about fallen women – the nightclub dancer, the tawaif, the gangster’s moll, etc. The deserving among these debased women usually get a leg up into higher strata of society where they get the privilege of wearing vermilion in their hair partings and no longer have to wear the dreaded ghungroo. There seem to be several of these fallen and subsequently uplifted women in Bollywood. But seldom does one come across a similar upliftment of fallen men. Thats what makes this movie so unique – it takes two men out of the kotha (filmi brothel) and makes them respectable!

Amar Deep (1958) – of anti-smoking campaigns and tangled love affairs

Long before cancer studies woke up governments to the harmful effects of tobacco, there was one person who, singlehandedly and tirelessly, crusaded against smoking. This wise person is none other than my favorite comedian, Johnny Walker. What? You dont believe me?!! All ye doubters, check out Amar Deep for proof of this great man’s war against smoking.

Come lets laugh - Top 10 Bollywood Comedies

It seems to be the season of "Top 10" in blogland. Both FilmiGirl and the Post-Punk Cinema Club have put up their selection of top 10 songs for various decades. Never having done a top 10 of anything before, I promptly and shamelessly decided to copy the idea. However, to weed out Top 10 songs from literally hundreds of songs every decade is a Herculean task and a beginner like me needs something much simpler. After much cogitation I settled on Top 10 Comedies simply because great comedies in Bollywood appear but rarely and it shouldnt be hard to select 10. Having committed myself to the task, I realised that Bollywood has way too many great comedies to make this any easier than top 10 songs!

What you see here is the result of sheer hard work and days of frantic weeding and ruthless trimming - I've even managed to limit myself to only two comedies each from directors Basu Chatterji and Hrishikesh Mukherji who between them were responsible for most of the great comedies in the 70s and 80s!

If jest be the food of life, read on... and dont forget to tell me about your favorite comedies.

10. Andaz Apna Apna (1994) - Yaallah!!

Two bumbling young men meet up on the path of get-rich-quick by attempting to marry the same rich girl. Alternately collaborating and competing with each other for their heiress, they run into bizarre villains, confusing look-alikes and every possible situation that a hero of a successful 70s masala block-buster could look forward to. From these trials they emerge triumphant, with their love-lives and fortunes made. What makes it especially amusing is its use of cliches to create a hilarious parody of masala movies. Salman Khan and Aamir Khan as the aspiring fortune-hunters are uproariously funny and ably supported by their heroines - Raveena Tandon and Karishma Kapoor - their villains - Shakti Kapoor, Shehzad Khan and Viju Khote - and the goody-baddy lookalikes played by Paresh Rawal. Raj Kumar Santoshi's tongue-in-cheek nod to 70s Bollywood still has me in splits everytime I watch it, though I havent watched it as often as Veracious seems to have!