Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) – help me complete the story!

Yes, you did read correctly. I’ve seen this movie thrice and realised that each time I’ve been fobbed off with an incomplete tale. The missing part has been bothering me for the last 10 years and I’ve finally decided to do something about it. If Karan Johar wont tell it to the world, I WILL! Before we go any further, though, I should warn you about spoilers. If you are the one person in the world who hasnt yet seen the film (and dont want it to be spoiled for you), now is the time to stop reading. Also:

**********Very long post Alert! Poll Ahead.**********

A quick recap of the story before I point out the missing bits: Rahul (Shahrukh Khan) and Anjali (Kajol) are best friends in college when a new girl in their class, Tina (Rani Mukherjee), upsets the cosmic balance. Tina is everything that Anjali is not – she is feminine while Anjali is tomboyish, she is cute and sexy while Anjali is “one of the guys”. Even more important for Rahul, she never even tries to beat him at basketball, something that Anjali does with ease. It doesnt take Rahul long to fall for Tina. Poor clueless Anjali - it takes Rahul’s practise proposal (yes the jerk actually practices on Anjali for his proposal to Tina!) for her to realise how much she loves Rahul. Too late! Rahul and Tina decide to get married. A heartbroken Anjali leaves college and Rahul-Tina’s lives.

Naya Andaz (1956)

A song from this has been a long time favorite (Meri neendon mein tum). That, and the pull of bubbly young Meena Kumari, finally tempted me into watching this film. Its a sweet, lighthearted film that has, for some inexplicable reason, roused fRIENDS to fury. The print is terrible, the picture rolls on the screen or gets blanked out by bright lines, and the film’s reels are not put together in the right order. There are parts that remain a mystery in the first disc and light suddenly dawns in the second disc, because 15 minutes that were mysteriously missing in disc 1 are part of disc 2! And no, its NOT an experiment in a non-linear narrative! AARGHH!!!!

Flavors (2003) – the joys of NRI life

Flavors, as the name suggests, offers a flavor of what life is like for Indians newly come to USA – in several different flavors. Its a candid but very sweet and funny look at the trials and joys of the much coveted (in India) NRI life. We get to meet a group of loosely related characters, mostly IT professionals, living on the East coast. We see them all at a wedding and then go back in time to share moments of their life over three weeks as they all converge to meet at the wedding.

Casino Royale (1967) – Its raining Bonds, halleluja!

It is James Bond on weed – i.e., a Bond movie made entirely by a cast and crew who were high on weed! Its psychedelic, its wackadoo, AND has almost as many famous cameos/guest appearances as Deewangi deewangi! There is no coherent plot and nothing makes any sense. And yet, strangely enough, its a lot of fun while it lasts. It really must be seen to be believed, but I’ll try my hand at describing what I recall from my first viewing, yesterday.

Rakhwala (1971) - eye candy plus!

I have been laid up with a nasty strep-throat the last few weeks and have been on the lookout for good masala movies to improve my outlook on life. This one would gladden the hardest of cold-infested hearts – it has beautiful people (Dharmendra, Vinod Khanna, Leena Chandvarkar), lovely songs and a plot that one can happily neglect to enjoy all the pretty in the film. And just so you can concentrate on the all the eye candy when you watch the film, I’ll provide the plot outline, here.

My ten favorite Kishore Kumar songs

Kishore Kumar, the singer, is more often identified with the 70s and 80s when he ruled supreme in Hindi film music. Most of us, myself included, tend to forget that he was singing much before that and had tons of great songs in the 50s and 60s. It was Dustedoff’s awesome post on SD Burman songs that reminded me of how many lovely songs Kishore Kumar sang under SD’s direction in the B/W era. And it wasnt just SD Burman, Kishore sang for a lot of other music directors too, and also composed some beautiful music of his own. As I mused on my favorite Kishore numbers, I couldnt resist drawing up a list of them.

Weeding out only 10 from his vast array of songs was a long and hard process. To begin with, I decided to stick to his songs from 50s and 60s B/W films - decades that tend to have more of my favorite songs and also where I like Kishore da’s voice better. That still left a few hundred songs! Enter condition number two - they couldnt be the wacky numbers full of verbal acrobatics that he was famous for. So, romantic, pensive, serious, sad and philosophical songs were called for. When even that didnt help, I had to add a further condition – they had to be the first 10 songs I could recall and which fit the limits I had set myself. Voila! I had myself a list, and here it is, in no particular order (also in a youtube playlist):

Afsana (1951) – spiced up Vendetta!

Year: 1951, Place: Bombay, India.

Writer I. S. Johar (and I thought he was just a comedian!) decides that its time Marie Corelli’s Vendetta leaves Italy to find a new home. Also, he decides that there isnt enough melodrama in the Victorian revenge potboiler! So, he does what any masala writer worth his salt (or garam masala) would do – he adds twin brothers separated at a young age, and also mixes in childhood sweethearts for good measure. The result is a highly entertaining and engrossing afsana (story).