Mellifluous melodies: my favorite Shamshad Begum songs

Shamshad Begum The name conjures up images of golden classics, old-fashioned fun songs, and a nasal voice that may be out of fashion now, but never seems dated. She started her career singing for radio Lahore in 1937. From there to singing for movies was but a short step. She recorded her first film-song for music director Ghulam Haider in the Punjabi film Yamla Jatt (1940), and her career as a popular playback singer was launched! She went on to give us hundreds of popular songs in her lovely earthy voice with its distinctive nasal twang. And she is perhaps the only female singers to have provided playback for leading men – she sang for Shammi Kapoor (Bluffmaster) and Biswajit (Kismat)!

For a singer without any formal musical training, she had an amazing vocal range and command over her voice. I love her folksy songs best, but there is no denying that she shone at every genre she handled – from the "Western" Meri jaan sunday ke sunday, to the haunting Dharti ko aakash pukare and the numerous peppy numbers that have been remixed ad infinitum in more recent times. Her biggest hits were from the 40s, most of which I’m not very familiar with. But even limiting myself to her 50s songs, I still had lots of great songs to choose from! The only way I could limit myself to “ten favorites” was by listing the first ten songs that came to mind – though even then it was a tough job since I did want to include some of her 40s songs and some of her lesser known numbers. And here is my list, in all its freshly edited glory (the songs are included in this youtube playlist):

Devdas (1955)

I have always contended that the key to making a palatable film from an unpalatable story is a good director, and Devdas is a good case in point. Its not my favourite story at best of times, but I decided to watch it just to see what Bimal Roy has done with it. While his version does nothing to reconcile me with my least favourite of fictional characters, it does leave me with the satisfaction of having watched a well-made film.

Bhowani Junction (1956) – Raj romance the way it should be!

I’ve always been keen on watching foreign films set in India, though I’ve seldom liked them! They’re either too Orientalist or too boring, frequently both, for my taste. In spite of that, its hard to resist the pull of seeing India through an alien lens. Bhowani Junction was one of the first set-in-India English language films that I ever saw. I’ve compared every subsequent film of this kind against it, and found it wanting! Its not because Bhowani Junction eschews Orientalism/Colonialism altogether, but because these are kept in fairly good check, and the fast-paced and interesting narrative keeps me too occupied to brood upon the flaws.

Baat Ek Raat Ki (1960) – a misstery thriller

Movies sometimes have the strangest surprises in store for you. Just when you think you know everything about a film, you realise that it fell through the cracks in your memory and disappeared forever! That is exactly what happened to me with this film. I have certainly seen it before, but couldn’t remember it at all! That is pretty useful while re-watching a mystery thriller, but very puzzling when it stars Dev Anand, Waheeda Rehman and the unforgettable Hemant Kumar number Na tum humen jaano. The mystery was solved once I reached THE END. The film is entertaining enough, but not particularly memorable.

The navrasas (9 emotions) of Rafi

(Updated:12 Jun 2022)

When Dustedoff kicked off a Rafi moods fest in blogland, I knew I had to do a Rafi post, too – not just because I love Rafi, but also because there is so much of lovely Rafi around that a post on his songs is possibly the most challenging thing one can attempt! While his most popular songs may be classified as either romantic or sad songs, it isn’t that easy to classify his expressions in them. He was a superb vocal actor and could bring a range of emotions into the limited time (usually about 3 minutes, back then) a song allowed him. From romantic to sensual, angry to soothing, loving to despairing, or outright joy and laughter, there isn’t a single emotion that his wonderfully fluid voice did not express, and express beautifully. Which begs the question – how does one go about classifying the moods and emotions his voice brought to the screen?

Thanks to Wikipedia (where would I be without it?), ancient India came to the rescue. Classical performing arts in India are traditionally made up of the navrasa - 9 rasas or 9 major emotions/expressions. Eight of these rasas were set forth in the Nātyashāstra (a two thousand years old treatise on the performing arts) while a ninth rasa was added about a thousand years ago, giving us the expression – navrasa (9 rasas). Turns out that there are now a total of 11 rasas and ALL of them go into the making of a good Bollywood masala flick! And guess what - Rafi Saab’s voice has given us a song for every emotion. So without much ado I give you the 11 rasas of Rafi.

Railway Platform (1955)

Once upon a time, long ago, when there was only one TV channel (DoorDarshan - DD) in India, we used to get one Hindi film per week. If we were very very good (that is, if we lived in areas where Hindi was the local language), we got two films per week. As that was a major portion of our weekly entertainment ration, we’d anxiously scan DD’s programs for hints of what was in store for us at movie-time, and eagerly check the newspaper for information. Any hint that DD was about to bestow an old B/W Sunil Dutt-starrer on us, was always taken as a sign of the DD Gods’ pleasure, and awaited with eager anticipation. Its in those days that I watched this film, and I remember liking it a lot. Twenty years on, I must say that I am glad there are some movies I can watch without blushing for my kiddie-self’s taste!

Khanna-o-Rama: A crisis of romance

To most of my generation, The Emergency (suspension of fundamental rights and absolute power to the cabinet – 1975-77) was a dark event that happened when we were babies, and was thankfully over long before we were conscious of it. More importantly, it had NO impact on Bollywood and 70s masala. What most of us do not know is that Bollywood, and in fact Vinod Khanna, had a very important part to play in it!

When a journalist friend of Beth’s brought us the inside story of The Emergency and how it was brought to an end, the two of us had a hard time believing it. But the proof was irrefutable. Top secret government documents (they included suppressed press reports) could not lie! It HAD to be true. And some digging on our part confirmed it. Our first thought? People need to know about this! Unfortunately, none of the leading news publications would touch the report with a barge-pole. So, in the interest of informing the public, Beth and I have decided to write it up. And since the star of this week was intimately involved in the whole episode, we bring you the story during Khanna-o-Rama! Lets first go to Jan 1975, when the trouble began, and see what the reporters have to say: