Welcome to May 2013 edition of Carnival of Blogs on Golden Era of Hindi Film Music.
We open the present edition with the help of a couple of new entries on this platform.
Simkie’s Choreography in the Awara Dream Sequence (Hindi, 1951) – Minai’s Cinema Nritya Gharana
“Awara‘s dream sequence is comprised of three segments filmed in three different spaces which Gayatri Chatterjee in her National Award-winning book Awara sees as representing the “Earth-Hell-Heaven triptych.” “Tere Bina Aag Yeh Chandni” is the name of the song for the first two segments (earth and hell) though some have listed the second hell segment as a separate song “Mujhko Chahiye Bahar.” “Ghar Aya Mera Pardesi” is the song for the last segment (heaven).
Another surprise find about the dream sequence: famous Cabaret film dancer Helen was supposedly among the background dancers in what would be her first screen appearance! Can anyone spot her?”
We pick up the latest posting by Coolone160 – Rajendra Kumar- The Jubilee King, which has lined up quite representative songs from the very large pool of songs filmed on Rajendra Kumar.
We now move on to our known sites /blogs to enjoy the offerings there –
Songs of Yore: In which a Moving Vehicle is the Cause of a Delay – by Raat Akeli Hai (geniosity514) has been able to muster up (just) seven songs that have varying stories of delays caused by the moving vehicles. Trust the enlightened readers to add songs to make the list 10+ strong. An interesting subject, being made more by raking of grey cells to remember few more of songs under the subject…….
‘Dances on Footpath’ has presented excellent fare on Gope – a versatile actor in comedy or villainous roles. Because not many would be able to recall films or songs of Gope, a full post on Five Songs with Gope “that stars or features” Gope, provides not only a veritable fare on Gope, but in the process gem of songs, too. We also have a complementarily preceding post on Gope’s beautiful wife,Latika.
Continuing with the subject, we are presented with what can be easily termed as THE find from the treasure – Azurie. “According to Cineplot, her first film might have been one called Nadira (like the name of another famous Jewish actress…), which was made in 1934. Her last film in India was Bahana, which was released in 1960, and she starred in other films in Pakistan, such as Jhoomar, which actually has a release date of 1959. She died in Pakistan in 1998, at the age of 90 or 91.” The post has excellent video clips of her songs.
Anandaswarup Gadde has further enriched these gems by providing a link to “new documentary on the topic will come out this year – Jewish Stars of Bollywood .
‘Conversations Over Chai’, as can be expected, has done an excellent sequel to my-favourites-songs-of-cynicism, which we covered in our April 2013 edition, in My Favourites: Philosophical Songs. Out of “an entire gamut, the ‘filter’ set is that of “songs that sing of a personal philosophy”.
‘Song of Yore’ (SoY) has three posts, in running, on Multiple Version Songs. Multiple Version Songs (8): Hindi-Tamil film songs (2) Songs from Dubbed Versions is the follow-on of Mr Venkataraman’s first part of Hindi-Tamil similar songs. ‘Inspired and adopted songs’. As with the previous one, the present post also can easily be treated as the proverbial tip of an iceberg of a very rich, enterprising, and of course quite melodious, trend of transposing songs from one culture to another and vice versa. During the discussion among the readers, Veda has opened up a possible floodgate of a similar sets of songs in Oriya.
Multiple Versions Songs (9) : Gujarati to, and fro, Hindi (film) songs (1) and Multiple Versions Songs (10): Gujarati to, and fro, Hindi (film) songs (2), guest written by yours truly, has taken at a peep an such an exchange between Hindi Film Music and Gujarati Folk / Sugam (Light) Sangeet (Music). The knowledgeable co-readers of SoY, Arunmumar Deshmukh, Khyati Bhatt, Gaddeswarup, ‘bluefire’ etc. have made highly interesting and valued addition to the fare.
I also have had visited on more interesting blog – My Music Movies and Mutterings – which proudly proclaims an ever growing collection of English, Hindi and Russians (yes, Russian) vinyls (over 1500 to date), hundreds of cds and cassettes and thousands of MP3s and DVDs which I am hoping to share with like minds. Should be quite interesting to visit and explore this site, in depth, in the days to come.
We end the present edition by taking note of an” inevitable” (!!) break, announced by ‘Harveypam Blog’, necessitated by the exigencies of the primary duties of the life. The announcement came up at the end of a two-part Happy 3rd Birthday to My Blog and a Quiz and 3rd Anniversary Quiz Answers posts. As an obvious first reaction, all reader reactions spent more energies on the feeling of shock, then the process of evaluating the answers to cleverly laid maze of hints in the first of the 3rd Anniversary celebration-cum- quiz post. Of course, ‘Harveypam’ has been profusely assuring that this is only a break, and not an end. Our best wishes………….
On that note, we also take your leave, till we meet gain next month……….
The world is too small? or Is it? 
This is a wonderful and precious account of oldies. I saw so far Gope’s songs and first I confused him with Agha. I do not remember seeing any film featuring
Gope though I had heard about him. Thanx.
I am quite sure once you may have a look at the video clips of the songs in the post referred to, you will also get the names of those films as well. One of the most famous films, in which he had quite a major character was Chori Chori, in which Raj Kapper and Nargis were in the main roles.
Oldies are worth to remember, the era of our heroes was more philosophical
and are having a blast of emotions. Great piece of stuff and thanks for remembering the golden age.
I am happy to know that you also share great liking to songs of “the golden era’.
To a great extent, the films of that time did yield more space to emotions, as compared to more material aspects being depicted in the cinema now. But, I think that is more a reflection of the social , cultural values of the respective times.
Old is gold. Old songs are irreplaceable. Love to listen the songs now also. http://www.name2fame.com
Thanks for your visit to the blog post.
Yes, indeed , the songs form the films of mid-40s to mid-70s era have their own, eternal charm.
Thanks to YT and internet, we are able to listen , and share, many songs that were difficult to listen to in the radio /records / audio tapes period.