Carnival of Blogs on Golden Era of Hindi Film Music – November 2015

Welcome to November, 2015 edition of Carnival of Blogs on Golden Era of Hindi Film Music.

We will begin our present issue with a post that is so very topical.

My Favourites: Songs of Cool Breezes ushers in the early signs of winter in our part of the world. We will also enjoy the feel of the early chill by way of some of the rare songs from this excellent list:

• Dil thandi hawa mein – Shama (1946) – Shamshad Begum, Hamida Bano – Ghulam Haider
• Thandi thandi chali re hawa – Guest House (1959) – Lata Mangeshkar – Chitragupt
• Kehti hai ye thandi hawa – Ilzam (1954) – Asha Bhosle – Madan Mohan
• Thandi thandi ye hawa – Kya Yeh Bombay Hai? (1959) – Asha Bhosle, Manna Dey – Bipin Dutta
• Thandi thandi hawa pooche – Johnny Walker (1957) – Geeta Dutt, Asha Bhosle – OP Nayyar
• Thandi thandi hawa – Mall Road (1962) – Suman Kalyanpur – Sudarshan

And now we turn our sails to the tributes.

My Favourites: Salilda’s Malayalam Songs – on his 92^nd birthday. ‘It may encourage folks to look up and listen to unknown gems’.

“Dekh Lo Ishq Ka Martaba Dekh Lo” – B.S.Thapa – B.S.Thapa ji who completed 92 on last 3 July may not be active in films now but his contribution to the Cinema as a teacher and a director can’t be denied with.

P.Susheela just turned 80 – A tribute with a list of some of her songs. Some of her Hindi films songs are here.

Please Go To My Post From Last Year to Celebrate the Birthday of the Great Sitara Devi – At this time last year, the author had posted ‘seven of her film scenes. Unfortunately, it is impossible to find an additional seven comparable clips on YouTube, especially if one tries to look for scenes from other films’. Here is one of her famous Kathak dance sequence – Thumak Chalat Ramchand.

S D Burman also gets a special mention on 40^th Anniversary – on 31^st October. Here are some notable tributes.

Ten best songs (solos) composed by SD Burman – The earlier saturation coverage has provided a good building block to choose one song per singer to pay the tribute to the master in this post.

Tere Mere Sapne Ab Ek Rang Hain – Eternal Melodies of SD Burman-Rafi By Peeyush Sharma – Had it not been the occasion of S D Burman’s anniversary, this post could have done full justice in this blog carnival’s special space of posts on Mohammad Rafi.

The Incomparable Music Of S D Burman Transcends Generations –

My Favourites: Children’s Songs celebrates Jawaharlal Nehru’s 125h birthday on 14^th November. These are not necessarily patriotic songs, but songs picturized on children, and are the ones that are sung by the children on the screen.

Some of the less heard songs:

• Moochwale dada golmol daadi – Hum Kahan Jaa Rahe Hain (19666) – Usha Mangeshkar – Basant Prakash
• Aingan baingan – Duniya Na Maane (1959) – Asha Bhosle, Shamshad Begum – Madan Mohan

We move over to other regular posts.

Watch 100 Years of Indian Cinema Come Alive in 200 Seconds of Sand Art – Tanaya Singh pays due credit to Rahul Arya, a well-known sand artist for this 200-second action packed journey.

Posts on Scroll.in –

Do Chetan Anand’s best-known films stand the test of time?

Back to Boral: Looking for Satyajit Ray in the town in which he shot ‘Pather Panchali’ –

The brilliance of Salim-Javed lies not just in what they said, but how they said it

When Javed told Salim, ‘I was thinking that maybe we should work separately’ – Diptakirti Chaudhuri  · A new book speculates on why Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar split after a writing partnership that created some of the most iconic Hindi movies of the 1970s.

Saxy Desi: Check out the sounds of the saxophone in South Asia – Nate Rabe  – this most romantic of jazz instruments, often purringly referred to as the sexaphone, was invented in 1841 in the lowlands of a somewhat more prosaic Belgium by Adolphe Sax to create a sound that floated somewhere between the silken tone of the clarinet and the brash flare of the trumpet :

The Braz Gonsalves 7 – Raga Rock | Joe Gomes – O Saathi Re | Unknown – Spinboldak Saxophony | Rudresh Mahantappa – Abhogi | Sahib Shihab – Om Mani Padme Om

Hai kya kya jalwa bhara hua Ghanshyaam tumhaari aankhon mein – Atul, while discussing the HFM related statistics pertaining to 1932, noted that only nine songs from movies of 1932 are available. Six of these songs are already covered in the blog. Here is the seventh song of 1932 to appear in the blog : Hai kya kya jalwa bhara hua – Aankh Ka Taara (1932) – Jahanara Kajjan – Motilal Naik

My Favourites: Teasing Songs are the songs, only about situations where the heroine (or in one case, the hero) is already in love with the hero, and her friends (/his friend) – as friends will – tease her about it.

• Aaj achanak jaag uthe kyon – Lakshmi Narayan (1951) – Geeta Dutt, Sulochana Kadam – S N Tripathi
• Jaa ri na bataaun main toh chitchor  – Angulimaal (1960) – Meena Kapoor, Lata Mangeshkar – Anil Vyas
• Jis pyaar mein ye haal hai – Phir Subah Hogi (1958) – Mohammad Rafi, Mukesh – Khayyam

Songs of Sensuality – Inspired by Conversations Over Chai’s great post on the same topic, here’s list of classic Hindi and Bengali songs that explore sensuality, physical affection, and longing.

Top Ten Songs Sung by Actors Themselves (or by Singers Appearing Onscreen) – Guest Post by Abhik Majumdar – ‘songs actually sung by (not merely lip-synched by) actors. Not singer-cum-actors, but people who were known only for their acting. First off, only one track per artiste. Secondly, there’s no point including songs by people known equally for their singing and acting. So no Kishore Kumar, no Suraiya, no Rajkumar (the Kannada actor), no Talat Mehmood even. Thirdly, the singing must conform to certain minimum standards of excellence. (A certain Mr Bachchhan stands excluded on this count.) Fourthly, in the early days of talkies when playback singing was unknown actors, even the most atrociously off-key ones, were compelled to sing their own songs. Since such examples are a penny a dozen, no point adding them …..’

Ten of my favourite ‘Aaja’ songs i.e. Hindi film songs that begin with the word “Aaja” The post has all the songs that would immediately reverberate in our mind when we read the title. Here are some of the less heard songs, picked up from the discussions by the readers:

• Aa jaa re chandani hamari gali – Chand – ) – Lata Mangeshkar and Chorus – Hemant Kumar
• Aaja ke bulate hain tujhe ashk hamare – Pathan (1962) – Talat Mahmood – Brij Bhushan
• Aa jaa mere raajaa – Naghma (1953) – Shamshad Begum – Nashad
• Aa jaa sanam aa jaa sanam der naa lagaa – Mashuqa (1953) – Suraiya – Roshan

Sapnon ke gaaon mein taaron ki chhaaon mein – K Satish Shenoy remembers that this song used to be played invariably in the same session on Radio Ceylon with another song ‘Kahan le chale ho,…’ from Durgesh Nandini.

In photos: Bollywood cinema is life and life is a movie – Photojournalist Fawzan Husain captures the making of Hindi movies as well as their impact on the world beyond the sets.

A tailor in Kamatipura in Mumbai works under the watchful eye of Hindi cinema’s leading ladies from the black-and-white era

Best songs of 1950: Wrap Up 4 which is about the best duets of 1950 in continuation of the Overview post, Wrap Up 1 (best male solos), Wrap Up 2 (best ‘other’ female solos) and Wrap Up 3 (best songs of Lata Mangeshkar).

Best songs of 1950: Final Wrap Up 5 lives up to the expectations of distillation post on a subject that always had a wide range of discussions.

We have moved the songs remembered by our friends to a separate, full-fledged post w.e.f. this month. These posts will be titled as “Fading Memories….Unforgettable Songs” and would be published on second Sunday every month.

We would therefore revert to posts on Mohammad Rafi to end each of the episode of our blog carnival.

Jaao Mere Siva Tum Kahan Jaaoge – Remembering Rafi through Rahul Dev Songs By Peeyush Sharma

Here are some not so known songs:

• Lehra ke aaya hai jhonkha bahar kaa, mausam hai pyar ka aa bhi jaa – Waris (1969) – with Lata Mangeshkar
• Jaao tum bhi jaao samajhte kya ho, akele bhi reh ke hum jee lenge – Dil Ka Raaja (1972)
• Naag Devta, jag devta, janam diya jinko tumne kyon dus liya – Shalimar (1978)
• Kaun kisi ko baandh saka sayyad to ik diwana hai – Kalia (1981)
• Poochho na yaar kya hua – Zamane Ko Dikhana Hai (1981 ) with Asha Bhosle – Rafi starts with chak chakayee chakaah

Ten Songs of Mohd. Rafi We Could Not Include in ‘Gaata Rahe Mera Dil’ – By Balaji Vittal – We can read the excerpts of The book co-authored by Aniridha Bhattacharjee, published by Harper.

We continue our pursuit of the golden period of Hindi Film Music ……