August 25, 2019 – The world is too small? or Is it?

Welcome to August 2019 edition of Carnival of Blogs on Golden Era of Hindi Film Music.

We commence our post with the two sides of the 15^th August connection – the present one and the historic one.

Film and television actor Vidya Sinha passed away on 15^th August. She was 71.

Ten Songs That Force Us to Think About the True Meaning of Azadi, to make Indians think hard about what freedom and independence really ought to mean—an end to injustice and exploitation, communal divisions, the oppression of women, wars brought upon the people by corrupt or inept leaders—and which celebrate the ideals of solidarity.

We also very solemnly and sadly take note of Veteran music composer Khayyam passes away at 92 on 19^th August.

Shri Harish Raguvanshi has forwarded this WikiBio of Khayyam along with this memorable photograph

From left Harish Raghuwanshi /Rajnikumar Pandya, Urvish Kothari, Chandrashekhar Vaidya, Khayyam, Salil Dalal (Hasmukh Thakkar)

Monica Kar, in her tribute @ Khayyam: The Gentle Giant rues an entire musical era passing into the ages,

We pick up tributes and memories:

Happy birthday Kishore Kumar: Lose yourself with this playlist of his 10 best songs, one for every mood

Celebrities share special messages on Kishore Kumar’s 90th birth anniversary – Amitabh Bachchan, Baba Sehgal and Mamata Banerjee had something special to say.

Kishore Kumar The Actor: A Legend’s Journey Down the Years = In Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4, Peeyush Sharma remembers journey of Kishore Kumar as an actor.

”Tum mujhe yun bhula na paoge…”: Melodious memories of Rafi – Vikas Datta – Some voices can never fade from memories!

Rafi’s best songs by Ravi and Ravi’s best duets for Rafi is in memory of 39^th death anniversary of Mohammad Rafi.

Before Karan Johar & Simi Garewal, Tabassum’s show brought celebrities into our living rooms – Himani Chandna – Tabassum’s Phool Khile Hain Gulshan Gulshan ran for a staggering 21 years on Doordarshan.

KA Abbas, the filmmaker who said, ‘Whatever I own belongs to everyone else’– Anwar Abbas, Sahapedia remembers his austere lifestyle.

The Mystical Mujra of Lekin: Joothe Naina Bole – Debasish Bhattacharya revisits this gem of a mujra as a special on Gulzar Sahab’s birthday.

Teesri Manzil will remain Shammi Kapoor’s, and Bollywood’s, shining glory – As a flashback to Shammi Kapoor’s death anniversary (14^th August), Madhavi Pothukuchi recalls Shammi Kapoor’s most memorable musical thriller, Teesri Manzil, which reels one in with a mystery that’s built up well, and the love story between Shammi Kapoor & Asha Parekh keeps audience invested.

The audience as a piano: the strange case of Alfred Hitchcock – Sandipan Deb In memory of the most famous director in cinema history on his 120th birth anniversary.

Gauhar Jaan – Great Singing Pioneer and Tragic Prototype – But there are many things that Gauhar Jaan could never have predicted, including the fact that her voice would be heard via technology that far surpassed the once seemingly miraculous sound recordings in which she had played the part of India’s greatest singing pioneer.

Sridevi – The Ever-shining Superstar – Aditi Thakur notes that Sridevi has performed exceptionally well in songs like Surmayee akhiyon mein from Sadma

Shailendra Sharma @ Golden Era of Bollywood has posted following memorial tribute posts:

August, 2019 episode of Fading Memories, Unforgettable Songs takes up Shailendra with Hemant Kumar, Ravi and Kalyanji (Anandji). This is in continuation to the series, Shailendra’s songs with other music directors, wherein we have previously covered Shailendra and “Other” Music Directors and Shailendra and Roshan.

And, now commence the posts on other subjects.

The Songs of Optimism has purposefully uploaded audio files of the songs to help focus on the lyrics.

Why a typical Bollywood hero is Gandhian on the streets, but sings lustfully in the sheets– Sanjay Suri – In every Bollywood film, songs express the desires that the heroes sacrifice or reject in the actual story. In a properly conservative society, ‘one doesn’t say these things’ that express desire. And so, they get said, and shown, in song. The hero is Gandhian when he speaks, flirtatious when he sings. Casting a romantic Gandhi would, of course, need extraordinary measures – an excerpt from ‘A Gandhian Affair: India’s curious portrayal of love in cinema’ by Sanjay Suri

Moon Songs, Part 1: Ten songs addressed to the moon is now followed up with Part 2: Adjectives for the Moon and Part 3: Comparisons to the moon by the singer

Through the Lens of Bollywood: Kashmir as an Image, Kashmir as a Place – Debashree Mukherjee – Dominant images of Kashmir in popular cinema present only one facet of the kaleidoscope of histories and memories, signs and signification, actions and emotions. Yet they can have a powerful effect on the way we relate to a land and its peoples, its views and its women.

Nothing but melody presents a playlist of songs from the 50s and 60s that do not have any percussion instrument at all

The Classical Music Giants contribute to Hindi Cinema – IV adds some more classical music artists in this series of the previous three articles – Part 1, Part2, Part 3.

Following the overview article, Best songs of 1946: And the winners are?, we had taken up micro view of Female Solo Songs for 1946 and have covered Suraiya , Shamshad Begum, Part 1 and Part II, Amirbai Karanataki, Zohrabai Ambalewali, Mohantara Talpade and Rahkumari till now. For the present, we have covered solo songs of Hamida Banu, Zeenat Begum, Noor Jehan Khursheed and Kanan Devi, Naseem Akhtar and Paro Devi .

To end the present post with a few songs of Mohammad Rafi, each one of which basically has a link with the topics discussed in the present post, we have picked up:.

Seedhe Saade Insaano Ka Is Duniya Mein Kaam Nahi – Tu Nahi Aur Sahi (1960) Ravi – Asad Bhopali

Sarfaroshi Ki Tamanna Ab Hamare Dil Mein Hai – Shaheed Bhagat Singh (1963) – Husnlal Bhagatram –

Nain Mila Ke Pyar Jata Ke Aag Laga Di – Mera Bhai Mera Dushman (1967) – With Jagjit Kaur – Khayyam – Kaifi Azmi

Apni Aadat Hai Sab Ko Salaam Karana – Pyar Deewana (1972) – Lala Sattar – Asad Bhopali

Simti Hui Ye Ghadiyan, Phir Se Na Bikhar Jaaye – Chambal Ki Kasam (1979) – with Lata Mangeshkar – Khayyam – Sahir Ludhyanvi

I earnestly solicit your inputs for further broad-basing our cache for the content for our carnival of blogs on the Golden Era of Hindi film music.

Disclaimer: This monthly series of posts is my best-effort-based compilation of posts on Hindi film songs that I normally visit regularly. As I record my sincere thanks to all the original creators of these posts, any other posts that I have nor covered herein shows my lack of awareness of existence of such posts and is by no means any disrespect to their work. The copyrights to the posts, images and video clips remain the properties of the original creators.