Celebrating the Mahanayak

On the third of this month, Bengal marked the birth centenary of Arun Kumar Chattopadhyay, better known as Uttam Kumar. For various reasons, I couldn't post a tribute then to the man the Bengalis lovingly call the 'Mahanayak'. But when Antara Nanda Mondal reached out to me to write a post for Silhouette, an online magazine for cinema, art and literature, I couldn't let the opportunity pass. But before I get to the article, I wanted to post a personal tribute to an affable actor who was eminently watchable on screen, no matter the language. 

My Favourites: Songs of Warnings and Foreboding

I look at my song lists as patterns waiting to be discovered. You see one song in one particular situation, then you see another and yet another… soon, you’re actively looking for similar songs, and before you know it, you have a ‘list’ in your head. I’ve written countless song ‘lists’ but there’s one particular genre that I haven’t covered. It isn’t like anything else in the songbooks of Hindi cinema. It isn’t a ‘love’ song; it isn’t a sad song either, though there’s an undercurrent of foreboding in the melody. It’s a song that exists to inform someone – a lover, a friend, a stranger and sometimes, even the audience that trouble is coming, that the path ahead is treacherous, that the person they are looking at isn’t who they seem to be. 
 

Beginners' Guide to Hindi Films

My love for old Hindi films is well-documented on this blog. While I continue to watch movies across languages, countries, and even genres, my heart reserves a special place for films from the 50s and 60s. Especially the former.

Despite my long absences from my blog, I continue to have a few faithful readers who always read my infrequent posts, even if most don't comment. [My deepest gratitude to all my readers, but especially to those who brave the challenges of Disqus to leave a comment.]

One of them recently wrote to me; she had been a silent reader of my blog for years, and she thanked me for the reviews of older films. She had watched quite a few of them, and now she wondered if I could recommend a few films she could use as reference points for her sister and boyfriend. I could have simply directed her to my list of reviewed films. But, I thought, why not make this a post for others who may be interested in viewing older Hindi films but do not know where to start?

The Legends: S Janaki

23.04.1938 - 11.07.2026

It seems only death can bring me out of hibernation. But I couldn't let the demise of a legend pass without a memorial on my blog, however belated or inadequate. S Janaki, the doyenne of music, died on 11 July 2026. She was 88. Her legacy was cemented in the four main South Indian industries, though she also occasionally forayed into Hindi films, and has sung in many other languages. S Janaki's voice was part of the soundscape of my childhood and youth, much as Lata Mangeshkar’s, Geeta Dutt’s and Asha Bhosle’s were. 

Growing up, she was the predominant female playback singer in Malayalam, much like Yesudas was the predominant male playback singer. Her voice, even today, evokes memories of rain-soaked afternoons and college textbooks, of laughter with friends and tears over crushes, of lying in bed looking at the coconut palms swaying in the wind – with her voice as the soundtrack of my life. When Lata died, it felt like part of my childhood did, as well. When Asha followed, it was as if a bleak world had just turned bleaker. I missed paying a tribute to Vani Jairam earlier, and Suman Kalyanpur at the time, but ‘der aaye durust aaye’, as they say; somewhere, sometime, I’ll pay them the tribute they deserve. And now, S Janaki – her demise feels like the final curtains have been drawn on a world that has ceased to exist. 

Mrs Harris Goes to Paris (2022)

With the world going to hell in a handbasket, keeping one's spirits up feels more imperative than ever — and more difficult. Each new day brings headlines that read like a farcical list of "Ten Things You Could Never Have Imagined Would Be True." So I spend my time playing silly games on my phone (dragons, anyone?), trying to summon the energy to plant the flowers that have been sitting accusingly on my deck for a month, and watching endless clips from old Hindi films on YouTube — all while endeavouring to do the job I'm actually paid to do. Suffice it to say, I have to push myself to do anything these days.

So there I was one Sunday afternoon, curled up on the sofa, when my husband put on Mrs Harris Goes to Paris. I forced myself to pay attention. A few scenes in, I had a vision: an embroidered Christian Dior gown (a faithful recreation, but more on that later) in shades of lilac and lavender, with touches of pink and white. It was ethereal. And I felt a little like Mrs Harris herself — unable to look away. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning.

Songs of Desire: Asha Bhosle

Pic courtesy: NBC News

When I began writing the series of posts as a tribute to Asha Bhosle, I deliberately stepped away from the ‘typical Asha’ songs. I delved deep into her musical repertoire to discover songs that explored the length, breadth and depth of Asha’s range as a performer. Yet, a niggling disquiet troubled me… was I not, in my zeal to discover ‘untypical’ Asha songs, trapping the singer into yet another box? Did I feel that Asha’s sensual, seductive, sultry songs were somehow ‘lesser than’? That I had to prove she could sing the ‘purer’ melodies with as much felicity as her sister did?
 
And why was I so apologetic about it? Asha certainly wasn’t. Somewhere along the way, she blurred the distinctions between heroine and vamp, ‘good’ women and ‘bad’. She made female desire not just acceptable, but worth celebrating. In a post mourning the chanteuse, contemporary singer Sona Mohapatra wrote, “It’s not grief [that she feels]; it’s gratitude…. for giving voice to desire, to playfulness, to seduction… at a time when those were still taboo for women.”