The Masters: Basu Chatterjee

10.01.1927 - 04.06.2020

Source: Indian Express Archives

It’s a never-ending stream of bad news. If a global pandemic is devastating our lives in one corner, destructive forces are out in another; everywhere you look, there’s only negativity and hate; lies and deceit are rampant. And in these past two months, there has been death after death in quick succession. And perhaps, because these deaths are personal, and/or of those connected to my childhood, it seems like the grief is never-ending.  

I was just dealing with the grief of losing my aunt when Irrfan passed away; even before I could come to terms with that, than it was Rishi Kapoor’s turn. Less than a month later, Yogesh was no more, and while I was mourning that loss came the news of Basu Chatterjee’s demise.

The Masters: Yogesh

19.05.1943 - 29.05. 2020

If 2020 didn’t already suck, well, it has just added to its sins. Blog reader and watchalong comrade Shalini emailed me a couple of days ago to let me know that lyricist Yogesh is no more. He was 77. I know his death may not resonate with people as much as say, Rishi Kapoor’s demise or Irrfan’s passing did – lyricists, like writers and musicians work behind the curtains. But for someone like me, for whom a song is more its melody and its lyrics than the music behind it, the loss cuts deep. I meant to post a quick tribute, but I guess I was all ‘tributed’ out. It seems like that’s all I’m doing these days. But better late than never...

The Hyphen In Between

My mind is reeling. I began to write a tribute, and all I could think of were clichés. If I had been writing on paper, the room would have been littered with crumpled balls of paper because I just couldn’t find the words to express what I felt. And I felt like I had to be honest about my feelings, because the man I was writing about – Rishi Raj Kapoor – was brutally so, to the point of being rude, sometimes. I felt like crying – the loss was so personal. Did I know the man? No, of course, I didn’t. But he wasn’t a stranger – I’d known him for so long. Right from my childhood, in fact.

And Movies Will Never Be The Same

Death is a rude visitor. It doesn't ask you whether it's welcome. It doesn't care if it is or not. Sometimes, it appears unannounced. Sometimes, we know it's coming but we aren't prepared for it. Let me correct that – however much we know that Death is but a part of Life, we are never prepared for it. We might – rationally – know that it is better that someone dies: without pain, without suffering too much. 'They were old," we might tell ourselves. "They were ailing, in pain..." "It's better they went without suffering," we might intone in a bid to console others. Or ourselves. But in all our Life lessons, it is the hardest to learn. When to let go.  

Kanoon (1960)

Directed by: BR Chopra

Music: Salil Choudhury

Starring: Ashok Kumar, Nana Palsikar, 

Rajendra Kumar, Nanda, 

Om Prakash, Shashikala,

 Jeevan, Iftekhar, 

Jagdish Raj, Mehmood, 

Shubha Khote, Manmohan Krishna

Today is the birth anniversary of one of Hindi cinema’s luminaries. He might not be as well-known as Sohrab Modi, V Shantaram, Raj Kapoor or Guru Dutt; his films may not have the colour and verve of Nasir Hussain or even his younger brother, Yash Chopra, but Baldev Raj Chopra, or BR Chopra, as he was known, made some very iconic films that were both thought-provoking and often, socialist in their messaging. One of these early films was Kanoon, the first song-less thriller in Hindi films.

Kanoon, as is self-evident from the title, deals with the law. It begins with one question – can one man be punished twice for the same crime? And then moves on to arguments about the veracity of circumstantial evidence. and ends with a very trenchant speech against capital punishment.

My Favourites: Songs of Sickness

I was mindlessly trawling YouTube to take my mind off the spectre of a global pandemic, when I came across this song from Sarfarosh. It begins with a ‘poem’ that Amar (Aamir Khan) quotes: 

Arz hai...

Dawa bhi kaam na aaye koyi dua na lage
Mere khuda kisi ko pyaar ki hawa na lage. 

Of course, he was talking about love but I thought to myself how appropriate these lines were to the current situation.  I seem to suffer from attention deficit disorder these days, so my mind then skittered to how many Hindi film songs talk of khoon-e-jigar or tadapta dil – and it occurred to me the medical interpretations of some of these lyrics would make for some interesting illnesses. 

Parineeta (1953)

Directed by: Bimal Roy

Music: Arun Kumar Mukherjee

Lyrics: Bharat Vyas

Starring: Ashok Kumar, Meena Kumari, 

Asit Baran, Nasir Hussain, 

Badri Prasad, Protima Devi, 

SN Bannerjee, Manorama

The other day, while flipping through films on Amazon Prime, I came across Parineeta. I’d initially listed this film for a post I intended to do one August – for a ‘Meena Kumari Month’ on this blog. That August came and went; so did the next. And August 2020 is far away – for now. And Meena Kumari being my husband’s favourite heroine, he was more inclined to sit and watch the film with me.  So, since I’d just recently watched the film, and since today is Meena Kumari's 48th death anniversary,   here we go...

The Greats: Nimmi

18.02.1933 - 25.03.2020

To be honest, Nimmi is not one of my favourite heroines. That had less to do with her emoting capabilities than with the fact that she always seemed to play lachrymose characters on screen. However, despite never being talked of in the same breath as say Nargis, Meena Kumari or Madhubala (her contemporaries), Nimmi was an integral part of the movies of her day, acting opposite all the top heroes of the time.

Jeet (1949)

Directed by: Mohan Sinha

Music: Anil Biswas, Shyam Babu Pathak

Lyrics: Prem Dhawan

Starring: Suraiya, Dev Anand, 

Madan Puri, Suraiya Choudhury, 

Durga Khote, Kanhaiyalal

After watching Railway Platform and being so disappointed with the female characters’ arc in a supposedly progressive film, I wasn’t looking forward to Jeet as a film. The 40s did have some great female characters but I’d been burnt once too often. However, I was very pleasantly surprised. Jeet, like Railway Platform wears its socialist heart on its sleeve. It’s set a couple of years after independence, and the optimism on display is heart-warming. The women characters have gumption, and no, it’s not the fiery rhetoric-flourishing kind. But… l get ahead of myself. More about that later.

The Masters: OP Nayyar

16.01.1926 – 28.01.2007

OP Nayyar is the composer I turn to when I want happy songs. There's something about his compositions that makes me smile and sing along. It was when I was searching for songs for my long-in-the-writing Geeta Dutt-Mohammed Rafi duets that I realised just how many of those duets were composed by OP Nayyar. Since today is his 13th death anniversary, I decided to do a post on this maverick composer instead.