Restarting the movie musical series with this one, pending since I saw Gulabo Sitapo. It is a repent in a way to get over that movie!!!
I don’t remember the first time I saw the movie, but it sure must be on doordarshan. First time when I saw the “Meet na mila de man ka” song it made me immediately realized one of my childhood photos with dad, where I had similar checked shirt/suit over a round neck. The song being a nice drawl was an addition to my thoughts on vanity. “tere mere milan ki” was an immediate favorite and the sadness on kishore’s voice coupled with the anguish on lata’s voice was mesmerizing. It has always remained as the favorite across many a playlist of mine. Wonder how that Mangeshkar lady makes magic just with her voice alone to suit to the situation and lyrics.
But to me the best of the lot was, “tere bindiya re”. Rafi in all his mellifluous best coupled with shy yet clear quality on lata’s voice was magic. When I saw the picturized version recently, was amazed at a sequence when Jaya would be singing, sitting with her back turned to Amitabh. Amit would be seen blushing and smiling with a slight nod down of his head, as if he is really conscious of all the people around, watching his wife sing and Jaya would be blushing and nodding down a bit as well at the same time, voicing out her portion. If it was staged, kudos to the director and wonderfully done by the lead on the perfection. I felt, being really married couple, helped them enact that bit so effortlessly real. The song oozes with love and adoration and as a couple they would’ve aced every single shot of it.
Even without realizing, I have been a big time fan of Jaya bhaduri. Have watched most of her films and she is one effortless actress who can never look bad on screen. Her trademark mannerism of trying to withhold laughter is very cute. Pity she didn’t act in many movies. She reminds of actress Lakshmi in tamil, another fine versatile actor on her own merit. Amitabh has nothing major to do on screen other than being a casual version of his actual screen self. Being a music based story, SDB would’ve rocked the show big time. Quite sure if any contestant sings “piya bina” song on any reality show, at least a shade on the original, is set to ace the trophy. The first song that as a couple they record for a movie “Loote koi man ka nagar” I thought it was Amitabh himself who had sung that. The other highlight song that I noticed in the recent watch was the mini unplugged happy version of “tere mere milan ki”. Such a pleasant experience it was, that i wanted to actually post about the whole movie as such. RDB and SDB, the father son duo, had produced probably some of the best songs ever to come out of Bollywood. Truly gifted family.
Comments
Yes, one of the classic music hits of Indian cinema. It was early in Amitabh's career and he wan't still an angry young man then. If I am not mistaken, Jaya Bhaduri was a more successful actress at that point in time than Amitabh. Then came 1975, Deewar and Sholay, and the rest is history.
There is a larger point on music I am going to speculate on. Where music has melody more, it tends to live longer. Where it has more rhytmn, it tends to uplift, but has a shorter shelf life. The oldies were all melodies. Music now is far more abour rhythm. Not that one is better than the other, but just an observation of the different life spans of the two. Which is probably why "old fim songs" both in Hindi and in Tamil, tend to be very much heard even today.