Memories down the movie lane – 2
It was our third or fourth movie. Anarkali. Starring Pradeep Kumar and Bina Roy. Now here was an actress who actually was a family relative. But our mom used to explain and tell us about her as if she knew her and met her every day of her life. Once in a while maybe but everyday! And I wonder why didn’t mom become a story writer or an actor to portray such believable stories!
(starts singing)
… chahe thodi bhi ho, umra badi hoti…
… zindagi…
(fades into her thoughts)
(PFC: So what else do you remember about Anarkali?)
Kuldeep Kaur. She was the vamp in that movie. Do you know Kuldeep Kaur was so well known in those days for her roles. She was like what Lalita Pawar and Shashikala became well known for in the 70s.
She was beautiful and has such grace, even when playing those vamp roles. Of course as kids we hated her, for causing all the trouble in Anarkali. But O my God, she was so beautiful and lovely!
Did you know that Anarkali, even though a black & white movie, had a a few scenes in color? And there my brother and I sat watching it as if we were seeing some kind of magic on screen. But at the end of the movie there was a lot of rona and dhona. Pradeep Kumar couldn’t save Anarkali and we were left heart broken.
My brother and I spend nights talking what Pradeep Kumar could have done to save Anarkali. We got so frantic that Bina Aunty had died that Dad had to arrange a trunk-call (a method of calling another city by phone in those days, but you internet boys will not understand… smiles) to her, so we could be assured she was only dead in the movie.
Those were the days when movies were used to educate the kids. I think the stigma of watching a movie was wearing out. And middle class families had begun to accept cinema as a healthy (healthy today? makes big round eyes) form on entertainment.
An interesting thing happened around this time. A movie called Ram Rajya was released. Now what happened in the ladies’ club, I don’t know. But all these aunties and bahejis walked out with the next week’s agenda. To show their kids Ram Rajya.
And so it happened. All the town’s kids holding their mother’s pallu or pinkie marched to the theaters. I have never seen so much fun, joy and… noise in a theater as on that day. Peanuts was flying in the air all over. Ice cream was spilled everywhere, babies were crying… the theater staff running around to the calls of the ladies of the town demanding a cold drink or something else. And in all this the hall filled with children clapped in unision when Hanuman appeared on screen. It was such pure joy…
(fades into her thoughts again)
(PFC : Any other movie going experience you remember as of now?)
(she’s lost in her thoughts. We are about to bid a good bye…)
Wait, take this number. It’s my elder cousin in UK. Talk to him.
(PFC: About?)
He’ll tell you of his days of playing marbles with Dev and Goldie Anand. Afterall that’s what you want right?
(We nod. Yes. That’s what we want. A peek into some of the golden moments of our cinema)
Tags: Memories
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
“He’ll tell you of his days of playing marbles with Dev and Goldie Anand. Afterall that’s what you want right? ”
Hell yeah!!
I never knew that parts of Anarkali were in color. That is very interesting. Which scenes? I would love to know. Thanks.
Even i was in a state of shock and mourning after seeing Renuka Shahane die in Hum Aapke Hain Kaun. We saw the film on Friday (First day, second show at Novelty, Lucknow) and i kept crying till sunday evening, till DD telecast ‘Surbhi’ where she was smiling as ever and i felt better.
I was 14-years old then…(and yet) very stupid. Kind of a telling fact that more the things change, more they remain the same.
And nice account granma…though this one was too short. Can’t we have an audio or visual interview of this grand lady?
granma, totally love your stories… there is so much warmth & wit… i so wish u were my real granma…. do keep writing on pfc!
I remember asking my parents what if the actors need to use the bathroom in the middle of a scene. I was only 7 then…but they still tease me on that
I watched most DD Sunday movies on a neighbour’s TV. I was around 8 and hated all the seriously violent scenes and would cover my face with my hands…peeking out the spaces between the fingers like it would make it any better….
Uncle and aunty would tell me when the scene was over and I could take my hands away…..
Another friend’s mom would strategically bring mago shakes when the movies got a little too sad and that surely cheered us up.
I was 13 when I saw Kaagaz ke phool with a friend and both of us cried so much at the end when Guru Dutt died. We were very depressed for a couple of days …same with Guide… :-( and Umrao jaan ….hugest lump in my throat…
Wit and warmth. Magik is right! This magik always writes first and writes what I want to write.
By the way, I like the way you portray yourself as granma. Just so you know, many of us are belong to your age group and have made trunk calls ourselves!
@ Vinay: LOL. sincere apologies. ;-)