Woh Galli Mohalla Aur Pyar – Early 90’s Love in Cinema
iView Author: Sridhar Mayur (Hyderabad, India)
“Woh Galli Mohalla Aur Pyar”
‘Seene me dil hai, dil me hai dhadkan, dhadkan mein bas tu hi tuuu…
ai meri pehli tamanna, ai meri aakhri arzuuu, i love you….i love youuuu…’
This song symbolizes the time and aura where love was simple and told simple in movies. We used to get great lyrics and wonderful compositions to hear to. Jatin Lalit created some songs which symbolized love beautifully and epitomized the galli mohalla wala pyar. We keep humming these songs without our knowledge day-in day-out. The films were simple and carried emotions which connected to all. This post is just not about compositions or movies, it about the times where simple things in movies made us happy. I was in my ninth standard when I first saw ‘Raju ban gaya gentleman‘ in VCD when I visited my friends place for Christmas lunch. There I saw everyone enjoying and relating to many things in the movie, from children to old people all connected to the movies and glued to the screen, and mostly it was a impact on the youth through which it garnered lot of attention and made way for understandable cinema in the coming days.
At that time I was also enjoying songs from ARR and Mani’s combo, but there were some films in Hindi Cinema mainstream had something that connected to all. I am not sure what they call it, but we all really loved them. This is not a comparison per se., but a look into how ‘we’ can get connected to things and fall in love when they are told or enacted from heart and treated with utmost simplicity. I could say that DDLJ may fall in the same league, but that was some years latter on a larger scale. Some movies made on average budgets connected so well that, even today we love them to the core. I would say that those were the ‘Shekar Kammula’ days of Hindi Cinema(South audience would understand that better 
). They did not exactly follow the ‘manchi coffee’ kind, but had a unique connection with the audience. We also had a sect of audience which was quite matured and looking for realistic cinema, however when catered with such movies they too accepted with both hands. I think it was more of a team work rather than aiming on getting things done in a simplistic way. If you look at the song which I am talking about ‘seene me dil hai..‘, in a particular shot where the lovers(Shah Rukh and Juhi) confront a dabba wala near Gateway of India, that was so cool. The whole song was shot in Mumbai on the streets, the lovers confront a cop, then they meet lovers on the street, they get into a movie hall where they are shooed away by the manager/owner….the scene where the manager claps for their demo-performance on screen was really so sarcastic and funny…and finally the dabba wala scene when they are about to kiss, Shah Rukh closes the dabba walas cap on his face…hahahaha….that was great too…some scenes never leave us…and some songs still play like a built-in FM in our heart….Just for YOU exclusively, check out the
song below…
Lets move on, to the other song….oops I am back to the song mode…but, kya karen yaar yeh built-in FM chhodti hi nahin…..alright then next song is ‘Ai kash ke hum hosh me ab…’….yooooo heard you!….wonderful composition right and very well shot…..This was in Goa where most lovers love to go, have a great time and come back to fight again….hahaha….looks like Im getting into RJ mode now….Anna(Suchitra) ki kerchief ud jaati hain, seede khambe pe atak jaati hain…khambe pe jad apne bhole bhale Sunil(Shah Rukh) us kerchief ko le aate hain…aur apni cute si Anna full khush!!! They way he plucks the kerchief looks like he just plucked the heart out of her….and the kiss from Anna blows Sunil beta…..everything is magical in the song, from the ring throwing, baloon shooting, to the cruise jumping ….all love…full love….lekin sala Chris ko ullo banaya aur khud maze mai hai…beta tera khamba khulne ka waqt aane hi wala hain….Chris abhi atha hi hoga…..Chris kaun bhai??? …Arre yaar apne Tijori saab…..DE-PAK Tijori….
When I hear the name ‘Sunil’ I remember the dailogue from ‘Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa’……Satish Shah in Konkani-Christiano-English accent ‘Sunil tum kabhi kidki say kyun atha hai, darwaze kyun nahin’….hahahahaha….I think this song is my best Kumar Sanu song(for now), the King Singer who ruled Bollywould and a Gooood friend of Udit babu….shared a very good rapport….hahahaha….Again exclusively, check out…
The next song is ‘Is pyaar se meri taraf na dekho..’ from ‘Chamatkar‘ composed by Anu Malik…and simple melodious song…Shah Rukh and Urmila bieng followed by Ashutosh and gang….panga lene ka mangta….inki pyar ko todna mangta…but, our Chamatkar bhoot ji ‘Naseer’ saab has some other ideas…in this song Shah Rukh looks full gaon ka chora with the bali in his ears….and his signature head shake while emoting…gotcha…..hahaha….the best part is, the song shows the real mumbai feel of falling in love, the park, open air…no disturbance area of early 90’s….khull ke propose karne ka, kya! All glued to the song like hell…Ashu and gang trying to bomb Shah Rukh and Urmi, but get bombed in the ass by Chamatkari
bhoot….really funny and great time pass for all…
I wouldn’t say that it’s damn realistic, but it shows how we all connected to the scenes and story telling better. The days where cinema was fun depicting the ‘galli mohalla aur pyar’. Its purely by coincidence that the selection came as Shah Rukh songs, there were films, there were songs and there were scenes and incidentally those were also the days of Beta’s and Vishwatma’s but nothing so middle class and so close to our hearts. This is where we connect more and emote well. And, there is also a wonderful song from ‘Mashooq’, most of us would be knowing…’Deewana dil dhoonde, aashiq ek aisi…’, I love that track too.
Last but not the least, credits to the deserved. The lyricists who penned such wonderful and understandable lyrics…
Dev Kohli - Seene me dil hai, dil me hai dhadkan
Majrooh Sultanpuri – Ai kash ke hum hosh me ab
Anand Bakshi – Is pyaar se meri taraf na dekho
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
right post, wrong title
title mei ‘SRK and the golden charm’ likhna tha. u have not mentioned so many other songs of tat era which qualify as gulli-mohalla song. u have focussed only 3 songs of srk and u still missed the ‘loveria’ song. tat disease affected an entire generation
@crazyrals – As I told in my post the ‘SRK thing’ was quite a coincidence and he got to work with the teams that offered good cinema. No yaar, its not that I forgot mentioning…these are my favorites and yes the ‘loveria’ song was quite a super hit, but I think ’sene me dil hai..’ carried the emotion and aura I am talking about, thats the reason why I’ve mentioned the scenes of the song in detail. Please do have a complete read of the post again, I am not complaining that you have’nt read, but just a request. Thank you.
Thanks for taking me into the ‘love’ songs ride of early 90’s. Good in-depth post. Had a great laugh when you said ‘Ashu and gang trying to bomb Shah Rukh and Urmi, but get bombed in the a*s by Chamatkari bhoot’….hahahaha…
nice post…somebody had rightly said dat SRK used to do good roles before DDLJ…n i think DO Dil Mil Rahen Hain is d best song of Kumar Sanu…
‘Katha’starring has same story and much engaging than gulli mahulla pyaar..
That phase of galli mahulla has lost its shine and has become only part of nostalgia.
@Rahul Mitra & Rasik – Thank you
@yayaver – ‘Katha’ starring..? Yes, those ‘Nukkad-mumbaiya’ days really are now a part of nostalgia. Hoping someone gets us back to those lanes again…