…By which I mean, the individual song sequences that I’ve watched more times in a row than any others…probably, especially, in the past six months. Of course, I’ve posted some of these quite a few times already, but if I’m watching them over and over again, you should too!

5. (Mainly for the music, but the scene is nice too.)
4. (Mainly for the music, but the scene is nice too)
3. (Mainly for the scene, but the music is very nice too.)
2. (Mainly for the music, but the scene is pleasant enough.)
1. (For the music and the scene!).
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P.S. I thought of adding the following one to the list and making the list six songs, but playing a Dailymotion video at the top kind of screws up the videos below it (at least on my browser). So, let’s give this “honorable mention” (for the music and the scene!):

[Well, I finally found a copy of the Friends DVD that works, or a new computer with which the DVD will work, or a little of both, though sometimes the song or scene selection menu just won't work, but never mind.]

I finally watched Ratan, and it’s time to throw the Kleenex box into the recycling bag.  Oh, and by the way, that’s not the first box I’ve gone through either.  If you like melodramas about denied and heartbroken lovers, you should enjoy this film.  (And if you don’t, why the hell are you watching old Hindi films in the first place?  OK, maybe you watch them for the music…in which case, this is definitely a film for you too!)

The story is somewhat familiar (but just remember that this film came before most of the other ones you might be thinking of):   Two people who’ve been childhood sweethearts finally fall in love as maturing adolescents, but they are of different castes and their respective parents are worried about what “society” will say.  So, the girl gets stuck with an arranged marriage with someone who is considerably older, who will supposedly provide her a good life because he is an editor.  (True maybe in India in 1944…  It probably wouldn’t be such a sure thing in the U.S. today.)  Her new husband is actually a pretty interesting character, because he is completely sympathetic to the wife’s plight and feels that since he has reached an old and undesirable age of 40(!), he will never bring his young bride happiness, because her “heart” is too young.  He doesn’t even know about the denied romance, but he is even more sympathetic when he finds out about it (only it’s a bit too late).  The denied lovers meanwhile sink further and further into depression.  The boy ends up wandering the jungle, singing sad Naushad songs in front of a big stone head.

There are shades of quite a few other movies that you might recognize in this one, though once again, remember which one came first.  I thought not only of Baiju Bawra but of also of Mela (1948).   (I wasn’t really that crazy about Mela – except for the Naushad music and the excellent performances by its stars, but I’m seeing a little of Mela in a lot of things now, so I guess it was a memorable film after all.)   Ratan came four years earlier and it shows in some ways…  Ratan’s actors, Karan Diwan and Swarnalata, are not as good as Dilip Kumar and Nargis, and I guess Ratan contains more than a little of that overly theatrical acting that a few of my blogging colleagues have mentioned with regard to the films of the ’40s.  (Though I think Karan Diwan is far more guilty of this here than Swarnalata, who is pretty good.  Interestingly, Diwan’s acting seems quite different in Teen Batti Char Rasta, made just nine years later.)  That having been said, I found Ratan to be very moving anyway. 

Of course, Ratan has many, many songs.  Another common critique of the old films would certainly apply to this one:  It probably has more songs than is good for proper maintenance of the dramatic flow.  But as with other films of the era that had Naushand as music director - such as Anmol Ghadi and Baiju Bawra - I would have happily welcomed more songs.  Also, the frequent songs become especially welcome during the slow and less interesting part near the middle of the film.  (In other words, I didn’t care that this part of the film wasn’t so compelling, because I just loved the songs!)

Naushad  was clearly the real star of this film.  This was his breakthrough soundtrack, and deservedly so.  It is less overtly spectacular than Baiju Bawra, but  I think that’s why I’ve gotten to like it even more – there’s something magical about the way Naushad created such great music in such a relatively simple environment. 

And I do love Zohrabai Ambalewali!  She wasn’t quite on the level of Noor Jehan or Lata Mangeshkar but she did have a beautiful voice and singing style.

I also appreciate Amiribai Karnataki and Shyam Sunder, who sing on my second-favorite song in the movie, “O Jane Wale Balamwa.”  The dancing in this scene is fantastic, too.  (Who is the male dancer?  He is great!)

And I like the expressions on the faces of our dear stricken-and-denied lovers. ”Ankhiyan Milake” is, of course, the great classic, but this clip of  ”O Jane Wale Balamwa” provides another brief glimpse of Ratan in its best moments, showing why this film was very enjoyable even if it wasn’t exactly flawless or earth-shattering.

My favorite year in Hindi film music is 1957 1951 1949 1944.

Trivia question: Which movie had Noor Jehan, Surendra, and Meena Kumari (or Baby Meena, as she was known then)?

This looks like a wonderful fast car ride. The singers aren’t credited – the woman certainly sounds like Shamshad Begum. I’ll have to look up the male singer for this.

I’m discovering that Dasi is a really a fine soundtrack. I’ve posted from this film before. Here’s another good one. I like both Begums, Zeenat and Shamshad…

I still love that Ratan soundtrack! This opening sequence should have been included in one of the “Women on Swings” posts. (Maybe if there’s a Part 3…)

Yes, if all goes as planned, three months after tragedy struck my present housing situation and after months of dealing with the petty actions of the latest lousy landlord, I’ll be dragging my stuff to a new place tomorrow.

The new landlord couple (the landlady and her husband) seem much nicer.  They’re even helping me move.  Compared to other situations of late, it seems almost too good to be true. (It still is a “share,” but my new room is cut off from everyone else’s place in the big apartment and relatively speaking, the room is huge!)  I don’t really know much about the new landlady, except that she is from Indonesia and has mentioned it a lot.  This is a little further east, in Elmhurst - just a dozen or so blocks away – but here, many of the residents come from places a little further east than the South Asians who were so prevalent in the neighborhoods that I’ve been in over the past few years. Quite a few people in this part of Elmhurst are from Indonesia and surrounding areas.

Assuming the next place works out OK, the next challenge will be to try to find steadier work before the Unemployment extensions run out. As you all know, I’m always in fear of ending up on the Footpath. Though the Footpath might not be all bad…maybe I’ll meet someone nice while I’m there.

Meanwhile, I’ve fallen dreadfully behind on answering comments here. Sorry about that… It always takes me too long to pack, and if I really had any extra time at my disposal (it being questionable whether it really was extra time), I spent those few precious moments writing long comments on other people’s blogs! But assuming there’s no trouble with the Internet connection when I move into the next place (though there always seems to be, at least for a short time)…I should get back to you in the comments (you know who you are!) in a day or two. [Currently looking for appropriate clip of harried writer unable to catch up with projects because of distractions/pressures around him or her...]
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P.S. For various reasons, this is probably a temporary post also – now you see it, probably in a few days, you won’t.

(Just a great find… Music by Salil Chowdhury)

Tracing back URLs from the Khurshid Anwar tribute site in my last post, I discovered the most incredible site for old Hindi soundtrack MP3s (also with soundtracks in Punjabi and Urdu)…  It’s the Songs section of Surjit Singh’s Hindi / Urdu / Panjabi Film / Movie / Photo / Song Area.  There are soundtracks from the 1930s up to at least the ’60s, but I think this is especially great for finding soundtracks to films from the 1940s (which is now my favorite decade for Hindi film music).  All of this material, being in MP3 format, is easy to download as well as just listen to.  And the selection is so overwhelming, I don’t know where to start.  Actually, I’m starting with the Noor Jehan film soundtracks, because I saw that it has Mirza Sahiban, Khandan, Village Girl, Jugnu, Lal Haveli, and Zeenat.  It has a couple of very early Naushad soundtracks too (yes, I’m going to download Ratan!), and countless other goodies from that decade that look positively delicious. 

The site is not perfect, and the lists are very confusing (which is why I’m not adding all the URLs to everything I mentioned – too much work!)…  They are listed by dates added and the names of the people to whom the collections belong(?), so you have to browse a few sections to find anything in particular.  Some of the soundtracks also have one or two songs that are not playable in my Windows Media player (it says they are missing “codecs,” whatever that means).  But these are minor flaws in a site that offers numerous soundtracks that I could not find in other searches that I’ve conducted over a period of many months.  The MP3s are also listed song by song, so it takes a little while to download most soundtracks (you can’t download a whole album at once, as far as I can tell), but it can be very pleasant if you also listen to them while you’re doing it.  I know it will take me a while, but it will be well worth it.

So, a good excuse to post a few more of his songs!

This is another fine song from Intezar, which is a musical masterpiece in Pakistani cinema. I posted my favorite songs from this film earler, here.

This is one of the songs that I listen to a lot on my homemade Noor Jehan compilation.  I’ve posted a few links to another song from Koel before – this film has several songs that are absolutely beautiful.

A nice song by Suraiya in 1947, when she was just 18.  Parwana  was also the last film starring K.L. Saigal (I’ll have to post more of K.L. Saigal sometime…).

I like the songs that Geeta Dutt (or, rather, Geeta Roy) sang in Nishana (1950).  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a video clip, but it’s certainly worth posting just for the audio.

There’s a good Khurshid Anwar tribute site, with lots of MP3s. The main link contains only his earlier, Hindi film music, but then if you go to the added links, you’ll find a lot of his Pakistani film music, too.

More fabulous stuff from Nagina (1951). I posted this one once before too, but the clip was removed, and besides, now we get to see it with subtitles, thanks to Tom’s post at Dailymotion. (You might notice that I just replaced the clip in the last post with his subtitled version too.)

I posted it a while ago but I think it disappeared and it’s definitely worth a rerun now that I found it again…