A Birth Anniversary Tribute to Nazia Hassan (and a few words about singers from Sindh)

I have been aiming for at least the past month to finish a post about singers from Sindh. This is because of various things that I’ve encountered – videos that I’ve seen, a book that I read, etc. – that brought me back to that incredibly musical province in Pakistan. But the post was becoming pretty elaborate, and I realized that it would take much longer to finish than I first thought. Then I thought, maybe I will do a few different posts on singers from Sindh. I had in mind, maybe one post on a Sufi/spiritual singer, another on a Sindhi folk singer, etc. And then I was reminded that there was another singer who’d been born in Sindh who had a birth anniversary right at that moment (having been born on April 3, 1965). But rather than being a singer focused on these very traditional genres, her great musical talents went in the opposite direction, because she was a pioneer in terms of putting Pakistan on the map in the world of contemporary dance music and pop. (By the way, I don’t know if she ever sang in Sindhi, but she certainly sang plenty in Hindi/Urdu, as well as English.) She also spent a lot of her life in the UK and some of the latter part of her life (which unfortunately was cut far too short) in the U.S.  But she was born in Sindh’s capital city, Karachi, and she never forgot her attachment to that town. So, for my current post, I have decided to put my thoughts about other Sindhi singers off a little in order to pay a special tribute to Nazia Hasaan.

Here are a few favorite clips of Nazia (seven songs, as I usually like to do), along with a few words about her great repertoire and legacy.

Most Hindi film fans were introduced to Naizia’s most famous song, “Aap Jaisa Koi” when it was picturized on Zeenat Aman in Qurbani (1981) . But there are also quite a few videos of Nazia, herself, performing it live. Maybe the best circulated version is this delightful one recorded in the early ‘80s at the BBC.

There are a number of other Nazia Hasaan hits very much of the “disco era” that are well worth recommending. such as “Disco Deewane” the title song to her first album. (And by the way, I actually posted an English version of this song video in a very brief Nazia Hassan birthday post that I did way back in 2008.)

Even better – and more significant, in my opinion – is the very bouncy disco song called “Boom Boom.” Many Hindi film fans probably know that one from from the version that appeared in the 1982 film Star (where she did playback singing for Rati Agnihotri). But once again, for the video that I want to feature in this post, I would like to show a charming live clip of Nazia, herself:

And by the way, there were also remixes of “Boom Boom” that showed up a few years later, courtesy of Biddu, the producer responsible for most of Nazia Hassan’s hits, who also composed the music for many of those songs. (Although I don’t think he had much of a part in the lyrics… Going by the song credits, I can see that she wrote many of the lyrics, herself, or co-wrote them with her brother Zoheb Hassan.) But I think it’s really always Nazia’s voice that carries these songs. On YouTube, you can find a 1995 remix of “Boom Boom” with some interesting reggae dancehall-style toasting/rapping (which I am assuming was done by Biddu, himself), but the high point of the song, by far, is still Nazia’s voice. And even though Zoheb Hassan was an inseparable partner for her all throughout her musical career, I think I can safely say – having heard some duets that he did with her as well as songs that he sang by himself – that his vocals had nothing close to the appeal of his sister’s.

Some of Nazia Hassan’s best songs also had a major Caribbean influence (maybe because that is where Biddu wanted to go too). One example from as early as 1981 (also on the album Disco Deewane – and broadcast on that early ’80s BBC show) is this quite catchy number, “Aao Na Pyar Karain”:

Several years later, she did this nice number that had a heavy reggae beat, which also conveyed other influences in a fairly sophisticated mix. This song, “Kariye Pyar Diyan Galan,” was on her last album, Camera Camera, which came out in 1992.

And somewhere in between, she sang the song, “Kabhi Zindagani Jaisa,“ which I would say has a more Calypso kind of flavor. The performance below aired on PTV in 1989. I would like to add that it is really nice to look at her in this performance, too. (A lot of people talk about how she was a great beauty, but I don’t see it that much in her early ‘80s videos, when she was still a teenager (although you might say that she was kind of a cutie in those). But in her later performances – yes, indeed.)

It’s clear from some of her later songs that Nazia Hassan’s voice worked just as well on a mellower plane as it did with the heavy disco beats. Another example of that, very far afield from her disco hits, is this  beautiful folk-rock kind of ballad, “Dil Ki Lagi.” I don’t know that much about it, but when I found it on YouTube, I was stunned; you can really hear the pure quality of her voice in this. The guitar is very pretty, too; it actually sounds a bit classical sometimes. The whole number sounds kind of cinematic. I guess this was never used as a film number, but it should have been – though, of course, in a very different setting from what we saw in the films that featured her early hits.

But this is not to say that I exclusively prefer the mellower/subtler songs that she did. I like all the kinds of songs that she did. There is one song that I’ll end this post with which has been a standard on my own personal playlist for a few years. This song is by Saffron, a group that Nazia formed with Meera Syal (a well-known Indian-British actress, comedian, writer, etc.) and Rita Wolf (who became quite famous as an actress in the 1985 British film My Beautiful Laundrette). This cover of the Crystals’ classic girl group pop number, “Then He Kissed Me,” is a real cutting-edge new wave dance track – actually a fine example of electronic modern-day Bhangra; one might even say it was a bit ahead of its time. (You can bet that Biddu had something to do with that, too, but Nazia’s voice once again just works so well in this number, as it does in all of her other songs – and the two actresses sound pretty good here, too, I have to say.)

The mid-’80s were actually mid-career for Nazia, because she really didn’t sing for all that long. She ended her own music career several years before she died. In 1992, per Wikipedia, she said that she wanted to devote more time to her personal life. Unfortunately, her personal life turned out to be something of a disaster, as she ended up contending with a very troubled arranged marriage, with a husband who she said cheated on her lots of times. (Isn’t it ironic how often the world’s most beautiful and talented women end up in doomed marriages during which their husbands go off to have affairs?) But Nazia’s life at this time was hardly limited to her troubled domestic situation. She also earned a law degree and ended up working for the United Nations Security Council, as well as being an activist for UNICEF. In addition, she did a lot of social work and activism to benefit the poor people back in Karachi (which is why I mentioned before that she never forgot about the city where she came from).

So Nazia Hassan had established a whole new kind of life for herself years before her tragic death from cancer (on August 13, 2000 – at the terribly young age of 35). But I somehow suspect that if she had lived longer, she would have entered the world of music again at some point. I understand that even without her participation, there actually has been a revival of interest in her music within the past decade or so. (Again per Wikipedia, I see that her music was used in a 2012 film called Miss Lovely, and there was a Google Doodle put up in her honor a few years later, in 2018.) A real Nazia Hassan comeback would have been something, and I can’t help but wonder what direction she would have taken today. Ultimately, she was so eclectic… Would she have delved back into the area of cutting-edge electronic dance music (working again with Biddu or someone like him – as well as Zoheb, maybe?), or would she have gone completely in that acoustic/folk rock direction now? She could have done so much more had she not died so young. I think a lot of people realize that and that’s one reason why, when you see a Nazia Hassan clip on YouTube, you’ll often find people in comments talking about how they burst into tears.

I’m sure many people would like to imagine Nazia Hassan living and responding to the world as it exists today, and it would have been great to see her celebrating her 57th birthday right now.

Happy birthday, Nazia. Rest in peace – and power too.

Seven Songs from Lata Mangeshkar That Have Really Stood Out for Me (from 1949 to 1983)

Here is my promised and much-delayed tribute to Lata Mangeshkar, in the form of seven outstanding songs. These are not all necessarily songs that I prefer to all others – most of these could be interchangeable on the list with other songs that are out there, considering that it is just impossible to pick out a small number of “best” songs from someone who has contributed so many songs to Indian films – especially Hindi films – with so many of those other songs also being well-recognized greats. Some of the songs on my list (especially nos. 1 and 6) might appear on a lot of people’s best-of lists, too, but I don’t know about the rest. I just know that I really like them, myself.

I did apply some criteria while putting together this list that went beyond just (possibly) liking these particular songs the most… I wanted to include songs (even if just one song) from every decade from the ‘40s to the ‘80s, since I think that a lot of people would consider that entire stretch of time to be her heyday (if not later decades) and I felt that if I did not stick exclusively to, say, the late ‘40s and early ‘50s, it would also make the list more interesting. But I would not include the later songs in this list if I did not enjoy them a whole lot, too.

In fact all of these songs – and her performance in them – are so good, I don’t know if I have been able to do them justice. But I have tried my best, in my small descriptions, to communicate the qualities that I think make them unique.

1.“Ayega Aanewala” from Mahal (1949)

 I will start with Lata’s big breakthrough song, one that probably goes on anybody’s best-of list, “Ayega Aanewala.” This is a remarkable song in a remarkable soundtrack. The ethereal quality of Lata’s voice is truly otherworldly, best befitting what I like to call the most Goth film ever made. By the way, I have shared the soundtrack for Mahal with people who have next to no knowledge of Indian films, and every one was blown away by it. Naturally, composer Kehmachand Prakash deserves a lot of credit also; he was a fantastic music director.

2. “Apni Ada Par Main Hoon Fida” from Teen Batti Char Raasta (1953)

If there is any song in which Lata’s voice ideally matches an actress’s visual presentation and vice-versa, it’s “Apni Ada Par Main Hoon Fida” from Teen Batti Char Raasta. That’s partly because the film’s director, V. Shantaram, arranged for Sandhya to mimic Lata’s visual presentation, with her distinct braid and dresses. Sandhya was also asked to wear dark makeup because lighter skin was so commonly associated with beauty and Sandhya’s character was meant to be the opposite of beautiful – at least by conventional standards of the time (though while watching this film, we can see all along that such a perception was wrong – well, I know I could see it was wrong, certainly). But when this character sings, she sounds more beautiful than anyone. And that is why, when the other people in the film hear her singing, they run to the radio, crowd around the studio, and/or close their eyes while smiling as though in the middle of a wonderful dream. Sandhya does a great job on camera, but Lata’s sweet-sounding voice is what makes those listeners’ joyous reactions in the scene totally credible.

Incidentally, I don’t think that the music director for Teen Batti Char Raasta is nearly as famous as any of the others on this list. In fact, the name Shivram Krishna just doesn’t ring any bells for me. Maybe other people know a little more about him, but if he isn’t well known, I think that he definitely should be.

[Note: It is unfortunate that I can’t embed the video into this blog, but it is the only watchable version available, and it’s well worth the extra trip to YouTube!]

3. “Hamaare Dil Se Na Jaana” from Uran Khatola (1955)

Lata’s vocals in this song mesh very nicely with the variety of styles that Naushad brought together. As often is the case with Naushad, it contains both Eastern and Western classical influences, but it is eminently danceable, too. (It’s kind of waltz-like, I think, though I don’t have the technical knowledge to determine instantly how much of a waltz this is. Does this song go by “waltz time”? Maybe someone would like to tell me – or maybe I’ll answer my own question by doing a little more research into that matter – but not right now.)

In addition to the charming and unique musical qualities, another thing that sets this song apart is the mood. The song is quite foreboding (which I could tell pretty quickly, thanks to the English subtitles), like a couple of other songs in this film, too. That’s not a very common quality among most of the songs that Lata was given (as far as I know), and it’s a unique quality in this list. And that’s a good reason to include it here – in addition to the fact that I simply love listening to it. (Not to mention that I love looking at Nimmi, who served as another excellent – and very frequent – on-screen face for Lata’s voice.)

4. “Na Dir Dim” from Pardesi/Journey Beyond Three Seas (1957)

Padmini’s dance in Pardesi/Journey Beyond Three Seas (1957) was certainly dramatic, complementing the character’s desperate pleas with this man from a strange land not to walk away from her.  And, not surprisingly, Lata’s voice supplied all of the drama that was required. With Anil Biswas composing the music, the result was what I consider to be one of the most stunning classical-influenced dance numbers in Hindi cinema. Needless to say, I’ve watched this song and listened to it many times.

5. “Tumhen Yaad Karte Karte” from Amrapali (1966)

There is a different kind of dramatic quality to this slow and sophisticated song that, for me, captures a feeling specific to music of the 1960s – not only in India, but in Western films, too. It’s difficult for me to describe what that quality is, but I don’t think that this kind of film music could have been created at any other time. That’s why, if I am including only one song from the 1960s (which was not my original intention, but just how it’s turning out), “Tumhen Yaad Karte Karte” seems like the perfect choice.

Throughout the song, Lata’s voice also seems a little different from what I hear in most of the ‘50s songs – for instance, it seems to be gliding along at a slightly lower pitch – but her singing here is at least as outstanding in quality as anywhere else. I should add that this song is also quite different from a lot of Shankar-Jaikishan numbers that I can think of, but their repertoire was very diverse, and Lata could be counted on to do equally superbly with most of the wide range songs that they gave her over the years. (By the way, since I am so crazy about dance, it might be surprising that out of all the songs in Vyjayanthimala’s great dance show-off film of the ‘60s, I have picked one that doesn’t actually contain any dance. But I simply feel that “Tumhen Yaad Karte Karte” contains the best, most moving vocal performance by Lata – which is not to say that the other, dancier numbers don’t sound great, too.)

6. “Inhi Logon Ne” from Pakeezah (1972)

Any one of the songs behind the great Meena Kumari (and/or Padma Khanna) dance scenes in Pakeezah  could be on this list; I consider them all about equally great (with much credit to music director Ghulam Mohammed). But for this list, I’ve decided to pick the one that is probably the biggest hit, too. The song is catchy as hell, and I love the exuberance of the music – which is fully matched by both Meena’s dance and Lata’s vocals. It’s a song that really gets stuck in my head!

7. “Jalta Hai Badan” from Razia Sultan (1983)

The song “Jalta Hai Badan” is interesting for a number of reasons. It makes sense that this is a Khayyam-composed song from the early ‘80s, because it bears some musical resemblance to the songs in Umrao Jaan. Interestingly, though, the courtesan played by Rekha in Umrao Jaan with playback by Asha Bhosle is a bit more highbrow, with a much more classical quality to her performances, than the dancer is in this scene. The dancer here is good (that’s Aarti Chopra), but – as some commenters also pointed out on YouTube – this scene is a racy kind of sequence that we would normally sooner expect to receive playback singing from Asha Bhosle. (Did the two sisters make an agreement to switch roles a little in the ‘80s? I wonder.) Of course, it’s no surprise that Lata gives it a more ethereal quality with her vocals than Asha might have, and that beautiful, ethereal voice also creates a great contrast with the ugliness of the violent slapping scene at the end. (That whole scene at the end isn’t included in all the videos of this song on YouTube, but I think it should be.)

I am sure there are numerous other songs that different people might want to put on a best-of-Lata list – hundreds, maybe even thousands! I wanted to put my own list together merely as a personal tribute, to show that I, too, have appreciated much of her singing, and I certainly realize that she made an enormous contribution to Indian film music history.

RIP, Lata Mangeshkar – and everyone can expect my real tribute/song list soon.

It’s been a long time since I added a little “preview” or “coming attractions” post to my blog, but this time I feel it is necessary, because I don’t want anyone to think for a moment that this is a passing that I can ignore. But unfortunately, due to time-consuming obligations, it may take another couple of days (though possibly less time but maybe more) before my real tribute post appears.

I can’t claim that I have any childhood memories linked to Lata or can connect her to parents or grandparents or anyone like that. But she certainly has been a prominent voice for me during this period of nearly 15 years when I have been obsessively devoted to exploring old Indian films and film songs (especially those from the ’40s into the early ’60s – and, naturally, the era of my favorite Lata songs overlaps a lot with that time period, beginning in 1949).

My tribute will simply be a list of favorite songs, with a few comments or descriptions. Maybe, more specifically, it will be favorite dances (to songs sung by Lata). (That is a decision yet to be made.)

But, as some may have noticed, I have already dropped a reference to one of my favorite Lata songs in general – and a whole lot of other people’s, too. That one is “Aayega Anewala,” screen capped (from the corresponding scene in Mahal (1949)) in the present image header at the top of the blog. It was the first image that popped into my mind when I read of her death. (Or you might say when, alas, her boat had just left our shores.)

By the way, it is quite sad, and also disturbing, that her life was ultimately ended by COVID. (End of an era, certainly – and far too much a symptom of the present one, too.)

RIP, Lata Mangeshkar. To use another cliche, your voice certainly will live on forever!

Happy Brithday, Roshan Kumari!

For quite a good number of years now, I have been aware that the day when many people observe Christmas Eve is also Mohammed Rafi’s birth anniversary. I have also known about a couple of other Golden Age/Vintage Hindi film music star anniversaries surrounding that: Noor Jehan’s death anniversary (December 23) and Naushad’s birth anniversary (December 25 or the 26th, depending on what source you go to). And I have mentioned and observed all of these anniversaries at some point in this blog’s past. So, obviously, this chunk of a few days can be very significant for people who love Golden Age Indian film music. But it’s only very recently that I found out that December 24 can also be seen as a very significant day for people who love Golden Age Indian film dance – and kathak dance and dance in general. That’s because Roshan Kumari was also born on Christmas Eve! There have been varying opinions regarding what year Roshan Kumari was born, but I think it’s fairly safe to say, based on some articles that I have seen, that she was born in 1937. This means that today, Roshan Kumari turns 84. (And yes, she still is with us, and no, I am not feeling too superstitious about typing that.) And so, it’s about time that I posted a Roshan Kumari birthday tribute.

Of course, I have written a few posts about Roshan Kumari before. If you include the comments under the post, then I think the most comprehensive one is something that I posted 11 years ago, Finally, A Little More Info About Roshan Kumari.  But I’m going to keep this post pretty simple, providing clips of seven Roshan Kumari dances, with just a little text for each one. (Although if people would like to complicate things a little in comments again, I am also fine with that.) More than half of these dances have also appeared in this blog before, but since I posted them in a scattered way over a long time period (and also a long time back), I thought it would be especially nice to show them all collected together now. On top of that, just to do something a little different this time, I’m going to rank them. (I don’t know if everyone will agree with the ranks, though I don’t think anyone will disagree with number 1.) But the rank doesn’t matter all that much, because every single one of these dances is very enjoyable.

I should add one more point before I start this list: Because the first two dances below were not as fully confirmed to be Roshan Kumari dances as the higher-ranking ones, there is a very slight chance that the dancer in one of these is not Roshan Kumari. I’ll explain within the description how it was that I/we came to the conclusion that she was in this dance, and how there could be any doubt. But in the slight chance that someone sees that I have misidentified the dancer, please speak up! And in such event, congratulations to the dancer who managed so well to resemble Rosahan Kumari and dance so well on top of that.

7. Jhansi Ki Rani (1953) [revised since this post originally went up]: In comments to my blog from eleven years ago, Cassidy Minai of Cinema Nritya pointed out that Roshan Kumari had been in Jhansi Ki Rani. A conversation ensued in which we were trying to figure out whether she appeared in both of two dances – the only dances in the film, actually, at least in the abbreviated English-language version, The Tiger and the Flame.

When I first put the present post up, I picked out one of the two dances to claim as my choice number 7 on this list. Unfortunately, more recently, I have been alerted to evidence that the lead dancer in the clip that I posted probably wasn’t Roshan Kumari. (This evidence came in the form of a comment below Tom Daniel’s post on YouTube, saying that the dancer was actually someone else.)

So now, I am posting the other dance. I believe there is still a chance that one star of this dance is Roshan Kumari, because I think that a prominent dancer here does look like her (starting at about 2:13). It is also a really nice dance (though I actually do like the next six on this list even more). If anyone knows that this is not Roshan Kumari, please pass that information along. It would be disappointing to find out that this dancer isn’t her either, but it wouldn’t be too terrible, given that this post would still contain six delightful dances by Roshan Kumari.

6. Waris (1954): It took me a little bit of time to feel definite about her presence in the dance in Waris (1954). That’s mostly because the film’s a bit blurry here and she isn’t on the screen for all that long. But the quality of the dance makes it more clear to me that this is Roshan Kumari, and multiple sources confirm that she was in Waris. By the way, the scene in general is a lot of fun, and the music is great. (The music in the whole film is great – which is not surprising since the music director is Anil Biswas.)

5. Basant Bahar (1957): Roshan Kumari does some sweet kathak dancing in this scene in Basant Bahar, but note that I am referring to the Bengali film from 1957, not the Hindi Basant Bahar that we usually refer to (which came out in 1956). I haven’t seen the rest of this film and I don’t know the context of this scene (maybe it’s part of opening credits?), but there are a few tricks being pulled in the visuals here, especially involving the superimposition of images. The clip is not all that clear technically, but it’s certainly interesting to look at. There is a nice emphasis on Roshan Kumari’s chakkars (spins) and then on her footwork at the end, which segues amusingly into a pair of feet with shoes on them walking as the camera tracks them from the front. It’s certainly unique! (By the way, apparently, the video won’t embed, so you are going to have to go to YouTube for this one – but it’s well worth the extra click!)

4. Mirza Ghalib (1954): Roshan Kumari’s dance scene in Mirza Ghalib feels a little like a small dress rehearsal for the scene that I’m giving the number one spot. It certainly does remind me of the dance in Jalsaghar in ways, though Mirza Ghalib was made a few years earlier. I think part of the reason is the music. In both scenes there is a heavy emphasis on that classical Indian drone. And the moves in her kathak dance here kind of match some of her moves in Jalsaghar. But this is just a short performance – it really feels like a snippet – and I would say that it seems relatively light.

3. Kathak (documentary from Films Division) (1970): Of course, this clip is different from the others in that it is from a different time (since all the others that I’m including are from the ‘50s) and is of a different nature, too. It is the Roshan Kumari segment of a kathak documentary put out in 1970 by Films Division, the state-owned/run film and broadcast company. But it’s still as good a clip of Roshan Kumari as almost any, clearly showing her doing the pure kathak dance that she is best known for (and which would also serve her well as a kathak guru later in life).

2. Parineeta (1953): By all indications (at least in searches that I have done), this is the first film dance that Roshan Kumari performed in, when she was barely 15 years old. But it is fantastic. Probably, part of the reason it seems so great is that she’s in a duet with Gopi Krishna, who was, himself, only 18 years old at the time. I could say that it’s just amazing for these dancers to have been so good at such a young age, except that that was not so unusual for the great film dancers of the Golden Age. Anyway, this scene is both fun and funny, but at the same time, it shows some serious skills. How could someone not love the part of the dance that zeros in on both dancers’ footwork? Oh, and look at those spins after that! I’ve watched Parineeta only twice – and it was a pretty good film. But I’ve watched this dance many more times than that.

1. Jalsaghar (1958): It almost seems unnecessary to say anything about Roshan Kumari’s dance in Jalsaghar. I have said a lot before, as have many others. This is the film dance that she’s known for. Her kathak dancing is close to perfection, and it is filmed in the most enchanting way. The camera angles are very unique but also so natural-seeming, and I love the remarkable use of the mirror in the back. Then there is the deliberately mesmerizing footwork close-up near the end…  It’s obvious that in addition to performing with such great skill, Roshan Kumari was very lucky to be filmed by the cinematographer named Subrata Mitra in a film directed by Satyajit Ray.

And now that I have finished the list, let me say that it feels very good to have written a birthday tribute to Roshan Kumari that was long overdue. I have been writing about her in this blog for so long; I wish I had known about her birthday years earlier. And I wish that other people did, too. Happy birthday, Roshan Kumari!

Kathak and Tap Dance: Similarities, Connections in Classic Films, and – Finally – Duets and Quartets!

I. The similarities between kathak and tap dance – based on what I’ve seen and enjoyed

As I’ve mentioned before, there is a certain special reason why I like both kathak and tap dances so much: the sound of the feet hitting the floor is actually part of the music. In both dances, the music would simply not exist were it not for the footwork, and the footwork or dances in general would not be as enjoyable even just to watch if for some reason you had to do so without hearing any of the sounds specifically made by the feet (even if all the other parts of the music were audible). Additionally, the complexity of the music naturally increases (or decreases) with the complexity of the dance and vice-versa. Of course, there are a number of dances that fit this special category: flamenco (which is most often historically linked to kathak), Irish clog dancing (which has been linked historically to tap dance), etc. But kathak and tap are the two dances fitting this description that I know best, have seen in films most often, and love the most.

Other things are done in a kathak and tap dances that help to make this link between the music and footwork even more significant. In tap dances, special shoes are worn; in kathak, the dance is done with bare feet, but ghungroos (lots of bells) are wrapped around the ankles. Ghungroos are also worn in other Indian dances, but I don’t think they have as much prominence in helping to create the music for those dances. Between the sounds of the feet hitting the floor and the jangling rhythms made by the ghungroos, it could be that the feet create at least half the sound of the music in a kathak dance.

Some people have said there are also similarities to be found in the respective histories of kathak and tap dance. According to a statement from the Leela Dance Collective (whom I will get back to later in this post), both have histories of “struggle and perseverance.” Now, I am sure that it would be very interesting to explore that line of thought further, but when I came up with the idea of writing this post, I was inspired strictly by the similarities that hit my eyes and ears. In addition, a quick search reveals that most people who connect the two dances in their minds do so for the same reasons that I have – it is all about the footwork! So, for now, I would like to sidestep (so to speak) that kind of comparison; maybe we can get back to it in a future post.

II. Looking for influences between the dances (and dancers) in old films 

As someone who has spent his life in the U.S. (mostly in New York City), I have been somewhat familiar with tap dances in old films for as far back as I can remember. But I didn’t come to fully appreciate the dances in old Hollywood movies until I got addicted to watching old Indian movies and the dances that they featured. After immersing myself in old Indian films for a few years, I returned to old Hollywood films to realize what a special aesthetic connection the dances in the cinema of both nations had with each other, especially during their film industries’ respective Golden Ages. (To be a little more specific, I would say the 30s into the ’50s for Hollywood and the ‘40s into the ‘60s for what we might loosely call “Bollywood.”)

But were there kathak dancers in old Indian films who were directly influenced by tap dancers in Hollywood – or vice versa? Well, when I think about that possibility, there is one great kathak dancer who springs into my mind, and her name is Sitara Devi. Sitara was very fond of old American films, as she mentioned in her conversations with her student Antonia Minnecola. (By the way, Antonia – or Toni – is also the wife of tabla master Zakir Hussain. I delved into that relationship as well as her recollections about Sitara Devi last February.)

As I’ve mentioned a couple of times (and posted back in April 2014) there was a dance by Eleanor Powell – who was probably the greatest female tap dancer in the Golden Age of Hollywood – that obviously influenced a famous Sitara Devi dance in Roti (1942). And I think Sitara probably had a lot to do with making the decision to draw upon that influence. Eleanor’s dance actually turned into quite a tap dance toward the end, but that was not the part that influenced Sitara’s dance, and Sitara’s version did not focus on kathak footwork. So, while you might say that there was definite influence here by a tap dancer on a kathak dancer, this wasn’t really an example of tap influencing kathak. (Curiously, in both cases, there is a much stronger reference being made to a Hawaiian dance known as the hula.)

Outside of the case of Sitara, the best example that I can think of of a dancer in Indian films who performed numbers influenced by tap dances in American films was Helen, who did two dances that strongly resembled earlier dances by the famous American tap dancer Ruby Keeler. But again, here, the influence did not come specifically from the tap dancer’s footwork, and there was certainly no kathak in the dances by Helen (who was hardly any kind of a kathak dancer in general – though she may have dabbled in the form a little bit at some point). Plus, I would say that it is probably unlikely that Helen, herself, had much to do with selecting those Ruby Keeler influences.

Meanwhile, there isn’t even anything close when it comes to Indian film or Indian dances in general influencing American film dances (never mind kathak influencing tap). There are bad examples in American films of dancers doing what is supposedly “Indian dance,” but they were way off the mark. Ruth St. Denis got some dances into American silent films and she claimed a strong influence by India’s “nautch dancers,” but that is a whole other story – and a somewhat complicated one at that. (Priya Srinivasan had some interesting things to say about Ruth St. Denis’ Indian “nautch dance” influences in her book Sweating Saris, which I once wrote a little about, but there would be no point even in scratching the surface of that story here.)

III. In more current times, the dances finally meet – literally – in duets and quartets 

Things look very different when we start to explore all the connections that have been made between American and Indian dances in the present millennium. This is because of both the fact that it is so easy now for people to see (and be influenced by) the cultural products of other countries, and that a big Indian classical dance industry sprung up in the U.S. due to major increases in immigration from South Asia (and changes in corresponding immigration laws). (That is actually another subject that is discussed – very extensively – in the book by Priya Srinivasan. Her focus was bharatanatyam, not kathak, but these changes affected all kinds of classical Indian dance as it has existed (increasingly) in America.)

One great aspect about the connections that have been made between kathak and tap dance in recent times is that they have been realized in actual kathak-tap dance combinations – duets (or jugalbandies) and more! This has not been done all that much in films (in fact, there is only one fictional film that I can think of as well as one film documentary – both of which I will get to soon), but it has been done a lot in live collaborations, many of which have been captured on video and shared via YouTube or Vimeo. And for that reason, in this final part of the post, I will be able to include several very good videos.

The fictional film in which we get to see a kathak-tap dance fusion is American Blend (2006). The actors doing the dance are David Oyelowo and Amrapali Ambegaokar (an award-winning dancer who is also the choreographer – hence why the camera focuses more on her feet than his). The kathak teacher whom you see in this scene is played by Dee Wallace (most known, curiously, for her performance in the science fiction film ET and a number of horror movies). As is pointed out somewhat overtly in another scene in the film, some people definitely notice that the kathak teacher is “white.” The mixing of races and cultures in the U.S. – and the need to be open to that – is one of the main themes of the film, hence the title. Admittedly, the message could have been delivered a bit more subtly, but in any event, it provides a great excuse for showing a mixture of tap dance and kathak. Plus, the film gives some interesting glimpses of Los Angeles. (That should be helpful for a lot of viewers who do not see LA so often, since this film was released mainly in India. And by the way, the actor who plays the Kathak teacher’s husband in the film is Anupam Kher, who has been in lots of other Indian films.)

Speaking of California, now I’d like to delve into a live-dance collaboration that originated there. The dancer whom I know about in this presentation is Rachna Nivas, who actually is in New York City now, having come to my town to be part of the new New York City branch of Leela Dance (which began in San Francisco). (I believe that their projects started with the Leela Dance Collective, but now they have an Institute that includes the Collective, the Academy, Foundation, etc. It gets a bit confusing, but they do provide informative links to all of these things on their web site.)

I just saw Rachna Nivas in a live performance about a month ago, and it was a great experience. Thanks in part to certain problems that affected all of us globally, I had not actually been to any live performance in a theater since 2019 and had not been to a live kathak performance for two and a half years, since I went to the April 2019 New York Kathak Festival (and mentioned that experience in a blog post, of course). So, I had reasons to be very happy about going to this show, but on the other hand, I think I would have loved the performance just as much had I been going to live shows every week.

But the dance last month was not all that pertinent to this post (although she did briefly mention tap dancers at one point during the evening).  The show that Rachna Nivas has been involved in that is apparently very pertinent is a project called SPEAK, which she has performed in combination with another kathak dancer (Rena Mehta) and two tap dancers. (Usually, those tap dancers have been Michelle Dorrance and Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, though in the first video that I’m including here, Ms. Dorrance has been temporarily replaced by Star Dixon.) And by, the way, although there is some duet dancing in their shows, sometimes all four dancers join together, making this a quartet.

As shown in the video below (a compilation of a few scenes from the performance), SPEAK makes it very clear that kathak and tap dance have tangible things in common, obvious to the eyes and the ears. But the text below this particular video (at Vimeo) is also the place where I found the assertion that “Indian kathak dance and American tap dance, continents and ages apart, share parallel stories of struggle and perseverance.” And as I’ve said, that may be worth looking into it at another time. For now, though, we need only watch the dance, itself, to see why it’s a very nice idea to put kathak and tap dance together.

I should add that this SPEAK performance apparently has been done on different tours, during different years. While the sample above was from a few years ago, the performance in the clip below, from YouTube, is a little more recent, being from 2019. And though the Vimeo clip gives a larger sample, I think I find this shorter clip to be even more enjoyable. In prior posts, I have also mentioned how much I like the verbal recitation of rhythms in kathak – that is the padhants. Here, the dancers enter into a conversation between padhant and jazz scatting. It’s very amusing, although there is obviously also a lot of skill involved.

The Leela Dance Collective is actually an outgrowth of The Chitresh Das Dance Company. Chitresh Das was Rachna Nivas’ teacher/guru and he was obviously the source of the concept of combining tap with dance, at least where the Leela dancers are concerned. Several years ago, there was a documentary made about Chitresh Das’ collaboration with a tap dancer named Jason Samuels Smith. As you can see in the following excerpt, the tap dance and the kathak are both quite impressive. As the title says, this is fierce!

The clips above are all related to projects that I know something about, to one degree or another. But there are quite a few kathak-tap duets that can be found simply from searching on YouTube. I will add a couple here that caught my eye, but for those who want to find more, it is quite easy to do so.

The first thing I noticed about the dance excerpted in the next clip is that it takes place in Canada (at the Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre, in Vancouver, in 2013). The announcer who appears before the clip says that he doesn’t think this combination has ever taken place before, which is obviously not true. But it may be true that this is the first time this kind of duet was tried in Canada (which is something that was asserted in the text accompanying another clip of this event). The announcer says that this is like a conversation through rhythm instead of words – which I gather is the same idea that the Leela people wanted to convey when they called their project SPEAK. (Unfortunately, an actual announcement of this fact feels a bit like a statement of the obvious – at least to me.) The duet is certainly appealing, although I felt that the tap dancer (Susan Nase) seems to be given more prominence than the kathak dancer (Amika Kushwaha). To even that balance out, maybe the kathak dance could have been a little more active and dramatic. But those are just quibbles – these people deserve a lot of credit, especially if this was the first time a kathak-tap dance duet was put together in Canada.

The final clip that I’m going to include comes from a dance academy based in Mumbai (Sumeet Nagdev Dance Arts). Here, I also noticed a bit of imbalance between the two sides of the dance. For one thing, either the tap dancer (Cia) was preferred by the audience, or it’s just that the people who supported her were much louder than those who supported the kathak dancer (Snehal). The tap dancer is also dressed in a much more flamboyant and revealing way than the kathak dancer – the difference between costumes is greater, I think, than in other video clips. Plus, I see less rhythmic “conversation” here than outright competition. Putting all that together, I could not help but think of the Vyjayanthmiala vs. Helen dance off in the 1969 film Prince. (Actually, now that I think about it, that scene contains a nice snippet of flamenco vs. kathak.) In any event, this clip below is obviously from a very studently kind of affair; it doesn’t have the more professional look of performances by Chitresh Das or his Leela Dance disciples. It’s good for what it is, though, and I would like to see many more such performances coming out of this school.

In the future, when I watch these kathak/tap dance duets, I think that I would rather not see dances where there is a whole lot of competition between the styles. I would also like to see the blending (so to speak) of the dances develop in some way. Right now, I get the feeling, mostly, that when people put on these kinds of shows, they strongly have in mind the idea that they are showing the audience a combination that didn’t exist before – which means there is a big air of novelty surrounding these events. If this kind of duet (or quartet, etc.) is going to become more common, it would probably be appropriate to see the emphasis on novelty toned down a little. Additionally, maybe there should be less emphasis (in most of these performances) on the fact that the dances come from different cultures. I would actually love it if I never again had to hear or see the phrase “East Meets West”!

Maybe there should be more fictional films that bring kathak-and-tap combinations in as part of the plot. It would be nice if American Blend were not the only fictional film (that I know of) which did this. Maybe it would also be good if the two different dance styles were combined specifically for the purpose of relating story (rather than a duet appearing as a moment in a story). It’s not that I necessarily prefer it when the dance is relating a story – in fact, as I have watched more kathak in recent years, I have developed more of an appreciation for the non-story-telling kind of kathak – the nritta or pure dance. But in the case of these duets (and quartets, etc.), maybe the addition of a strong story-telling component might encourage dancers to mix things up in ways that they have not done before. In any event, I hope that I do get to see more developments in this kathak-tap dance relationship in the future. If that happens, I definitely will do another post on the subject.

RIP, Minoo Mumtaz – We Have Lost Another One of the Greatest (as everyone should know)

Minoo Mumtaz has been adored on this blog from very early on. In other words, she’s been one of my favorites ever since I first became obsessed with classic Indian films. She is featured in numerous songs that I’ve shown here, though many were in posts focused on someone or something else. But there is one old post in this blog that is sufficiently devoted just to Minoo Mumtaz, and that is the one from back in 2009 where I wrote about Tom Daniel’s DVD compilation, describing it as A Whole (Beautiful, Crisp, Clear) DVD of Minoo Mumtaz! I would like to recommend that post most of all because it includes a list of the contents of Tom’s DVD, which is the best place to look if you want the names of the best songs that she appeared in. (Plus, I think you can still download the DVD’s files if you go to the site linked there and follow the directions.) But I’m also happy to recommend this old post because of the insights and opinions that it contains. I said some very glowing things about Minoo Mumtaz nearly a dozen years ago, and I would say the exact same things now.

I also pointed out some very interesting things that Tom had written about her. For example, there is the fact that he actually prefers to watch a mujra by Minoo Mumtaz than one by Vyjayanthimala. And he is not the only one who has said such a thing. Just today, another friend mentioned on Facebook that she generally prefers Minoo Mumtaz to Vyjayanthimala. And if you ask me about which one I find more relatable and adorable on the screen (as well as often being the greatest mood-lifter), I think I might say that, in general, it is Minoo Mumtaz (which I think is pretty close to the point that Tom had made). But if you want to ask me which one I prefer to watch dancing a mujra…well, please understand that it doesn’t mean I don’t also love Minoo Mumtaz! (I am always a sucker for dazzling and technically superb dancing, and I don’t think anyone can deny that Vyjayanthimala had the edge in that sense. In his comments, Tom also admitted that Vyjayanthimala was a greater dancer.) But, of course, there is no need to compare… The Golden Age was Golden in part because it made room for so many unique and brilliant talents, and Minoo Mumtaz was a mujra queen in her own right – in addition to being a hilarious comedienne, which seems to me like a very unusual combination.

It’s obvious that Minoo’s brother Mehmood is the more famous comedian, and he seems to be much better known in general by a wide audience. This is what I gather because the vast majority of times when I’ve seen Minoo Mumtaz mentioned in a review or an article, she was defined as the “sister of Mehmood.” I always found that to be a little odd because, though I do like Mehmood, if I am asked to define one sibling in relation to the other, I am much more inclined to say that he was the brother of Minoo Mumtaz. It also seems to me that she was the one who took most after their father, Mumtaz Ali – at least in terms of talents – considering that he was a legendary dancer.

Then there is a younger brother to those siblings, Anwar Ali, who acted in films ranging from Seema (as a child actor, performing next to his father) to Bombay to Goa (which I confess I have yet to see in its entirety). Anwar Ali was the one whom I actually corresponded with, a little over eleven years ago, when I was aware of the blog that he had at the time. And under a post that I made about that blog, there was a conversation in the comments section in which several of us wondered whatever had happened to Minoo Mumtaz. Then I received a comment from Anwar Ali’s wife, Mona Mathur Ali, saying that Minoo was doing well and living in Canada. That was so nice to see!

Just a couple of years later, in 2013, an old blogging friend, AK, wrote a post over at Songs of Yore, In Conversation with Minoo Mumtaz, which included an interview that he had done with her as well as one with her son, Ajaz Ali. (He also provided a couple of small clips of both of them speaking – although in Hindi, without English subtitles, so it would take me a while to figure out even a small portion of what either of them are saying – but they should be clear to most of the fans.) If there had been a lot of mysteries about Minoo Mumtaz and her whereabouts that some of us were still trying to figure out, this post certainly solved them. AK’s post also includes a nice collection of videos of songs that were picturized on Minoo Mumtaz, some of which he says were actually recommended by her. Plus, there are a ton more videos recommended in the comments.

AK’s interview revealed that Minoo had been diagnosed with a brain tumor ten years earlier – which had actually been in her head for fifteen years prior – and she had also developed some debilitating symptoms, but after some surgeries, she seemed to be rid of it and recovered nicely. The news stories that I have seen as of this post say that a few days ago she was diagnosed with cancer again (whether related or not, I am not certain) but had been suffering from other “health issues” also. Much of the reporting was based on information from Anwar Ali and Mona Mathur Ali – that is, the same people who made me and a few others happy with the news that Minoo Mumtaz was alive and well back when we wondered if it was even possible to find any recent news about her. I have not had any communications with them directly in recent years, but I understand that they sent other people the information about her death as soon as they could, and they deserve appreciation for their conscientiousness.

I suppose the fact that information about Minoo Mumtaz had once been scarce for so long – at least for many of us – combined, of course, with the fact that she is constantly referred to as the “sister of Mehmood,” shows that she hasn’t really gotten the full recognition that she deserves, at least compared to other greats of the Golden Age. But I get a different sense when I look around our little blogging world, where so many people have had the chance to watch many of the great song-and-dance sequences that she has starred in and even a couple films in which she played major roles. Once people get a good sense of who she was, as I wrote back in 2009… Who doesn’t love Minoo Mumtaz?

Skateistan in Afghanistan – Films and Videos Documenting an Era Now Lost

[A scene from the film Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (if you’re a girl)]

Given the current, tragic takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban in the wake of the American withdrawal of forces, I wanted to pay tribute to a contemporary phenomenon that we will probably not be seeing there anymore. In fact, I may write about a few of the people and groups in Afghanistan that are going to be in peril right now. But for this particular post, I wanted to pay tribute to Skateistan.

Skateistan, for those who are not acquainted with it (though it is so familiar to me now that I always assume everyone must be) is an international non-profit project that was originally started in Kabul in 2007 to encourage and teach skateboarding to children in Afghanistan, with a special concern about bringing in girls. The project developed further to become a general educational institution with classrooms teaching children all basic subjects, but with skateboarding as their special reward. The first Skateistan school was established in Kabul in 2009. In 2014, the project was expanded to a second Afghan city, Mazar-e-Sharif, but before that – by 2011, according to Wikipedia – it had also already set up in another country, Cambodia. And within a few years after that, they would build a new school in South Africa, beginning a truly international trend. But I believe that the efforts in Afghanistan are the ones that Skateistan will always be known for, especially because of so many well-circulated and publicized videos and pictorial features starring Afghanistan’s cool-looking hijabi skateboarding girls.

There are several videos or film clips about Skateistan that I wanted to point out here, and probably the best place to start would be a British-made documentary that won an Oscar/Academy award in 2020. That film is Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (if you’re a girl). (By the way, I tried to embed a copy of the film – from Vimeo – but it doesn’t seem to be working in this case. Fortunately, the link above should take you there.) 

I have to say that I very much enjoyed this film, and I would highly recommend it. I am not going to supply a full kind of review here, but suffice to say that it contains excellent photography, very well-paced narrative, and some very moving interviews. There is one section of the film, about two-thirds of the way through, in which a couple of women relate how terrible it was when the Taliban controlled Afghanistan in the late ’90s. One predicts that many things would be lost – including, we assume, Skateistan – if they came to power again. Needless to say, it’s heartbreaking to think of those interviews now. But while it may be a little rough-going to watch interviews like those after the events that unfolded this week, there is actually fun and joy to be found in this movie too.

However, there is one kind of fun that I thought the film could have contained to a greater degree. And that is, I wish there were more actual skateboarding scenes! Maybe this film contained enough skateboarding scenes for the average viewer, but I do actually like to watch skateboarding. Fortunately, there have been a lot of videos put out by or about Skateistan, and if you watch enough of them, you certainly will see plenty of good “shreds.” 

I first got my introduction to Skateistan from this fine video below, posted in about 2012. The video consists of on-screen typed descriptions of the Skateistan project accompanied by visuals, first of the Skateistan girls getting some regular education and then of the moment we’ve all been waiting for, when they get to do the stunts that they’ve learned on their skateboards. The music for the film is excellent; it’s a song by the rock group Florence and the Machine. Sometimes I grumbled – kind of jokingly – that they should have used some good Pashto music (and I also know where good Pashto music can be found!). But, actually, this Florence song works very well, making this little introduction to Skateistan quite memorable.

There is a good short video documentary about Skateistan skaters that was made at about the same time as the clip above. Actually, given the available dates, it seems to have been made a year or two earlier (although I did not see it until much later). It is called To Live and Skate in Kabul. This one starts off by following a few boy skaters, but soon it moves on to girls, too. It is very bleak for a while, describing and showing the skaters’ war-torn and poverty-stricken surroundings. But later, the mood picks up a bit, as we get to see the skaters doing what they love. Toward the end, there are some great scenes of boys and girls together (well, at least one girl…), skating through ruins (ancient ones, it appears, though we see plenty of signs of recent war damage too). But judging by the interviews with these kids, the feeling even during the best skate scenes is not exactly cheery – rather, we see prevailing anxiety and uncertainty (moods which turned out to be more than wholly justified, unfortunately).   

I have seen a number of interesting short clips focusing on individual skaters (usually entitled “[So-and-so]’s Story”). A lot of them that used to be posted on YouTube, some actually showing some very good skateboarding moves, too – most of which were done by girls. Unfortunately, looking for these videos tonight, I have found that most either have disappeared or were turned “private.” This has to be a result of the recent Taliban takeover, and that thought is a bit unnerving, to say the least. But I have found one very good one, “Faranas’ Story” (from the “Ride Channel,” not from Skateistan’s own). This one does not contain a lot of skateboard moves, but like the award-winning documentary, it does contain a lot of very moving observations (on the part of this girl) and speculation about the future that can be a bit heart-wrenching when looked at from the present moment.

There is a ton of other video material to be found within news programs and the like, but I would not consider those to be as special as the independent videos specifically devoted to the skaters of Skateistan. Unfortunately, as I’ve mentioned, it seems that videos are being deleted and Skateistan’s own website already seems to be omitting Afghanistan as one of the places where they do their work. But Skateistan belongs most in Afghanistan – even the organization’s name says as much. Sadly, it seems that this is going to be the end of an era for this project. This is hardly one of the biggest worries for the people of Afghanistan at the moment, but it is a loss to mourn nonetheless.

——————————————————

P.S. [10/16]: On October 12, Skateistan released a statement on their website (as well as on Facebook), What Happened in Afghanistan? Here is an excerpt:

Many of you will have seen the scenes at Kabul airport as many Afghans tried to flee the country. At Skateistan, we wanted to support our staff to do whatever they felt was best for themselves and their families. These were hard choices to make. For those who felt they should leave, we supported their visa applications and did everything we could to facilitate their entry to the airport during the evacuation window. More than two thirds of our Afghan staff team, along with their family members, have left the country. We continue to support them to settle into their new lives around the world. 

For those of you who know us well, you’ll know that Skateistan was founded in Afghanistan, on the streets of Kabul back in 2008. Afghanistan is in our DNA and our commitment to the children of the country has not changed. We hope we will be able to work again in Afghanistan, although we don’t yet know what sort of programs we’ll be able to run. Those staff members who chose to stay in Afghanistan remain employed by Skateistan and we hope they can be part of our future there. 

Maybe July Is Now the Worst Month for Great Performers from the Golden Age

It was three weeks shy of Kumkum’s first death anniversary. I had already thought about that and about how I and several of my fellow and sister bloggers had rushed to post our tributes last year because we all loved Kumkum. I was watching a bunch of dances – including some from Kumkum – and I even entertained the idea of doing a First D.A. tribute to Kumkum to follow up on my tribute from last year. And then I saw The News…

Wow. Now, I can’t say that the death of Dilip Kumar was all that surprising . . . I had already read news about his health sinking again in the past month or two and had already seen rumors of his death. He was 98 years old and his health had been notoriously bad for quite a long time – and we’d seen a few other batches of death rumors too. But for any fan of classic Hindi films, this news still had to be sad as well as jarring. A truly great one is gone.

I have seen many films starring Dilip Kumar. Among the classic actors in Hindi films, I have probably seen more starring him than anyone else. It makes sense, though, because probably no male Hindi film actor was more in demand than Dilip even – or especially – during the Golden Age.

Now, to be quite honest, if asked to pick my favorite male Golden Age actor in terms of the screen persona that he most often presented, I don’t know if I would pick Dilip Kumar. Probably, I would choose another Kumar, named Ashok. But Ashok Kumar has been gone for almost 20 years. In addition, Dilip Kumar might actually be the most skilled among all the actors, as many people assert. And he’s probably been more in the public eye in recent memory simply because he outlived all the other famous men. Recognizing all this, I should consider it my responsibility in this particular corner of the blogging world to write a full and thoughtful tribute to him. But, no, I’m afraid I’m not up to it. Fortunately, quite a few other bloggers have done very well at that. Not surprisingly, I see good posts from Madhu at Dustedoff, Anu at Conversations Over Chai, Karan Bali at Upperstall . . . And there are many, many more. Do a search and you’ll find so many Dilip Kumar tributes, you won’t be able to read them all. And for that, I am grateful. Thank you to all of you!

Meanwhile, yesterday, since I had been thinking of both Dilip Kumar and Kumkum, I had to do the most obvious thing that came to mind: I watched Kohinoor again.

I don’t watch films multiple times all that often, but Kohinoor definitely deserved a second viewing, especially since it had been so many years since I watched it all the way through. I’ve watched the songs – and especially the dances – countless times, but not the whole film. I don’t think I had watched the whole film since the time when I reviewed it on this blog, more than twelve years ago! (Wow, is it really that long? Yes it is. You can see the review here.)

In light of the time that had passed, I thought that I might write a new review, but when I reread the old one, I decided that it summed up the film pretty well. If there is any difference in my opinion upon viewing it the second time around, it’s that I love the film even more. With the second viewing, I was able to notice additional little touches in the performances of all these great actors that I hadn’t noticed before. What a great cast this was! And, by the way, though I have been emphasizing Kumkum’s role, I don’t want to understate Meena Kumari, who did a terrific job, as always. I think that Kumkum’s character was more interesting – from my perspective – and if I were Dilip’s character in this film, faced with those two sides of the triangle (poor fellow), I would have chosen Kumkum’s character – definitely. (Isn’t it great how movies can sometimes inspire the nicest personal fantasies?) But that doesn’t mean that Meena wasn’t great in this film.

Of course, the world lost Meena Kumari in a very tragic way a very long time ago. And now, I guess that every major actor in Kohinoor is gone. We haven’t yet lost everyone from the Golden Age. For instance, among those still standing, we still have Dilip Kumar’s first famous love in the film industry, Kamini Kaushal, now age 94. (Although I have read that she is not in the best of health and maybe I should not even be writing that line, if you know what I mean.) But with the death of someone as significant as Dilip Kumar, it’s understandable to agree with the already widely circulated declaration from Amitabh Bachchan that “an epic era has drawn curtains.”

Digging (Into) the ’60s and early ’70s Songs of Usha Uthup/Iyer

I admit, it’s been a long time since I last wrote a post on this blog. One of the reasons has been a plethora of problems and distractions (as readers of this blog surely know, we are living in a troubled world). But I also have spent a lot of time delving into some old interests too.

As I may have mentioned in some “About” sections and other autobiographical materials, for a number of years before I started this blog, I was a part-time rock/pop music critic, writing tons of reviews for several small-to-medium-sized magazines specializing in lesser-known, independent or “alternative” kinds of pop music, rock music, electronica, and “world”/”global” music. I also have been fairly obsessed with rock music and the people who perform it ever since I became deeply involved in some punk and post-punk rock scenes during my mid-late teens and 20s. I suppose that most people are supposed to grow out of such interests, but I never really did. However, when I started falling in love with old Indian film music in the 2007 or so, I let that new obsession occupy the front of my mind while the older interest (and some others) receded a little toward the back for a while. But in the past several months, the old rock/pop obsession has reemerged in a big way.

And this time, I became very interested in exploring some of the historic rock/pop music that I might not have been as focused on before. At the beginning of the year, I became quite fascinated with a lot of the “girl group” music (which I have actually always loved to hear) and related music by female artists who emerged in the 1960s. After that, I let my mind wander into some of the psychedelia and other music of the later ‘60s, but rather than focusing on the big names with heavy production, I preferred the “garage rock” sounds as well as, simply, the relatively more modest and less bombastic pop singers of that day (some of whom also performed quite well in the areas of folk and jazz).

But I still do love old Indian film music, too, and that was why I was ripe to fall for a singer who could easily cross into both worlds; that is, someone who could do really good performances of these classic Western pop songs of the ’60s and ’70s and maybe even became known for that but who also was in demand as a performer or playback singer in at least few Indian films, fitting into those films nicely too.

In other words, I was ready to fall for Usha Uthup (formerly known as Iyer).

Usha Uthup has a very special voice as far as Indian film singers go, especially for the years that she has been active, starting in the late 1960s.  When I (and most people, I gather) think of the Indian film singers of that time, I (we) think of higher voices, including some voices might also even be called “thin.” I suspect some people who just saw that word “thin” know exactly what I’m talking about, because that was one of the criticisms that was leveled at Lata Mangeshkar when she started out. And then by the 1960s, the “Mangeshkar sisters” came to dominate the world of film singing in India. Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle, especially, ended up defining female singing in Indian films.

So I had no idea until the past few years that the Indian film world of the ’60s and early ’70s could have made even a little room for a voice like Usha Uthup/Iyer’s. Usha’s voice can be a bit lower and thicker even than many western female singers’, and it often has a certain unusually appealing hoarseness too. (And by the way, I did not come up with that word “hoarse” all on my own to describe her. I recall an interview with her in which she talked about how she was kicked out of a choir because the teachers, etc., could not find a way that she might fit in, in part, because – as she was told – her voice was too “hoarse”! But that’s part of what gave her such special appeal later on.)

There certainly was a huge contrast between Usha Uthup – or Usha Iyer – when she started out and the voices of Lata and her sisters – and that’s why it was doubly fascinating when Asha Bhosle and Usha Iyer were brought together to do a duet in the film Hare Rama Hare Krishna, in the song of that same name (sometimes referred to as “I Love You”). When I saw that film sequence, I thought to myself, wow, who is the lady singing the English part? And while it was not difficult to find answer to that question, for some reason, I took a few more years to get a good picture in my mind regarding who she was.

It is commonly known (as explained in Wikipedia, etc.) that Usha Iyer started out not as an aspiring playback singer but an increasingly popular singer in nightclubs. And while she was performing in those nightclubs, a number of interesting things happened to her. As a nightclub singer, she got to perform in a few cities, including Chennai, Calcutta, and Delhi. In Calcutta, she met her future husband, a man from Kerala whose last name was Uthup. (And that’s how the name change happened, in case anyone was wondering – in 1971.) Then when she sang at a club in Delhi, she was seen by a Navketan film crew (including Dev Anand), and that’s how she ended up singing in films.

Actually, before she sang in Hare Rama Hare Krishna for R.D. Burman, she got a role singing as part of a Shankar-Jaikishan soundtrack in Bombay Talkie, the 1970 English-language film directed by James Ivory (and produced by Ismail Merchant). She did not do playback singing in this film but, instead, her role was split between playing herself in a nightclub performance and singing as part of the background soundtrack. The night club scene in this film was the first of a couple of film scenes in which I have seen Usha Iyer simply play the role of nightclub singer, as she did in real life. I have to admit that this one is not my favorite (which I will get to soon), but it’s certainly noteworthy as the first.

As an aside, I will say that I wish Usha Iyer’s nightclub performance had been given a more prominent – and less tainted – spotlight in this film. The performance is basically provided as a background for a pretty unpleasant dialogue involving the main characters, who are fairly despicable characters too, if you ask me. (But that’s another matter – maybe I will get more into it if/when I write a review of this film some day). I have not been able to find a separate clip of her performing in that scene, but maybe it is just as well. I have found an audio clip of her performing the full song, which is kind of nice. The song is “Hari Om Tat Sat” The lyrics of the song are in English, and it is apparently a praise of truth – a theme that is also contained in the Sanskrit mantra that comprises the title of the song and the main verse. By the way, it could be that the message of the song was meant to connect to the characters and/or a general theme of the film in some way, but all I could think when I saw the scene in the film was that I would have liked to hear her sing the whole song without rude distractions. Anyway, this clip also shows a very nice picture of Usha, which is from Usha Sings Love Story and Other Hits, a compilation that came out in 1972. (This song is not actually on that album, but l will get to something that is a little later on.)

(Incidentally, I have noticed, just from a quick glance at YouTube, that she has done a number of other versions of this song through the years, sometimes in a very disco vein. But I think I would rather stick with this one, thanks.)

The other song that she is given in Bombay Talkie is “God Times and Bad Times,” which is used for opening and closing credits. This is a really soothing and sweet-sounding number, but, unfortunately (and I hope I am not spoiling anything by saying this), the second time that it is used, it directly follows a pretty horrific scene. So, in this case, Merchant and Ivory chose to distract us from a nice Usha song by tainting it with some terrible irony. But once again, still worthwhile… Here is another nice audio clip:

There was a film made a little later, in 1972 – Bombay to Goa – which also featured Usha Uthup playing herself as one of the singers in a nightclub, and as far as I am concerned, this is a place where she is much more given her due. (By the way, this was the second film in which she worked with R.D. Burman – a pretty good combination, apparently.) She never gets to complete any of the songs that she sings here, but she is given a chance to sing a piece of each song in the spotlight, and she is provided with a diverse batch of pop and rock’n’roll standards that allows us to see a good range in the type of singing that she can do. It starts out with Jose Feliciano’s “Listen to the Pouring Rain,” but it quickly moves on to other numbers, such as a jazzed-up version of the song “Temptation” (which has been performed by Perry Como, Bing Crosby, and others), the song “Fever” (made famous by Peggy Lee, among others), and even Gene Vincent’s rockabilly classic, “Be Bop-a-Lula.” The scene also offers a nice challenge for her in another way, as the two characters – played by Amitabh Bachchan and Aruna Irani – each keep throwing new requests at her as a result of some kind of rivalry between them. At the end, she is forced to go back to one song and then the next faster and faster, and it gets pretty funny. But we also know at this point that she would be perfectly capable of doing a great full version of any of these songs too. (And I believe there might be clips of her doing full versions of these songs. I have not looked for all of them, but I know, for instance, that you can find a full clip of “Fever” somewhere. But the bit of that song that she does here is also good enough for me.)

I must admit that I have never seen the full film Bombay to Goa, but I will get to it one of these days. I know that I should have watched it a long time ago!

Although the Bombay to Goa scene shows that Usha could cover a pretty wide range, it doesn’t really show the entire range that she could cover, even just during the short time between the late ’60s and early ’70s. For something quite different, let’s go back a few years, to 1969. After I saw some of her film songs, I was very pleased to discover some real ’60s rock’n’roll numbers – including some classic psychedelic/garage kinds of stuff – that she recorded with a band called the Flintstones. I was actually pretty blown away (as the hip saying goes) by her performance of these songs, and I was very curious to find out who the band was that she collaborated with at this time. It took a little searching, but eventually I did find a very good entry in a blog called Seven 45rpm. I strongly recommend this post, as the writing – the description of the music, etc. – is very good, as are the details that this blogger managed to find. But I’m just going to give a very abbreviated version of the information I found there: The Flintstones were a psychedelic/garage rock group who performed regularly at Trincas, the club in Calcutta where Usha sang in 1969. (By the way, per Wikipedia, this is also the place where Usha met her husband.) These Flintstones seem to have had a very strong cult following. Usha Iyer did not join the band, but she collaborated with them on a couple of great records. The record called “The Trip” is a roaring work of psychedelic garage rock. Usha’s vocals on this are really strong; she has no problem rocking as hard as the band. Plus, as the blogger at Seven 45rpm pointed out, there are some very interesting lyrics in this song, and we can pretty safely conclude that Usha, herself, wrote them.

Just as Usha Iyer was no stranger to psychedelic rock, she certainly was no stranger to folk rock and and other music that came out of the 1960s folk revival. The 1972 album Usha Sings Love Story and Other Hits is a testament to that fact. “Where Do I Begin (Love Story)” is actually the least interesting song on the album, but I can only suppose that it was made the title track because the film Love Story was popular at the time. Some much more interesting songs on the album include her rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne” (which is very good – as I expected it would be) and the spiritual number “Sinner Man,” which had been performed previously by Nina Simone, the Seekers, and the Weavers. The one song from this album that really fascinated me was “White Winged Dove,” which is a pure anti-war song originally done by the American folk singer Mark Spoelstra, who, per Wikipedia, had sung right beside Bob Dylan when Dylan first came to New York City. This artist is a little before my time, so when I heard Usha’s version, I had to go to Spoelstra’s version just to hear what the original sounded like (because I was not quite sure if I ever had before). And after I did that, I realized that I don’t like the original nearly as much as I like Usha’s version. Curiously, when I went back to find Usha’s version of this song again, I happened upon a performance that she did of it in 2014. That was surprising, but I don’t see why she wouldn’t do it in 2014, since it was just as relevant then and it is just as relevant now – in the U.S., where Spoelstra wrote it, in the UK, in India, and everywhere else.

Also in the general area of folk-rock and mellow ballads that you might find most easily in the ’60s and ’70s, I wanted to close with this other film song, “Love Is Just Around.” There’s some orchestration in this song, but it is also quite simple and laid back, and very catchy. Out of all the Usha songs that I considered for this post, this song was the one that got stuck in my mind the most. It’s in a different category from the other film songs, because it’s from a Malayalam film, “Chattakari,” from 1974. The music for this film is composed by G. Devarajan, who I understand to be one of the great music composers of Malayalam cinema. The film won a bunch of awards in its day and also was remade in 2012. I definitely like the look of this clip, too, and I’m going to make sure to see this movie some day.

I think that 1974 is the latest point where I want to go with Usha Uthup/Iyer right now. I know that a short time later, she started working with Bappi Lahiri, so there must be plenty of Disco Usha that I will need to catch up with sometime. And I know that there is plenty more that she’s done over the years, and I suspect that she is singing somewhere right now, at the age of 73. But if I wanted to do an adequate summary of Usha Uthup’s incredibly diverse repertoire, I’d probably end up writing a book. So I guess that for now, I’m just going to stick to the part that would be the first chapter – a few of her performances from this early, five-year period that have splendidly and perfectly matched my musical mood of the moment.

Tributes to Bollyviewer (RIP)

I am calling this post “Tributes to Bollyviewer” mostly because I want to recommended two fine tributes to Bollyviewer that appeared on other blogs. The blogs are Conversations over Chai (by Anuradha Warrier) and Dustedoff (by Madhulika Liddle). Both Anu and Madhu apparently became good friends with Bollyviewer both in the blogging world and outside of it. It is therefore fitting that they ended up writing the most moving farewells. I don’t imagine that this post is going to be nearly as moving, but I do feel the need to say a few things . . .

I trust that many people who read this blog have also read a blog by Bollyviewer, whether it was Masala Punch or the earlier Old Is Gold.  To be frank, I also hope that you already know the following news and I am not the one to break it to you: Bollyviewer died on February 12 after a battle with cancer that hardly any of her readers even knew about. Because I had no idea, myself, I was very surprised when I found out a couple of weeks ago and, needless to say, it made me feel very sad.

I never met Bollyviewer in person, but I was acquainted with her in the blogging world for about a dozen years. She last posted a comment to this blog just a year and a month ago, but she had started sending me comments as far back as May of 2008. That was not exactly the time when I started this blog (which was close to a year earlier), but it was pretty soon after I had started to center it on old Indian films. Then by August of 2008, she was posting comments to my blog regularly, often offering helpful suggestions regarding things that I should look for and places where I could find those things (and others) on the Internet. She was definitely one of the bloggers whose comments below my posts contributed to my education about old Hindi films. Plus, I found her blogs to be very informative, engagingly written (they certainly had personality), and often funny, too. (If you look at a bunch of her posts, keep an eye out for the captions below her screen caps. Madhu shows a very amusing example in her post.)

If you read Anu and Madhu’s posts, you’re going to find a few things very similar to what I am saying here. That is because Bollyviewer also made a point to encourage both of them when they were new to blogging about Hindi films. She really went out of her way to make the nicest contributions to our little community of bloggers.  

RIP, Bollyviewer. You are certainly going to be missed.