By now the regular readers of the SOY can easily answer if Amitabh Bachchan were to ask on KBC, बलमा के कितने प्रमुख प्रकार हैं? It is sad that this season of KBC has come to an end; if it is revived, he might some day ask this question! We have met with anaari, pardesi, ajanabi, and beimaan balmas. It is difficult to make an exhaustive list of the several types of ‘balmas’ found in our films – in which category would you put the ‘Balma’ Shakti Kapoor in Chaalbaaz (1989)?. But there is one major category, Jaadugar Balma/Baalma, which was quite ubiquitous in our films once, and quite distinct from the other forms covered on SOY. These categories are not watertight compartments. There are shades of meaning and the context which may overlap in more than one category. In my last post on the ‘Beimaan baalma’, many readers posted songs which were closer to ‘Jaadugar baalma’, and I had to be careful not to let out this planned post.
Year: 2022
Romancing the Rogue or Songs of Beiman Balma
Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year
Readers would recall that one favourite of our film heroines was the Dunce, who went by various names such as anari balma, naadan balma, bhole balam etc. Raj Kapoor was the leading light of the type, followed by Bharat Bhushan. They were clueless about the girls, which was a part of their charm. The girls would patiently woo them and teach them about the birds and bees. They would sing songs which we have seen in Romancing the Dunce.