A tribute to old Hindi film music. Songs of the 30s through the 60s.
Today everyone has a nephew into software who works on-site in the US or Europe. But there was a time when ‘people like us’ did not travel to foreign lands. Today, there is hardly a film which does not have some song-dance sequence, if not most of the film, shot abroad. Bollywood is an important promoter of tourism to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Switzerland. The main attraction of Mount Titlis is to get yourself photographed with the cardboard cut-out of Shahrukh Khan and Kajol.
In the first part of our Bharat Darshan in songs, we journeyed through small towns for which I have a special liking. But, ‘progress’ means progression from villages to small towns to big cities. If you live in small towns, you are a lesser mortal. There are practical aspects of jobs, infrastructure, access to education, medical facilities and entertainment, which pull people from the hinterland to the big cities. Therefore, Bharat Darshan is not complete unless we cover the Metros too.
Greeting the readers on the 68th Republic Day
When I joined service, an important part of our training was to go on a 30-days’ Bharat Darshan by train. This had been sanctified by Mahatma Gandhi at the inspiration of his mentor and political guru, Gokhale, and romanticised by Richard Attenborough. In between, Abhi Bhattacharya showed kids a jhaanki of Hindustan by train. You can imagine the logistics involved in the exercise – about ten groups of a dozen officers each to be sent from one part of the country to another, stopping for different lengths of time at about eight locations, reservations in connecting trains, board & lodging and asking host organisations to impart orientation training to the group. All these in the days of snail mail and telephone, which was more a decorative piece signifying status rather than an instrument for making calls. The exercise was mindboggling. Come to think of it, all this trouble and expense was avoidable. Our film songs do a very good job of giving a Bharat Darshan. They go not only to the metros, but also to the hinterland, which is where the real India lives. They also give some interesting social and cultural information about the place, not available in any history book or tourist literature.
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Wishing Happy Baisakhi, Happy Indian and Myanmar’s traditional New Year, and Happy Birthday to a legend
When you think of Rangoon you think of Mere piya gaye Rangoon. Naturally this was what was uppermost in my mind when I visited Rangoon and some other places in Burma last December.