Ajnabi, Anaari, Beimaan/Bedardi, Jaadugar, Pardesi, Faraway Land etc.

(Note: I understand some SOY regulars are not getting email notification of new posts. You are all requested to register your email in the box at the bottom of the post. You would get a mail for confirmation from “follow.it“. This is not a spam. You would have to simply confirm, and you would start getting the notifications of new posts. However, there are technical difficulties in fixing the feature of getting notifications of new comments. – AK)

After I had written on romancing the major types of balmas, such as anadi balma, pardesi balma, ajnabi balma, bedardi balma and jaadugar balma, I was left with a lurking feeling that there were still many types of balmas which did not fall in any of the above major categories. I had posed a question: In which category would you put the Shakti Kapoor-balma in the film Chaalbaaz (1989)? I don’t have a satisfactory answer. But it suggests we need to have a post on assorted types of balmas who cannot fit in the five major categories.READ THE FULL ARTICLE

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.

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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.

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For quite some time songs like Ajnabi, tum jaane pahchaane se lagte ho, and Kuchh ajanbi se aap hain, kuchh ajanbi se hum have been buzzing like bee in my head for an inexplicable reason. Then an incredible coincidence happened. One day I decided to browse through my books collected over the years that had not been touched, many of which are likely to remain unread. When I randomly opened a page of The Collected Poems of Vikram Seth, I came across this:

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Wishing the readers a very happy 70th Republic Day

As you read this, the pardesis who had gathered at the Pravasi Bhartiya Divas (15th PBD celebrated from 21 to 23 January 2019 at Varanasi, instead of January 9, meant to commemorate Mahatma Gandhi’s return to India from South Africa), would have either returned home, or stayed on to indulge in some religious nostalgia at Prayagraj Kumbh Mela, followed by soaking in the patriotic pride at the Republic Day parade. In the formal function inaugurated by the Prime Minister, these pardesis talked about emerging markets, their ever willingness to contribute to India’s growth, investment opportunities, and rights and privileges of the OCI. In the evening, while enjoying the classical dance and music performance at the banquet in the five-star hotel, they went on a nostalgia trip and romance for their homeland, its music and culture. On the side, many of them would have squeezed in time to meet with their cousins left behind, shower them with gifts, who would proudly display them as trophies to their neighbours, secretly nurturing a jealousy for the pardesi and dreaming that one day they would also go to pardes.

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