A tribute to old Hindi film music. Songs of the 30s through the 60s.

Miscellaneous

‘Mere piya gaye Rangoon’ and some more Indo-Burmese links

April 14, 2013

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.

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Romancing the dunce or ‘Mahamoorkhon Ke Gaane’

March 27, 2013

In an interesting Holi tradition in many parts of North India, important personalities of the town get together to play the fool, and vie with each other to get the coveted best fool awards. The next day’s papers carry colourful reports of these proceedings with profile of the winners of Mahamoorkh or Moorkhshiromani awards.

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A novice’s romance with Raga Durga

October 21, 2012

Remembering Durga, Sangeet Mahakumbh at Patna and Pandit Kumar Gandharva There are great romantic lovers like Dev Anand renowned for their ways with women. And there are illiterate, bumbling ones no less endearing like Raj Kapoor with Padmini in Jis Desh Mein Ganga Bahti Hai – so has been my romance with Raga Durga for […]

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Songs of Yore completes two years

June 7, 2012

Today Songs of Yore completes two years. While the first year was somewhat tentative and kind of groping its way around, it has become surer of its steps in the second year. I have generally maintained a frequency of a post every two weeks. SoY has also become more interactive. The readers’ comments, views and […]

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Some perspectives on Jhumka gira re

March 8, 2012

Every married man encounters this experience quite often – you are all dressed up to go to a wedding, you go out to take out your car. The dear wife should have by then locked the house and come to the driveway. But you wait and wait, yet there is no sign of her. You […]

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Dilip Kumar’s many voices

December 12, 2011

My tribute on his birthday December 11 I had no plans of doing this post as it is not even a week since I did my last one. I need about two weeks to organise my thoughts and squeeze bits of time to write a piece. Secondly, my focus is on songs, their themes, singers […]

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My favourite zulf songs

July 9, 2011

A common popular theme on the blog land is to put up a variety of favourite lists, such as ‘My ten favourite ??? songs’. This could be on a person (Mukesh, Naushad, Dev Anand etc) or a theme (birthday, holi, wedding etc.) or an object (train, rain, tonga etc.) Some creative bloggers have come up […]

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Songs of Yore completes one year

June 7, 2011

Today Songs of Yore completes one year, and like any new born in its first year, it has looked at the beautiful world of old Hindi film music with wonder and amazement, flitting its gaze from one beautiful sight to another spontaneously and randomly. My articles so far have been on themes which were […]

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New Theatres’ romance with Prem

May 29, 2011

Best love songs of Vintage Era I have been in the New Theatres mood since I wrote my last post on Pankaj Mullick. BN Sircar established New Theatres in Calcutta in 1931, i.e. the same year the first talkie Alam Ara was released in Bombay. Music has been an integral part and a defining feature […]

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The World Cup mania: A song to cricket

April 1, 2011

‘She’ ne khela ‘he’ se aaj cricket match When the entire country is caught in the frenzy of the One-day Cricket World Cup, I get to hear today a fun song on cricket from the film Love Marriage (1959). It is surprising I had not heard this song before. Had Vividh Bharti kept it on […]

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