Songs on themes

Chorus Songs in the Hindi Films of Yore: Part 2

Meri pyari patang May 14, 2019

Guest article by Shalan Lal (In the first part of her three-part dissertation on chorus songs in the films of yore, Shalan Lal covered the first decade of the 1930s, dominated by three major studios: The New Theatres of Calcutta, Bombay Talkies of Bombay and Prabhat Film Company of Poona.  This was published on 2 […]

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Chorus Songs in the Hindi Films of Yore: Part 1

Kaisa chhaya hai ala ujala rasiya May 2, 2019

Guest article by Shalan Lal (Readers are aware, when Shalan Lal  writes on a topic she writes a research paper as if  for an academic seminar, even if it is for a blog like ‘Songs of Yore’. She does a similar comprehensive work to discuss the chorus songs of the films of yore. This is […]

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Barahmasa in film songs

Barahmasa March 21, 2019

Wishing a very Happy Holi to all the readers When the first monsoon rains quench the thirst of the parched earth, and dry rivulets, water bodies and ponds get filled with water, and green shoots emerge from dry plants and trees, and the farmers rush to the slushy fields for transplantation, it’s a time for […]

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Tujhe chaand ke ‘bahaane’ dekhun ki ‘chhat’ par aa ja goriye

Ude jab jab zulfein teri February 5, 2019

Today’s young generation would scarcely believe the stratagems the lovers in the earlier days had to adopt to set up a rendezvous. ‘Atariya’ was one favourite place going back to the days of Romeo and Juliet. As we have seen earlier, its vantage position at the back of the house made it an appropriate place […]

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Romancing the Pardesi

Ghar aya mera pardesi January 26, 2019

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 […]

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Swing a song of sixpence

Raagmala painting_Raag Hindol January 1, 2019

Swing into the New Year with guest article by Ashwin Bhandarkar (A promise made is a debt unpaid. When Ashwin Bhandarkar wrote his first guest article on 6 May 2017, titled Beena madhur madhur kachhu bol, I had indicated he would be writing more articles for SoY. Here he makes good his promise, and I […]

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Tasveer exhibits of Bollywood

Tasveer March 22, 2018

Guest article by DP Rangan (A lesser mortal, when asked to write on songs on ‘tasveer’, would have made some general observations about pictures, and mentioned some songs which contained the word ‘tasveer’. Not DP Rangan, as we know well by now. Mr Rangan takes us to pre-historic days when mankind would have started making […]

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Parody songs: Part 2

Parody medley March 12, 2018

(I thank Ashok M Vaishnav for very generously sharing his compilation of parody songs with me – AK) In Part 1 of this post I covered the parody songs based on a single song. This seems to have later led to the practice of parodying the mukhada or a short portion of a number of […]

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Parody songs: Part 1

Parody March 2, 2018

Wishing the readers a very Happy Holi (I have been compiling parody songs for a while, when I got a mail from Ashok M Vaishnav that he has also been doing such a list, and whether he could write a guest article for SoY on this. No one does compilation and analysis better than him, […]

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Around the World in Songs

An evening in Paris February 18, 2018

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 […]

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