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

Romancing other miscellaneous balmas

Saat Saheliyan November 20, 2022

(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 […]

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Romancing the Jaadugar Balma

Jaadugar qaatil January 12, 2022

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, […]

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Romancing the Rogue or Songs of Beiman Balma

Bedardi baalma January 1, 2022

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 […]

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Romancing the Stranger

Ajnabi February 19, 2021

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 […]

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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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Romancing the dunce or ‘Mahamoorkhon Ke Gaane’

Songs on dunces 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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