Monday, August 28, 2006

ayese bhee baate hotee hain....

'dil kee tasalli ke liye, zoothhee chamak zoothhaa nikhaar
jeewan to sunaa hee rahaa, sab samaze aayee hain bahaar
kaliyon se koee poochhe to, hasatee hain yaa ke rotee hain
ayese bhee baate hotee hain.. ..'


lines from my favorite song from Anupama (one of my all time favorite movies).I don't know why I had carried this DVD with me and whether it was a strange coincidence that I was watching it last night and today's news announces that Hrishida is no more with us.

I suddenly travel back in time when we used to sing 'Humko man ki Sakhti dena' in school. I never realized that it was from the movie Guddi until I watched it one Saturday evening on Doordarshan. I immensely liked it - not because I was also a school girl that time and was nursing a crush on some film hero (no,no I had completely skipped that phase in life) but because I used to love Kusum's babhi who seemed to mouth the same dialogues as my mom and other neighborhood aunties. At 12, I never really bothered about who the director was. It was while watching ‘Bawarchi’ that mom mentioned to me that this was directed by Hrishikesh Mukerjee. Many more Saturday movie watching followed - sitting in our old sofa with Mom and sis in tow – where I savored the initial dose of Hrishida’s movies –Anand, Mili, Abhimaan, Chupke Chupke, Golmaal and Khoobsurat .

While 'Chupke Chupke' and 'Golmaal' take the cake for the best comedies ever portrayed on the Indian cinema, the wonderful portrayal of the fine nuances of the human emotions like in 'Anupama' and 'Mili' are definite examples of this great filmmaker.
It is amazing that one man could portray a gamut of different emotions without including any sort of fights or the then popular Helen numbers.

Couple of years back I made a conscious effort to watch them all once again and this time I noticed those finer details which I had missed earlier. The character of Amitab in 'Mili' is more complex than the Sekhar of ‘Abhimaan’ , the demure Renuji of ‘Anand’ was the same actress who played babhi in ‘Guddi’ , the Sharmila Tagore of ‘Anupama’ was so different from the one in ‘Aradhana’ and so on…

Ah, and don’t get me started on those wonderful songs -
‘Na ji ya lage na’ from 'Anand', ‘badi sooni sooni hai’ from 'Mili' and ofcourse ‘Kuch Dil Ne Kaha’ from 'Anupama' , which seemed such an integral part of his movies.

Agreed that liberalization/globalization in India has brought designer labels and the 'Inside-Outside' type of houses but still there a million houses similar to the ones portrayed in Hrishida’s movies and of course a lot of babhis out there waiting to be portrayed – why don’t movie directors of today take the hint ??

15 comments:

Shruthi said...

Wow... what lovely songs his movies had.... good writeup, Swathi!

Deepak said...

nice post!
ah! to get back those days when songs didn't jar and actually added to the story

anumita said...

Two jewels lost one after the other. Bishmillah Khan and now Hrishikesh Mukherjee.

Trevor Penn said...

Anand is my all time favorite movie and Golmaal my favorite comedy of all times...

The best thing about his movies was that they were never piece meal... The characters, the actors, the music and the story gelled like in none other...

Crouching Tigress said...

Sigh. I know.

Anonymous said...

nice write up mate..

Bindu said...

After reading your post I went and checked IMDB. Hrishikesh has a wonderful list of movies on his name! Big hits like Gol Mal, Anand etc. I am kind of ashamed I never heard his name until now

RT said...

Kuch dil ne kaha is one of my favorite songs too.
And Golmaal is my most favorite movies of all time.
So are Anuradha, Satyakam, Alaap and Namak Haraam.
I never was biased about dvd's I possess, but it surely appears most of them are actaully Hrishikesh Mukherji's.

Swathi Sambhani aka Chimera said...

@shruthi
I know, the other gud one from this movie is 'dheere dheere machal..'

@deppe
like that 'kahin door jab din dal jaaye' where we feel that Anand is mourning his lost love but we actually dont know about her...

@anumita
**sigh***

@seashells
n they evoke the same emotions how many ever times we watch them (whether it is laughter or tears..)

@tigress
wish we had atleast one director like him,now

@zombiee
long time no see ...
much thanx

@bindu
so now u know which movies of Hrishida u need to pick up

@rt
'kuch dil ne kaha' is a beautiful recital of some exquisite lines of poetry...

FlyingHigh said...

Chupke chupke and golmaal are my all time fav movies, my parents had taped them on cassetes and we watched it all the time. I think its time to buy dvds now, those video cassetes look like they are a century old! Nice post :)

Anonymous said...

Read this article too-in case u havnt read it -
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1971176.cms
i guess it was about those times when world wasnt this competitive .. donno.. btw u write good - n i do sneak in to read ur blog :))!

Anonymous said...

well it was:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1971176.cms
-1971176.cms

Swathi Sambhani aka Chimera said...

@Shradha
u'd be surprised that the VHS tapes (that India has stopped selling long back) are still on in the US.


@anon
thanks for the pointer, guess i have read more than a dozen of these Hrishida writeups.

White Magpie said...

'mili' is still on top of the list. Even ahead of Anand. He was someone different. Finger on the pulse absolutely. You write very well. Can be a fallback to consulting someday.

Swathi Sambhani aka Chimera said...

@whitemagpie
yes, there r times I like Mili much more than Anand(well, sometimes only i think.)