Timeless Indian Melodies

(Author: Alex Almeida) In the journey of Hindi cinema, it has produced many vamps like Bindu, Helen, Aruna Irani, Jayshree T, Shoma Anand, Kunika, Navneet Nishaan, Supriya Karnik, Huma Khan, Faryal, Bela Bose , and many more. But the mother of all these vamps is none other than Lalita Pawar . Lalita Pawar started acting at a very young age in the film Raja Harischandra (1928) . And later went on to play leading roles in many films in the '40s. In the year 1942, in the film Jung-E-Azadi , she had to be slapped by her co-star Master Bhagwan . The timing of the shot went wrong, and Bhagwan Dada slapped her so hard that it damaged her eye. The damage was a permanent loss to her, and she had many surgeries to be done as her eye vein was damaged. After three years of treatment, she was left with a defective eye, forcing her to switch to character roles. In the coming years, Lalita Pawar became one of the most established vamps of Hindi and Marathi cinema that people would re

(Author: Alex Almeida) When the film Damini comes to our mind what we remember the most is Sunny Deol and his dialogues.Thou Meenakshi Sheshadri was in title role and Rishi Kapoor as the lead hero. But the film was overshadowed by supporting character was Sunny Deol. After grand success of Ghayal (1990) Sunny Deol became a big star and Rajkumar Santoshi was planning another film with him in lead Ghatak (1996) . But before that he wanted to make Damini and signed Meenakshi Sheshadri and Rishi Kapoor to play the leads. Film revolves around a small town girl Damini who gets married to a rich Shekar and tries to adjust her life. But on the day of Holi she witnesses. Shekar’s younger brother and his friends raping their maid and testifies against them against wishes of her family. The powerful connections of family lead her to asylum. After escaping she meets a drunkard lawyer Govind who has quit his practice. RajKumar Santoshi didn’t want to cast Sunny in this supporting

(Author: Alex Almeida) Maine Pyar Kiya one of the biggest hits of the 80s decade which released alongside two big films Aag Ka Gola and Jurrat on 29th December 1989 both having bankable stars’ both the films flopped and Maine Pyar Kiya emerged out to be a winner. The film also launched careers of many from Salman Khan, Bhageshree, Mohnish Bahl, Reema Lagoo, Aloknath, Rajiv Verma and Laxmikanth Berde. Laxmikanth Berde was a superstar in Marathi cinema when he signed his debut film Maine Pyar Kiya Salman Khan was playing his first lead role apart from his extended cameo in debut film Biwi Ho Toh Aisi (1988) . Laxmikanth Berde noticed on the sets that Salman Khan is avoiding him completely and does not talk to him. The day they had a scene together he went to Salman Khan and asked him why are you avoiding me and told him that if we don’t talk to each other we won’t be able to do the scenes properly. Salman Khan reasoned him by saying that people told me you are a big star

(Author: Alex Almeida) In the 60s our film industry started shooting on foreign location which was a trend started by the Kapoor’s . The earlier films shot abroad were Singapore(1960), Sangam(1964), An Evening In Paris(1967), Night In London(1967), Around The World(1967), Spy In Rome(1968) and many more. Love In Tokyo one of the biggest hit of the 60s was another film shot at foreign location where people for the first time witnessed the metro railways and the Japanese culture.  When director Pramod Chakraborthy left for Tokyo with his unit, all the songs of the film were recorded except for the title song Love In Tokyo as Mohammed Rafi was out of the country. Pramod Chakraborthy left for Tokyo with an intention that the title song would be recorded by Mohammed Rafi when he is back and the tape would be sent to Tokyo. He began shooting at his location by taking some aerial shots from helicopter but there was still not update of Rafi returning to Mumbai. Pramod Chakrabor

(Author: Alex Almeida) The weekend was just beginning and early morning while still on my bed got a WhatsApp message which was very tragic and shocking to me and many others who got the news which said that Marathi superstar  Ravindra Mahajani  found dead in his apartment. The name needed no introduction to the Marathi audiences while die hard lovers of Hindi cinema will still remember him for acting in few Hindi films. What the audiences most remembered about Ravindra Mahajani rather than being a superstar is his personality as he was considered as the most and only handsome hero of Marathi cinema till date. He was often referred as Vinod Khanna of Marathi films due to his resemblance with him.While his competitor  Ashok Saraf  also mentioned that he was one of the most handsome heroes ever produced by Marathi industry. Ravindra Mahajani was born on 7th October 1949 in  Belgaum  in  Karnataka . He had the charming personality of being a hero and hence decided to try his luck in films

(Author: Alex Almeida) The favorite season of India and most of Mumbaikar’s is back the lovely monsoon.The time when season arrives it’s a common thing for people to share a post on the classic song Rim jihm gire saawan . The hit song from the film Manzil (1979) where we see a younger Amitabh Bachchan wearing a suit and beautiful Moushmi Chatterjee in chiffon saree enjoying the rains of the city at different locations in background of the song. The making of the song has lot of interesting stories to tell. It was not the artificial rain as usually used in film shoots but was actually pouring in Mumbai when the song was shot and both the lead actors were totally drenched. Amitabh Bachchan being taller than Mosuhmi Chatterjee had to match the steps while walking on the streets in the rain while he had to take smaller steps to match with his costar. But sometimes it would happen that Moushmi Chatterjee would feel she is left behind and would go further and camera would fol