So many films of his are a part of that collective memory shared by a family.
If my family remembers "Gol Maal" with great fondness, it's partly because that summer, our inseparable unit of four was changing form. It was the year my sister was going away to college. We sat on a dusty ground that hot night in May and watched the film under a starlit sky. All of us knew just how terrible it would be to not have sister around the house. But for those 3 hours, Ram Prasad Dashrath Prasad Sharma had the family in splits and it is that memory I'll always carry in my head.
The bio note in IMDB gets it exactly right when it says
"His magic lay not in the glamor or largeness so often associated with cinema, but in its simplicity and warmth."Here's the video of that song from Gol Maal, undoubtedly one of the finest Hindi lyrics from "new" Indian cinema. (Link to Youtube)
Neha remembers this song for different reasons and calls Gulzar, the songwriter, "halwa for the soul".
5 comments:
Hmm, lovely song. And, a nice post.
He made some really nice films, which were all short on glamour and in which, maybe, the technique wasn't so great either. But, those films worked so well and in a way that modern films just don't. Especially loved his Chupke Chupke...can't even remember how many times I've seen it.
Liked Mili too, and the theme of Abhiman.
Well, some of his films would even be considered maudlin today, but no one could make an Abhiman or Anupama today (the latter came as a real surprise when I saw it a couple of years ago - Dharamji could really act in Hrishikesh film. As could AB.)
His comedies will definitely last longer. Golmaal and Chupke Chupke must be two of the most beloved screen comedies of all time.
Alok: I agree. But I wonder if that "social drama" genre has just died out everywhere?
Wow! Thanks for that cool link! Golmaal is definitely one of my all time favourite movies. I simply LOVE that song!
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