Sunday, February 19, 2017

A small packet of delight and comfort

My love affair with Maggie has almost crossed quarter decade. It was a love hate relationship. I met Maggie when I decided to go vegetarian in a family of fish eaters. No there was no PETAsque agenda in my mind but I was one of the wierdos who just didn't like fish, mother and baby and baaa. Yes, give me anything and I will say sorry.
 This habit of mine has become a problem wherever I went. I ate green veggies where others ate tangadis. Wherever you go out of town, and a stall with meager means to serve you, you are left with one and only option. Eggs, scrambled ( read bhurji) or omelette style with bread. At such times Maggie, hanging along with chips and mini packets of gems came to my rescue. ( real incident happened with me @ Kashid beach, Alibaug).

But I had had so much of Maggie in my growing up years that after a while, especially after I learned to cook, I would cook some kind of one pot meal, even a cheese toast would do along with packeted soup powders than Maggie. For a real long patch, I didn't eat Maggie.

Then one fine day we had gone to Indian store ( a place where you got a lot of Indian stuff at 4 times price but where you went for emergencies like turmeric getting over at home, as a reasonable priced store was quite far off).we had to buy something for the cost to reach a desired limit for us to use our credit card. And a 2$ (Gulp)  Maggie helped us do that .
I came home and cooked it, plain. Just to finish the packet. The first bite and I was hooked. It brought so much . The lazy Sunday afternoon , coming to a cold kitchen , famished not exactly since the time I came was almost time for tea. The making of Maggie, between freshening up. The Alibaug experience where, my better (?) half and I sat at plastic table and slurped, he his hot egg bhurji even and me my Maggie, these a whispering at a distance. As I finished it, my kiddo came for a taste was hooked up as well, so much that next time we got Maggie, he took it and indicated me to cook it.
Comfort food for me has always been bread where I liked even a plain unadorned toast and now I found old mate Maggie. It may not be frequent as it only will loose its allure and due to health scare of contains processed flour, but it's my comfort buddy. Though 2$ for an emanciated packet is difficult to shell out.
 Let me end  with an old jingle ofmaggie that still stays in my head " dekho maggie kare kamaal, peela packet ho  ya laal, bacchon ko jab bhook lage to Maggie Maggie Maggie".

Ps: I come from that era when Maggie came in 3 forms, masala, chicken ( red packet) and capsicum. It has long come to healthier avtar of atta and multigrain noodles. But for me the mantra is still yellow packet.

Have you fallen in love...with a villain???

Lady of leisure never has work and who warms the sofa besides watching reruns of an old superseded film part by part  in two days. The reason being to have something to look forward to.
 She fell in love with one of the actors in the films. Who had a rather unsavory reputation in films ( but a real kind hearted in real life). Big menacing eyes and voice to pair it off with. The more she saw him the more she fell in love with him. She read about home. She saw a lot of his movies and seem to like him more. He acted as final villain but even a small character would be alive with him.
  There was Parichay, Amitabh Bacchan's Don, Bade dilwala , Gaddar, Amar akbar Anthony..etc etc.
The man who could kill you with his eyes, but who could talk through them. Show pain in them. The man was Pran who put " Pran " in characters he played and the lady was me.πŸ˜πŸ˜˜πŸ’•❤️πŸ‘Ί

Ooie ooie

Surely the titles can be fairly misleading if this title is anything to be that. What is ooie ooie you may ask. It's is that something that ate my brain for a real long time after I started abusing Google for freezing my memory before nuggets get away.

I heard a lot of vividhbharti at home. Coming from a family, especially a father who was an old Hindi film music lover, and mother who almost mimicked whole song while making rotis, our home used our second hand radio (my aunt's "gift" (read castaway) rigorously. Not that the television had much to offer anyways besides an occasional chitrahaar.
Our day stared with Marathi bhajans and old Hindi songs, before dada ( my father) left for office. The radio switched off before upcoming film promos and time aai too left for work. Evenings started again with Marathi and then semi old and then a bit old Hindi songs. Later cable entered and ruined this radio beauty.
Honestly I still miss it sometimes. The reason I had to digress so much is that it is through these radio songs that my song guan (read trivial pursuit) started. I am happy ( honestly, embarrassed) that I know and enjoy a lot of black and white movie music along with current 'Sheila ki jawani ' along with trivial details like movie name, who has acted in it and story if I have seen it. And at times status like flop or hit movie.

So about this ooie ooie you may ask. I am coming to it, I am almost these. So in between two music programmes or if one has got over early, a filler used to be added. And no it was not a song. It was instrumental  version of one, till a minute or two got over and was time for next programme was there. It was not that often but yes, I did hear it. There was instrumental of "Hume tumse pyar  hai kitna" from kudrat , "boom boom" from a flop movie star, which had a real emanciated and stone faced "dagad " kumar gaurav  in lead role. The movie incidentally sported songs from hit album "boom boom" by the brother sister duo "Hassan's " aka Nazia and Zoaib Hassan. The title song boom boom, which was later remixed by the musician Biddu, keeping Nazia Hassan's voice sam good and her voice especially a bit haunting.
 I also used to hear a different tune as well sometimes. And once I hummed it to aai, who said there was a song called "ek.. Do...something something". I tried to find the song using same key words and Google very kindly gave me "ek do teen..." (Aargh😐) Google is a reliable search engine and gives bulls eye results most of the times, but what if the search it self is flawed. I tried my memory and remembered it had kumar gaurav in a 70's outfit singing on stage and people dancing. So my next search went to his limited filmography. I read the storylines ( no I didn't like the dagad still.. Lucky star kid though of another hit dagad, Rajendra kumar). I then zeroed on single movie 'Star". I had heard the songs earlier in fast forward mode ( except boom boom which like both old and remixed and music video of remix as well) all the others were too.. Too dunno what to say but I did find Zoaib  Hassan out of tune or was that music?? But couldn't tolerate him ( just like Sharada who sang my favourite song o mere dil from gumnaam, I hear it only for the winery drugging voice of Rafi).some singers who you just can't like.
Now for the ultimate sacrifice, hearing all of Star songs. I did slow fast forward as in, on you tube, I took the scroll slowly to the end. The first in line was " dheere dheere " half the song later I realized that this is not the one. The next in line was something similar. But a few minutes later I heard it" ek do kehne bhi do, teen char ho gaya pyar, main to gaya, jaise bahaaar.. Ooie ooie". That's it. My search finally got over. The reason I couldn't find this song was that this nugget was hidden just before and the song was put as ooie ooie..

Finally a search over. Another one to go. But don't know when I will find it. That song, I just know the music. No actor, actress, film, singer. I just hope the song crosses the path with me some time.

For now " jai Google maharaj"

Sunday, February 5, 2017

A new favourite of an old film: gumnaam

I always prefer old movies to new. Routine to new. Same old to something different. Only two things are exempt from it, one is food in which I am actually a daring vegetarian, ready to try new, unknown veggies, exotic cheeses, different desserts which don't have any mixes of chick, moo, fishy and if they have baby of chick then I don't know of it. The other adventure is music. I tend to like music of any origin, language provided it has good music. I had never heard Luke Bryan but now he is one of my favourites ( and no..his handsomeness has nothing to do with it..his grainy voice does)

Digress..digress..I pref b/w movies if they are nicely made ( mostly they are).  I prefer old comedies..as they were truly best. Which had good plot, classy and timely dialogues and a sense of clean innocence in acting.
Now a days I am preferring suspense also the old style. One such movie is gumnaam which even if I have seen say 10 times in past two weeks, I still have an urge to see it.

Of course I won't say the story. It's easily found on YouTube. The movie I mean if you have not seen it and story on wiki.

There are absolutely so many things things that I have liked in the movie that I see the movie for those aspects. The first is the plot. If you see the movie for the first time, you absolutely have no clue who the killer is. The plot flows seamlessly and very fast. Songs are rightly placed and don't look out of place. There are romantic songs, peppy numbers, jazz number which have been given music by THE Shankar jaikishan duo. And though I am partial to kiss ore kumar, I have started to like mohd Rafi and for right reasons. I couldn't imagine he could actually sing Ajax tune with so much ease as a sexy rainy romantic song. Wow...

Then there are villains. A multitude of them. Who have acted in such a way that they have individually shone but didn't overshadow others.. There is Dhumal, a simpleton villain, absolutely human ( who can forget his small but significant role in wo kaun thi). Then there is my dada'sfavourite real rogue Manmohan, an absolutely villain's right hand. There is to put in dada's words 'Mutton' aka Madan puri, who took   Villainousless to a classy level by playing mind games and making good parties feud. There is Tarun Bose. A wonderful actor in his own right. And lastly there is Pran. My favourite. Devil incarnate.if eyes could kill..his would take you to hell and back. Pure chameleonsque,mocking the overactor Manoj kumar ( who somehow looks good and controlled in this movie). Then there is mehmood and his antics. Pretty and demure Nanda and the femme fatale Helen. I never knew that Helen could act so well without going overboard. She has played her butterfly role so well with carefree abandon. Of staying happy even in grim scenarios. When the villains get killed one by one on a lonely but pretty island..the characters can trust no one. U never know whose turn is next. What becomes spooky besides the ruins of ancient church, pristine beach and rocky landscape with no human contact except the characters themselves is the song which they hear suddenly out of no where..gumnaam hai koi..it startles you surely..

I liked that as compared to modern movies which are full of blood and gore..here except the bodies and coldness shown in the eyes of the dead ( especially Manmohan as Kishan and Magan puri as dr. acharya) is more chilling than absolutely revoulting blood,gore and innards out type. I especially liked the extended scene when Helen's character Kitty is killed. U just say "shit..shit..help her someone".this is the only murder scenes guess that is shown, rest all are just bodies discovered.

Then the is absolutely laugh a riot but a it sinister as well butler aka Mehmood, who has some secrets to hide.
Lastly, the lead couple of pretty Nanda ( who I really liked as one of real pretty actresses) and surprisingly Manoj kumar who looks so cute and lovable at one time and serious and thoughtful at the next instance...the way he puts 2 and 2 together slowly uncovering the mysterious murders...

For me this movie has become like a key to search more such movies...and if not anything..watch this movie a few more times...I don't think so I will be getting tired of this that easily.