Seemingly Senseless Start to a Sunday

This is a genre that has existed in Bollywood for nearly a century. The need to inject the narrative with a stiff dose of humour does arise periodically and one of the frequent mechanisms resorted to by the director is to bring in a comic situation or song. Sometimes the lead actor/actress does that, but often the comic actor/actress does that job.

We were walking down the country roads yesterday and went past a group of buffaloes returning to their stable after a good dunking in the pond that serves as a reservoir for the mountain stream that follows down for about 8 months a year. Buffaloes love to soak in the water at the end of the day, cleansing their hide of the mud caked on it through the day before retiring for the night. Choco the Beagle we are currently fostering, feels it is his bounden duty to object to every being and vehicle that’s passing by barring his family group. He has this huge sense of entitlement that makes him believe (much like the Europeans of the middle ages claiming new worlds in the name of their sovereign and Jesus) that he can make an ownership claim to anyplace just by walking on it and everything/everyone else passing by on that is just committing trespass. Watching him barking his head off at the buffaloes, and trying to rein him in , I was reminded of this song.

The movie is called Pagla Kahin Ka and has Shammi Kapoor and Asha Parekh in the lead. With music by Shankar Jaikishan, this madcap song has lyrics by Hasrat Jaipuri. You’ll find some old SJ tunes in the interludes. https://youtu.be/VyRpZjW65Yo

This song has an unbelievable energetic performance from none other than Shammi Kapoor, which frankly only he could do in his generation.

The movie is about a guy -Shammi – who ends up in a mental asylum for no other fault but his desire for love and friendship. The combination of actors including Prem Chopra, Aasha Parekh, Helen, and of course Shammi Kapoor is a good team in it’s own way.

I have always wondered why most of these funny songs of the era came Manna Dey’s way. For a person of his oeuvre and diverse vocal range, it is amazing he could do so many funny ( & even nonsensical ) songs in his career. I mean amongst the male singers he has the Lion’s share of these songs, for no apparent reason. Some of them are in the Hindustani Classical Music mould, but filmed on Mehmood, the King of Comedy. Some of these even have very old bandishes that are sometimes really centuries old.

Here’s to a Sunday full of fun, of carefree thinking, of not being bound down by rules, norms and conventions. Have fun, folks, stay healthy and happy