Can’t just get you out of my mind…..

We were in Hakimpet between Dad’s two postings in the warzones: Tezpur in Assam in ’62 & Adampur in ’65. The latter was a war I really saw from up close and in a sense was in the war zone, I saw the enemy planes swooping down in a banshee like high pitched screech in the engulfing darkness of twilight on 5th September 1965. I ran into the house excited and breathless and told my mother that I just saw a couple of planes that weren’t ours. Like all Air Force Brats, I could confidently identify every aircraft of the IAF from a distance or from the ground and tell my friends all about the craft and its comparative capabilities. I ran up to the flat roof that’s a standard in Punjab – the roofs of all the houses in the lane were at the same level with hardly any distance between adjacent ones and we would often run along the length of the lane on rooftops in an exuberant explosion of joyous energy- with my kid sister and saw the enemy bomb a MiG21 and the bowser it was getting refuelled from on the tarmac. A big boom, a flash and a giant pillar of smoke rose from the airstrip. The war had been forced on us that evening.

Before we got into what would evolve into a bloody war which would see my brother go MIA (presumed KIA) we spent the best time of my Air Force years, down south at the Air Force Jet Training Wing (renamed the Fighter Training Wing while we were there) at Hakimpet, close to Bhagyanagar and it’s twin city. I suppose we saw the movie on a weekend visit to one of the twin cities in late 63 or early 64. The way the movies were released those days was quite unlike these days of carpet bombing the entire country with a few thousand digital copies of the movie simultaneously and have some 40 plus shows in a single multiplex in a week (sometimes even more). Those were the days of film reels that would be carried from city to city, it was an act performed with so much thought and almost ceremonial roll out. The metros and the larger cities with the larger markets got to see the movie(s) first and the wave would slowly percolate down the length and breadth of our great -and movie mad- nation. The movie was actually a Hindi reiteration of a Tamizh original, Nenjil or Aalayam, which was a superhit. The same director C V Sridhar decided to remake it in Hindi within a year of the Tamizh original. The big fly in the ointment (flies actually) were the diabolical duo who were so emotively constipated that nothing substantial emerged out of their strenuous efforts. Raj Kumar & Rajendra Kumar were enough to drive any gifted film director up the wall. A very big part of the extreme gut-wrenching pathos that Meena Kumari brought forth in the film was undoubtedly due to her realising the hopeless situation being pitted against the most fallow grounds emotively speaking. Little wonder she sheds tears by the tanker. https://youtu.be/cJQvxIXWrqQ

The musical score was by one of the most gifted and productive musical duos in Bollywood: Shankar-Jaikishan. Shailendra wrote the lyrics for this song. Rafisaab, the most versatile singer of the time, (and indeed of all time) brings in a depth of emotion into his voice that neither actor could ever have done justice to. And Jubilee Kumar doesn’t disappoint at all. I am well and truly impressed by his clean shaven looks late into the night without the slightest suggestion of a stubble, our man could well be posing in a Gillette razor ad for all you know. Or is it the dreaded T failure, I wonder. Have a look, I can’t honestly figure out which one. But as an amateur photographer, I am well and truly impressed by the wonderful monochrome photography, which to me needs far greater skills, and has a unique beauty and reveals more details. https://youtu.be/CYodWERGaro

Stay safe, folks. The winter has played AWOL, probably hopped over to Qatar to watch the world cup. Enjoy the unseasonal warmth for a change as the heat and dust of elections in two states and one municipality settles down.

Advertisement