welcome to tipsyland

sadhuji

The other morning I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (one time Radio Ceylon!) is still a charming radio station. Its ability to select and present songs of yesteryears every morning with extremely few repetitions speaks volumes for the dedication of the staff. The radio station possesses an excellent collection of songs that are catalogued and preserved to be presented on specific occasions. It is one of the few radio stations that keep track of birthdays and anniversaries of past singers, actors and all those associated with the field of entertainment. Thereby, it helps the audience to relive those lost moments – the start of the day owes a lot to these songs.

The morning I am talking about, it was the turn of drinks and drunks to come centre stage!!

It is an accepted fact of life that drinks, hard drinks that is, make one tipsy.
I first tasted hard drinks in Kanpur. I and a few others were civilian employees among a group of Airmen. When we were assigned a task and it was completed, we used to celebrate by going for a picnic to the nearby Wilson Forest. In this picnic, there used to be one Sergeant Chakravorty, a teetotaler, who would man the drinks counter. Drinks would be a cocktail of XXX Rum, XXX Rum and XXX Rum mixed in a huge barrel. No one kept count of the number of refills and, at the end of the day, young men who were bubbling with energy only a few hours earlier could be seen trudging with difficulty to the vehicle. Some of them would have to be located and bodily lifted into the transport.

When I landed in Maharastra, I was introduced to the mosambi and narangi. The kick they gave was stronger than that of a mule. You would have considerable difficulty in making contact of your feet with the ground beneath your feet and would not know whether you were coming or going. I speak from experience.

However, when it comes to depicting such scenes on the silver screen, our heroes and heroines fail to do justice. Invariably, the heroes hit the bottle to drown their sorrows thereby presenting an opportunity for a song sequence. The heroines, on the other hand would pretend to be drunk just to prove a point. In this context we cannot forget Asha Parekh in ‘Ziddi’ dancing to that beautiful number – ‘raat ki samay, jhume chandrama’. We also had Rekha alongside Farookh Shaikh in ‘bibi ho to aisa’ performing on similar lines. Other heroines like Helen and Bindu were forever imitating drunks and dancing into the hearts of the cine goers via sizzling dance numbers. But, one of the most memorable performances was by the duo Rajesh Khanna and Mumtaz in ‘aap ki kasam’ – the number? Jai Jai Shiva Shankar. An unforgettable rendering of a couple of intoxicated souls – the intoxication was not a result of hard liquor as we know it but of an indigenous version called ‘bhang’.

Among the heroes, Amitabh Bachhan, Dev Anand and Dilip Kumar have impressed with songs like ‘chal mere bhai’, ‘sawaan ki mahine mein’, ‘mujhe duniyawalo sharabi na samjho’…. And, I have lost count of the number of times that legend of a man Keshto Mukherjee enacted the part of a drunk. But, in my opinion, one of the most impressive rendering of a drunk was by Lee Marvin in ‘Cat Ballou’. The way he would draw his pistol and shoot down bottles thrown up in the air, while tottering drunkenly on his feet, just goes to show how good an actor he was. There are very few artistes who can deliver such memorable performances.

Is anyone contemplating remixes of such songs?

other interesting links on india and indian culture:
http://peekayjee28.blogspot.com – destination india
http://peekayjee29.blogspot.com – indian satire
http://peekayjee34.blogspot.com – indian sweets
http://peekayjee35.blogspot.com – festivals of india

SHIMLA

Remembering Radio Ceylon, who can forget the weekly "Binaca Geet Mala", compered by the incomparable Ameen Sayani, for many years???

This was the most popular source of our favourite bollywood songs in the days far before the invasion by satellite television !! The next was "Vividh Bharati", All India Radio !!

Ah ! Those good old days !!!

Thanks sadhuji, for reviving pleasant memories !!!

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Bigzero

yes, those were the days! the beauty of the whole thing was that you didnt have a clue about the picturisation of the song ( of new releases ) and you kept on forming images in your head till you finally manage to see them on screen..

some of those songs i had heard thro the ceylon station in late 70s and early 80s continue to be my favourites.

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sadhuji

i have been a radio ceylon addict ever since the 60s!! both the english service and the one in hindi were and still are unique. you were mesmerised by the lyrics and the tunes - there was so much variety. and - there was no copying (or lifting ) of tunes. originality thrived.

why doesn't someone bring back those days?