Train to Pakistan 2004 - Broad Ways

veeresh #136
I have seen Bandini broadcast on Zee Cinema more than once. The last scenes were the most memorable in the whole movie, don`t you think? Even Dharmendra would not deny that.

btw, hope your next article is coming soon.

mannyd 134/135 . . . wow, a weekend with Dharmendra? What do you do and from where, is one may ask, that you manage such a weekend?

Yes, Bandhini was the kind of movie which makes you think even decades later. I do recall discussion and debate on the same subject, who should Nutan have gone with at the end of the movie . . . but then, this was early `60s, right, so maybe Dharmendra as the younger lover would have not been acceptable in a commercial film?

A debate on Bandhini in the open media, if you could contact Dharmendra and get him to catalyse it, in this day and age . . . the songs alone would bring the movie back mainstream, I think. I wonder who has the rights for them now? Never seen the movie on television.

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Raghu is our son, he travelled with me to Pakistan as part of a promise . . . I covered that in the first chapter. Thank you for reading what I write, makes my day.

mannyd #134
Very interesting! It is hard to believe sometimes that Dharmendra ever acted as a shareef sober type :).

Sadna, Nooralain, Rahul..

Interesting discussion about Dharmaendra`s films. I have seen none of his films except Bandini, Seeta Aur Gita and Sholay. Now that I have some more names. I`ll go rent them.

Recently my wife and I spent a weekend with Dharmandra and His first wife. He is a master entertainer with a great eye for timing. AFter all these decades, he was still talking most about Bandini. Apparently thers was a discussion between the writer and director if Nutan should go with him or Ashok Kumar in the end. Dharamendra happened to eaves drop on the conversation and was incensed to hear the writer win. It was hilarious to hear his emotions in Punjabi.

``If there is one sentiment I believe in, then that is this - India and Pakistan can, as separate countries but with motive forces together, rule the world. ``

I share your sentiment Veeresh, but I am afraid that is what it will remain for the foreseeable future. If you throw in Bengladesh, Burma, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan along with India and Pakistan, the whole amalgumate will still have a hard time keeping up with China in the next century.

There comes a time in the affairs of nations....We just failed to catch the tide.

By the way who is Raghuvir?

oh good the editors finally woke up

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i could talk about movies forever. . . .

mittarji:

i agree with you about bandini and saheb, bibi aur ghulam! :)

veeresh #130: :))

nb/129 - hunh? If Jemina is with Hugh, then you are with who? And Hugh left who, and now Imran is with who?

jang/127 - that was my line. tahmed is busy propping up lesbians or something like that on FV board.

Apropos of nothing whatsoever, but goss nevertheless, Veeresh, is that Jemima is a free woman. You first brought this matter to our attention, so.....

``I like it when interacts at chowk move into information exchanges between people who would otherwise launch into pissing competitions. ``

is that you tahmed? i rather think that an information exchange and a tasteful pissing match are not mutually exclusive.

dharmendra is a hoot in award shows where he shows-up drunk (in a nice way) and talks about how he stitched a new suit in anticipation every year but was never called for the film-fair award. his fight with a tiger in Aankhen (?) was cutting-edge then.

sadna #123 it is the one.and it was somewhere in between that he developed his unique swagger like dance style which is so easy to fall back on when you are drunk and have to dance..like in baraats..
veeresh #124 glad you did not mind..but i hoped u would have said ``et tu dost-mittar??`` :-)
and when you are talking about idealist era and Bandini, you are talking about Bimal Roy more than anyone else.And Nutan.And ``Sujata``, which I like more than Bandini, because of its strong idealistic overtones and I think the best performance ever by Nutan.
nooralain#125 sunny wooden?nahi yaar.you have to go thru his rahul rawail n rajkumar santoshi association(Arjun,Dacait,Ghayal etc.) to realize how much angst he carries under that seemingly wooden exterior.

noorie:
Bandini came at the same time as Guru Dutt`s films. I wouldn`t be surprised if Bimal Roy was one of those bengali film makers from whom GD drew his inspiration. As you probably know, he was a Maharashtrian who assumed a Bengali name, took a bengali wife (Geeta Roy), used SD Burman, etc. As you probably know, I consider Bandini and GD`s Saheb Bibi Ghulam as two of the best, if not the best, B&W films; better than the much touted Mughal-e-Azam and Mother India (colour). And it also had Nutan at her best!

veeresh,

i`ve seen bandini, just recently thanks to the technology of badly recorded videos, and i thought it was an excellent movie. depending on when it was made though, my parents may have been beyond their teens. :) and i would definitely recommend it as well.
`the idealist era`. . this would have preceded the era of guru dutt films would it not? guru dutt movies to me have always been about shattering the ideal.

i don`t know how big a fan following dharmendra has in pakistan. when indian movies were reintroduced to pakistan in our homes via television and vcr`s in the early to mid 70`s, i was between the older generation that admired dilip kumar, raj kapoor and dev anand, and my own which couldn`t quite decide between shashi kapoor, rajesh khanna and the emerging bachchan. never heard much about dharmendra. as a teenager, i, myself, was a huge khanna fan. i suspect that there may have been those who watched the pre-sholay dharmendra in movies like `naya zamana` and `aankhen` and `dost` (i don`t recall seeing anumpama on television), but that he didn`t become very popular until after sholay.

and i haven`t been too impressed with sunny. the few movies i`ve seen him in, he seemed quite wooden as an actor.

I think Dharmendra the actor has always been a class act. His early movies, Bandini and Phool aur Pathar are highly recommended here to a generation of interactors whose parents were probably born or may have been pre-teens, around the time these movies hit the screen. This would be best called the ``idealist`` era. The music from Bandini, my personal b&w favourite classic, is still fresh today.

Subsequently he moved into action and/or comedy which is also something I like.

Now he is an elected MP, from Bikaner, and reports on his campaign style suggest that he has not lost his touch.

To answer rahul/120, I like it when interacts at chowk move into information exchanges between people who would otherwise launch into pissing competitions.

Does Dharmedra have a big fan following in Pakistan? I am told his son, Sunny Deol, does.

OK, I haven`t seen Satyakam, I will. I suspect the character played by Dharmendra dies in the end? Then there was Aankhen with Mala Sinha singing `milti hai zindagi main mohabbat..` And how about Blackmail? And that song with Rekha in another movie `arey rafta rafta dekho aankh meri laDi hai`. He was best when he wasn`t only yelling in a torn shirt, but showing some soulful restraint as well :).

Good to know there was a connection in this somewhere with Veeresh :).

#105 by kaurasach on June 21, 2004 9:34am PT

[Just a thought, are Rekha and Sri Devi beautiful without the make up and lights?]

Its not about makeup, color, or lights, or we wouldn`t have Kajol, Bipasha Basu, and Sheetal Mallar rule our imaginations. Ever heard of the word `dusky beauty`?