Song 88:
Intend to be more consistent this New Year's in my writing. Which also means all forms of writing. This was a blog I fondly nurtured for most of last year, spurred by a feverish energy and pace. I want to at least complete a 100 songs, a round figure of some sort and see it mature and mellow, picking it off and on. So while we were at Asha Lata and Usha sisterly team songs, here's one by Asha and Lata that is quite timeless. Two of the most gorgeous faces, the very epitome of Indian beauty grace it on-screen too-Rekha and Anuradha Patel(where the hell did she disappear and why?)
The song from 'Utsav' harks back to a bygone era when supposedly this land was much more liberal and liberated in many ways. The story based on a 5th century BC Sanskrit play called Mrichchakatikam (The Little Clay Cart) has the royal courtesan Rekha have an incidental interlude with a commoner and this song apparently shows how she befriends the commoner's wife Anuradha and gives her a few tips on the fine art of keeping men hooked on, well-versed as she is in all the rasas or elixirs of life. There is no jealousy between them even though they are fascinated briefly by the same man, only a joyous sharing and treating relationships as a skill and an art and expanding the horizons of knowledge for mutual pleasure.
Kudos to Shashi Kapoor for having explored so much as a producer in terms of themes and genres. His films may not have all been commercial successes but certainly left many incisive and memorable movie experiences that went off the beaten path and thus were magical in their unique allure.
The casting here too is perfect, the costumes divine and authentic and the song almost hypnotic on a sleepless night as this! I think I am just freaking out being the truant late nighter in my parent's home trying to re-live those times as a teenager when a curfew to sleep on time invariably meant come midnight and you had everything else but sleep on your mind!;-)
Intend to be more consistent this New Year's in my writing. Which also means all forms of writing. This was a blog I fondly nurtured for most of last year, spurred by a feverish energy and pace. I want to at least complete a 100 songs, a round figure of some sort and see it mature and mellow, picking it off and on. So while we were at Asha Lata and Usha sisterly team songs, here's one by Asha and Lata that is quite timeless. Two of the most gorgeous faces, the very epitome of Indian beauty grace it on-screen too-Rekha and Anuradha Patel(where the hell did she disappear and why?)
The song from 'Utsav' harks back to a bygone era when supposedly this land was much more liberal and liberated in many ways. The story based on a 5th century BC Sanskrit play called Mrichchakatikam (The Little Clay Cart) has the royal courtesan Rekha have an incidental interlude with a commoner and this song apparently shows how she befriends the commoner's wife Anuradha and gives her a few tips on the fine art of keeping men hooked on, well-versed as she is in all the rasas or elixirs of life. There is no jealousy between them even though they are fascinated briefly by the same man, only a joyous sharing and treating relationships as a skill and an art and expanding the horizons of knowledge for mutual pleasure.
Kudos to Shashi Kapoor for having explored so much as a producer in terms of themes and genres. His films may not have all been commercial successes but certainly left many incisive and memorable movie experiences that went off the beaten path and thus were magical in their unique allure.
The casting here too is perfect, the costumes divine and authentic and the song almost hypnotic on a sleepless night as this! I think I am just freaking out being the truant late nighter in my parent's home trying to re-live those times as a teenager when a curfew to sleep on time invariably meant come midnight and you had everything else but sleep on your mind!;-)
If you want to just listen to the melodious song uninterrupted:
