Mera Pyaar, Shalimar...

Shalimar was a movie about theft of a diamond by that name from an island. The movie had an international cast led by Dharmendra and Zeenat. Its Indian flavour resulted in a song like Hum Bewafa, which, with its emotional appeal and a melody based composition, became an instant classic and has remained so ever. 

However, in the bargain, and specially since the movie did not do well, it also overshadowed movie's background score as well as its theme song, which unfortunately icould get hardly a minute. 

However, this was a composition which, IMHO, was a true representative of what RD was capable of creating. Starting with guitar riffs - perhaps to create the effect of waves reaching the shore of the island, a very subtle pause that marks each stanza, Asha's voice reaching a crescendo before dropping down and then extending each of the stanza to the main song, use of essentially only guitar, bass & violin, and yet making it haunting - as a theme song ideally should be.

Listen to this over here, and if possible, use the earphones to get its real impact:

Hum Bewafa, Hargiz Na The...

This is about one of the most underrated performers of Indian screen who turned 78 today.

A gentle person who could create the persona of a macho man - and bared his torso much before it became fashionable. A person who could not dance to save his life, yet you find his signature dance steps being aped vigourously by everyone. An actor who was as much at ease in a serious role as much in a comedy. An actor who despite delivering some of the biggest hits of Hindi cinema and a lot many stellar performances never got any award. 

Dharmendra - the guy who has always wore his heart on his sleeve.

RD did a number of movies which had Dharmendra as main lead, including those mega hits like Seeta Aur Geeta, Sholay & Yaadon ki Baraat. The song which I would like to showcase here on his birthday, is however from a movie which was one of the pioneers in international collaborations. Though it did not succeed as phenomenally as it should have, the background score created by RD, in 1978, was of the international standard. Of course, the songs also had a distinct RD impact- specially this one - a soulful number that RD, Anand Bakshi & Kishore Kumar created and turned into a timeless classic.