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Bollywood in black and white
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“Black and White — The golden era of Hindi cinema” was a walk down musical lane
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Photo: R. Shivaji Rao
Into the golden era At the show
A celebration of Bollywood before it was called Bollywood; a nostalgic look back at the immortal stars and music of the silver screen before it became rangeen. “Black and white — The golden era of Hindi cinema”, r
ecently held at the Music Academy, was a show for and by old Hindi film lovers, and was a treat for anyone who adores the music of that era.
Presented by Backstage, the show ran for over three hours but the audience stayed put right through (till 10:30 p.m.), enjoying the journey through the annals of Hindi cinema —from the first talkie film to the first colour Hindi film, from the Ashok Kumar to the Raj Kapoor era.
Narrated by Rahul Solapurkar, the presentation was peppered with numerous anecdotes and reminiscences that made for entertaining listening, such as Kishore Kumar’s antics on the sets or while recording and how poet Shailendra came to write songs for Raj Kapoor films.
But, just as with Hindi movies themselves, this show — with sets, costumes etc. entirely in black and white — was mostly about music. Accompanied by video clips of the songs playing in the background, four singers did an admirable job of recreating the magic of the legendary singers.
The two singers, Vibhavari Apte-Joshi and Swarada Gokhale, were especially good, with sweet voices that made one wonder at some points if Lata Mangeshkar or Asha Bhonsle themselves were singing. It was not an easy job these singers had — first, these classics are etched in the minds of the listeners (you could see audience members singing along under their breath) and secondly, they had to sing with pre-recorded tracks that frequently let them down by stopping in-between. Plus, they had to wear clothes similar to the stars and prance around the stage a bit.
But it was clear that they knew the songs well — not a sheet in sight. The men, Hrishikesh Ranade and Jitendra Abhyankar brought alive the songs of tragedy king Dilip Kumar, evergreen Dev Anand, Guru Dutt and Shammi Kapoor. Towards the end, Rahul’s narration tended to drag and one wished he would pontificate less (“Why do we love cinema?”) and let us hear more music or see more movie clips. But any shortcomings in the show conceived and directed by Milind Oak flew out of one’s mind at the magical ending — the moment of colour coming to our screens was symbolised by the black and white picturisation of “Jab pyar kiya to darna kya” turning suddenly to colour even as the stage was flooded with colour and light.
DIVYA KUMAR
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