SP Balasubramanyam - Pencil drawing

Birthday greetings to great playback singer SP Balasubramanyam. Here is my pencil drawing.

Jalte hain Jikske liye - Sujata - Hindi movie

Sunil Dutt in Sujata - 1959 - This film told an amazing story about a girl and her role in a family viz a viz the caste she was born in & the treatment by director Bimal Roy , is something that keeps the viewer hooked till the end.Bimal Roy had a knack for casting the best suited actors for roles in his films and extracting strong performances out of them. No one else could’ve played Sunil Dutt and Nutan’s parts in the movie in the way that they did. The song Jalte Hai Jiske Liye in this film was composed by S D Burman & written by Majrooh Suultanpuri . It is picturised on Sunil Dutt and Nutan, where he rings up to her and sings this song on phone with all the love on his countenance , while she is is in agony trying to fight his love...

Kanan Devi - 100th Birth Anniversary

100th B.A. of Kanan Devi (22 April 1916 – 17 July 1992) actress and singer. She was among the early singing stars of Indian cinema, and is credited popularly as the first star of Bengali cinema. Her singing style, usually in rapid tempo, was used instrumentally in some of the biggest hits of New Theatres, Kolkata.The films of New Theatres owned by Biren Sircar established her as a superhit singer and her films ran to packed audiences. She had to travel under constant protection given her huge fan following. During her years with New Theatres, Calcutta from 1937, she played the lead in Barua's Mukti (1937), which was perhaps her finest performance, making her the studio's top star. Apart from Mukti, she did Vidyapati, Saathi (1938), Street Singer (1938), Sapera (1939), Jawani Ki Reet (1939), Parajay (1939), Abhinetri (1940), Lagan (1941), Parichay (1941) and Jawab (1942).Kanan Devi's last Hindi film was Chandrashekhar (1948) with Ashok Kumar.Kanan married Ashok Maitra in December 1940. He was the son of the staunch Brahmo Samaj educationist Heramba Chandra Maitra. Despite their best intentions, the marriage could not withstand the severe condemnation by the then conservative society. Even the poet Rabindra Nath Tagore who sent a token gift to the married couple received scathing criticism for blessing the couple. The main issue was Kanan was not expected to be working in films after her marriage. She filed for divorce in 1945. Despite the pain of the divorce, Kanan expressed her immense gratitude towards her first husband for giving her social recognition through marriage for the first time in her life. To Kanan's credit she maintained excellent relations with Rani Mahanalobis, sister to Ashok Maitra and her husband the famous social scientist P.C. Mahanalobis and with Kusumkumari Devi, Ashok Maitra's mother, even after the marriage was severed.Kanan married Haridas Bhattacharjee around 1949. Haridas Bhattacharjee was then ADC to the Governor of Bengal. He eventually left the naval service to join Kanan in her filmmaking venture and became a competent director.Kanan Devi, as the first lady of the Bengali screen, received many honours for her contribution to Indian cinema. An honorary degree from Vishwabharati, the Padma Shree in 1968 and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1976.

Movie shooting - 1961

 1961 - Shooting of A Movie at Bombay Studios in Bombay.

Shakti Samanta - A tribute

Today is the birth anniversary of Shakti Samanta who left for his heavenly abode on 9th April 2009 leaving behind great films to remember. My tribute to this great personality.

Shakti Samanta (13 January 1926 – 9 April 2009) was an Indian film director and producer, who founded Shakti Films in 1957, which is most known for films such as Howrah Bridge, China Town, Kashmir Ki Kali, An Evening in Paris, Kati Patang and Amar Prem.

He received Filmfare Awards for Best Film for Aradhana (1969), Anuraag (1973) and Amanush, which was also made in Bengali, a language in which he made six films, including an Indo-Bangladesh joint production in 1984. (Source: Wikipedia)

Jaya Bachchan (Jaya Bhadhuri) - Happy Birthday

I wish eminent actress Jaya Bachchan (Jaya Bhaduri) a very Happy Birthday.aya Bhaduri). She is one of my favourite actresses. She gave a very memorable performance in Hrishikesh Mukherjee directed film 'Abhiman'. Let us celebrate her birthday by watching this song sequence from the film 'Abhiman'.

Kamli - Telugu movie

Recently I watched the 2006 Telugu movie 'Kamli'. I liked the movie very much especially for its story telling and its excellent climax. 

The film is directed by K.N.T. Sastry. Nandita Das was in the titile role of a Lambada girl. The film was showcased at the Busan International Film Festival in Korea and the Asian Film Festival in Mumbai.

Awards: 

National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Telugu

Nandi Award for Best actress

Wikipedia writes : Kamli was actually inspired by a K.N.T. Sastry's award winning documentary harvesting babies. K.N.T. Sastry wanted to make a feature film based on the documentary about the plight of tribal women selling their babies for a pittance. He actually contacted and wanted to make film with Soundarya as the main female lead of Kamli, but she died in a helicopter crash, and finally made the film with Nandita Das.