Sticking our necks out

Its been a while, and now I'm back after some recent prodding from Changu. At the outset, let me say that I was never a huge fan of Feroz Khan, who passed away into the ages, couple of weeks ago. Nor did I have the opportunity to meet him in my Bollywood past. But when I read the news of his death, it got me reminiscing of my growing-up years, and left me a bit saddened. He did make some iconic movies of the time, and nothing stands out more in my mind than Qurbani.

Qurbani was THE movie of the summer in 1980. And its song, Aap jaisa koi, is the defining song of that era for me...Hindi song with a Western influence, disco, Zeenat Aman...epitome of cool. I remember the first time I heard this song. We used to live on the 6th floor of an apt building in Bandra and there was this Sardar family on the 2nd floor, the gentleman used to work in the Gulf, he was a shaukeen guy, with an imported car (Peugeot if I recall), vcr, and a nice music system in his apt. He had got the music of Qurbani from the Gulf and was playing it on his system, loudly of course. I remember so clearly my sister calling me excitedly one evening and telling me "come here, can you hear that song", and both of us sticking our necks out of the window, trying to catch the sound waves from the 2nd floor. It was Aap jaisa koi, and we loved it. Of course, the songs became popular later, and prior to the release of the movie, my Dad bought the EP vinyl record for us when we were in Delhi for a family wedding. And we no longer had to stick our necks out.

Fast forward 6-7 years, and his next movie comes out, Jaanbaaz. Style movie as usual, but not the same class as Q. But that certainly didn't stop me and my friend, Prasana, to skip class, go over to Satyam in pouring rain, buy a ticket in black, and watch it...first-day-first-show. Jaanbaaz had pretty good music too. His next was Dayavaan, and by then, I was old and jaded, and watched it at home.

Here's another FK song thats part of my growing-up years. Prior to Bombay, we used to live in Jodhpur Park, Calcutta. There was this slum-area behind our home, it was called basti, and some shop in the basti would play this song, very frequently on the loudspeaker. Until Sholay came along.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ38VCtPc-0

A tip of the hat to Feroz Khan, thanks for the memories.