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Published: 19 March 2023

Last Updated: 19 March 2023

in Chori Chori (1957), from filmindia, 1956.

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Published: 22 February 2023

Last Updated: 22 February 2023

I might have seen her earlier but she floored me with her dance on the ship in Lutera, O Dilwalo Saaz-e-Dil Pe Jhoom Lo Gaa Lo'. I think I saw the film three times just for that dance and umpteen times when the video became available.

I was very happy to be friends with her on Facebook, we exchanged messages. I tried very hard to persuade her to let me write her biography, she did not agree.

You may recall a project with Narsingh D Agnish and Edwina where he captured thousands of screenshots of Edwina's co-dancers, she helped identify more than hundred of them and all three of us wrote a book together.

A similar project was started with all the songs of Bela Bose, Narsingh had captured about 3,000 images, and I had selected about 700. I had requested Bela Bose to help us identify the unknowns. She had agreed.

I was extremely shocked when I found out that she left us so suddenly. Still not recovered from it, but life goes on.

On a not so sad note, Edwina has agreed to help with this project also. I have also been in touch with Madhumati Deepak, trying to persuade her to let me write her biography. I am hoping that she will at least help us identify these poor co-dancers, even their names are unknown.

At the premiere of Chitralekha, photo from Belaji's Facebook page, Bela Bose, Meena Kumari and Belaji's best friend, Zeb Rehman (Preetibala).

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Published: 14 December 2022

Last Updated: 14 December 2022

In one of the pages I posted of Helen's letters, she was seen in an oriental make-up. Navnidhi Sharma asked if I knew which movie this is from. I did not know, so I asked my friends in RMIM. Vibhendu Tewary immediately replied that this was a Japanese make-up. And he produced the answer in a few minutes.

It turns out that it is from the dance sequence Aman Ka Farishta from the songless movie Hulchul (1971).

You may wonder why I did not know that. The answer is that I was in Pittsburgh from 1969 to 1975, and so missed lots of films, even the whole Rajesh Khanna craze, in which, I am told,

"shrieking college girls smeared his car with lipstick, wrote letters in blood, married his photograph. Once when he had fever, a group of college students spent hours taking turns to put ice water on his forehead in a photograph ..."

The first image from the Cine Blitz article, second from the video.

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