Definitive Katy Mirza Collection

That Jerry Pinto fellow sent on a long, interesting but essentially wrong trail. Back in 2008, I came across an article by him about Indian Bond in which he wrote:  “Doston se pyaar kiya”, which has a Bond feel to its execution, with car chases happening across Katy Mirza’s ribcage and explosions in her pelvis.

I dug up everything about Katy Mirza who was already back in public memory  because of her cameo in growing-up-in-Indian-70s tale 'Tin fish' (2005) by Sudeep Chakravarti. There was little information about her available online, in pieces, there were photographs but not all of them the finest. Still I put it all together in a biographical post (now, it seems miss) titled: Shaan of Katy Mirza "The Bunny Girl", snippets of which are now part of a few chakachak bollywood sites.

Even while compiling that post I had my doubts, the girl featured in title credits of Shaan (video) didn't look anything Katy Mirza. Still Jerry Pinto was too credible a source and I hadn't come across any other Katy Mirza film back then , so I posted it.

But I kept OCDing about it.

Shaan title credits girl. Unknown. Illustrated Weekly of India in 1980 simply referred to her as 'diaphanously clad girl'

Recently, I have seen comments on Youtube claiming that the woman indeed is Katy Mirza. Interestingly, Katy Mirza isn't even credited in the film. The fact is, whether she is the 'title girl' or not she ought to be credited.
 
It was a youtube comment (and an old film article at Google Books ) that pointed out to the exact timing of Katy Mirza's cameo in the film: just before the start of 'Janu Meri Jaan' song where she shares screen with Amitabh. Oddly enough, Padmimi Kapila who also had a cameo in the film, is credited.

Katy Mirza's blink-and-you-miss appearance in Shaan (1980).
She made a couple of such appearances in a few Hindi films around that time.

These mysterious working of credit system in Hindi film present all sort of puzzles and challenges to Indian film Buffs ( Has this location of countless cabarets from 70s ever been credited?).

They disorder in 'Credits' can trigger extreme OC reactions in certain vulnerable people at certain vulnerable time. 

A couple of months backs I was looking for some information (driven by someone having his own OCD period) about an old issue of Junior Statesman (India’s first youth magazine started by Desmond Doig and published by The Statesman newspaper in late 1960s/70s) about Led Zepplin's Bombay trip of 1972 [video of them roaming around Bombay of 1972 , any help is welcome. Update: Got it]. That particular issue is supposed to have photographs of them performing with local bands at a discotheque called 'Slip Disc' (that in the 80s was to become quite a seedy joint and was eventually shut down and whose no pictorial remains can be found! More of that maybe some other time)

So I was looking for those photographs. Instead I found a pin-up of Katy Mirza in an issue of Filmfare from year 1975 on sale at Ebay. I bought it. (I was quite surprised to hold it in hand. These things are huge. It can take four scans to scan a single page. Certainly no-one had thought back then that we might run out of trees!) And then I found a whole issue of a nasty-gossipy- hate-it film magazine dedicated to Katy Mirza. I bought that. Then one more. One more. Then one more till I actually ended up buying everything that had even a single image of her.

The result of this OCD breakdown:

Notice the gun in the background. Notice the gun in the background on the shelf. It's the same one that she sports in this shoot. Pin-up from 1975. (Actually had to take four scan and then stitch them up using a 'panoramaic view' software. )Around this time she was working on a Indo-Russian production by Latif Faiziyev called Voshod nad Gangom/ Sunrise over the Ganges/ Eastward, Beyond the Ganges/"Восход над Гангом".

Katy Mirza in 'Sunrise over the Ganges' (1975)
Finally managed to dig up something on this film using crazy Russian search engines.
Found at: this Russian site

Sudeep Chakravarti in his book describes a poster in a liquor shop featuring Katy Mirza in a leopard spotted dress.

With that I put it to end. (What if I can get something more on that Russian film)
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