Skip to main content

Sharmila, Alistair MacLean and Aradhana

In 1969 film Aradhana, while Rajesh Khanna sang Mere Sapno Ki Rani Kab Aayegi Tu to Sharmila Tagore, Sharmila was trying to read Alistair MacLean's When Eight Bells Toll (1966).

Novels of Alistair MacLean are renowned for absence of sex and most of his work is even short on romance. Writing successful thrillers sans sex is a great achievement in itself. When asked about this in an interview, he replied: "Sex? No time for it. Gets in the way of the action."

What has this got to do with Aradhana?

The basic premise of Aradhana provides the answer.

The unplanned sex. It was night, it was raining, they got wet, she had to take off her clothes and wear an off-shoulder orange designer blanket that made her roop look mastana, he had three top buttons of his shirt open, there was log fire burning strategically in centre of the cabin and Kishore was singing. What else could they do?

The movie became a trendsetter of sorts in Bollywood. Scenes parodying this act became a common fixture in countless Hindi films. The fact that Sharmila was shown reading Alistair MacLean was no mere coincidence. It went with the 'modern' yet demure Indian woman theme. If she is really interested in reading a novels, and that too in front of everyone while traveling in a train, nothing is better than Alistair MacLean. Give Khushwant Singh in her hand and fellow travelers can get all sort of ideas! And it would certainly had been a different kind of movie.

Comments

  1. In Aradhana, the song sequence 'Mere Sapon ki Rani', Sharmila Tagore is seen reading a book while seated in the train. The book's name is When Eight Bells toll, a thriller novel written by Alistair Maclean published in the year 1966. The film was released in 1969, so it is clear that the flashback was shown in a time which was actually a "flash-forward", which is impossible.She should have been shown reading The Heart of the Matter (1948), a novel by the English author Graham Greene.After all Aradhana was about matter concerning hearts!

    ReplyDelete
  2. "flash-forward" thing is indeed true and funny.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Alistair MacLean was right choice by Director

    ReplyDelete
  4. Exactly what I was wondering about! and what my Google search was about! Thanks for sharing this.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I always like to hear back :)
However, irrelevant comments and irrelevant links will not be published. Needless to say, same goes for abusive comment and spam. Leaving back links related to the topic is encouraged. I know it can be tempting but try not to leave your email ids, phone nos and CVs in the comment.

Popular posts from this blog

Famous Old Faces of Doordarshan

Some people recall the faces and some people recall the names. Here are images of some of the famous readers and presenters of Doordarshan down the years. If you recognize any of them, leave a comment. [ Update 1 : Most of the faces now have names thanks to helpful comments by olio-gallimaufry ] [ Update 2 : Included image of one of the earliest presenters, Gopal Kaul. Send in generously from personal collection by son, Ashutosh Kaul. Sept, 2010.] [ Major Update 3: Got a tip-off about a documentary about the famous faces of Doordarshan from the makers   of     “The Golden Trail , DD@50 :Special feature on Golden Jubilee of Doordarshan ” from which these caps were taken. I managed to catch the incredible documentary and am adding some more faces/name and part of the docu here. New ones can be found after the image of  Narotam Puri. 30th Oct, 2010]  Pratima Puri. Believed to be the first Doordarshan reader.

Indian Cigarette Vintage Ads

He put a cigarette in his mouth and, as a matter of silent routine, offered one to Gwyn, who said ‘No thanks.”Richard looked at him.”I packed it in.”"You what?”"I stopped. Three days ago. Cold. That’s it. You just make the life choice.” Richard looked up and inhaled needfully. He gazed at his cigarette. He didn’t really want to smoke it. He wanted to eat it. Almost the only thing that he still liked about Gwyn was that he still smoked…Paradoxically, he no longer wanted to give up smoking: what he wanted to do was take up smoking. Not so much to fill the little gaps between cigarettes with cigarettes (there wouldn’t be time, anyway) or to smoke two cigarettes at once. It was more that he felt the desire to smoke a cigarette even when he was smoking a cigarette. The need was and wasn’t being met… While it would always be true and fair to say that Richard felt like a cigarette, it would now be doubly true and fair to say it. He felt like a cigarette. And he felt like a cig

Kishore Kumar, Yodel-ay-ee-oooo Songs, A List

*Updated with corrections pointed out by Bart Plantenga , author of some incredible book on Yodeling including Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo: The Secret History of Yodeling Around the World. -0- Kishore Kumar 's brother Anoop Kumar, who we basically know for the line ' O manu tera toh hua ab mera kya hoga ', used to own lots of Austrian music records. And from these records, Kishore Kumar picked up the art of Yodel singing, an art perfected in bathroom and then introduced by him to the world of Hindi film music. According to his biography 'Kishore Kumar: method in madness‎ ' by Derek Bose, "Kishore was a fan of the Swiss singer Tex Norton [* Tex Morton, an Australian cowboy born in New Zealand who sang  in the gene autry / Jimmie Rodgers style ] and the Australian Jimmy Rogers [* Jimmie Rodgers , perhaps the most American and one of the most famous yodelers in the world, famous for his blue yodels ] as well." Although most of these songs by Kishore Kumar are t