At The Edge

Last night a cousin went browsing through my trash collection of old magazines. He paused at this particular ad and told me about Radha Seth. He recalled Siddharth Basu's Quiz Time that had  Radha Seth as co-host. And he recalled a particular episode of Mr. Yogi. The Episode: video link

Had a rather strange conversation with my mother. She knows what I have been up to, so I guess she wanted to help. She told me about Bobby Sandal. A high and thick heeled sandal that became a rage after the release of that Raj Kapoor film. She told me about Sangam Chappal that got its strange name because it's two straps came in two different colors and met  between the first and second toe. And finally she told me about 'Love in Tokyo' hair band - a thin black hair rubber with two big pearly beads at the end that would peek out of the hair bun. These got their name from the 1966 film 'Love in Tokyo' starring Asha Parekh and Joy Mukherjee.*  -0- *Arundhati Roy mentioned 'Love in Tokyo' hair rubber band in her 1997 book 'The God of Small Things'. Image: Screen cap from an unremarkable 1973 film called Gaddar. Image modified for efffect using GIMP.

and Manju Falls. Picked it off from the street.

Wing Sung 612. Made in China

video link Sound: Something like Hawa Mahal Tune Theme: Something like India of 80s

Image: Google remembering Tetris Sputnik burned up in the atmosphere, Berlin is now one city, but 25 years later, the Soviet-designed Tetris remains one of the most popular and ubiquitous video games ever created. It has sold over 125 million copies, been released for nearly every video-game platform of the past two decades and even been played on the side of a skyscraper. Yet creator Alexey Pajitnov almost never saw a ruble for his creation. Check the complete story at Time And I remember my Little Master (2) 8 bit game console from Media on which I played Tetris for hours and weeks. Tetris was one of the games that came in with 500-in-1 game cartridge, a complimentary cartridge   that actually had only 5 games, other games included were Mario (what good game cartridge would come without a version of the mad hopping plumber who loves mushrooms and a princess), Duck Hunt ( to play you needed to have that stupid gun not included free in the game console pack), Battle Tank and Ga...

An old cartoon by Mario Miranda on the world of ad Jingle makers from 'Playback and Fast Forward' Magazine, November 1987 [Dug this up from Internet Archive: Wayback Machine ]

video link What can I say! Both the things are masterpieces.I just put them together. -0- Update.  July 13, 2009.  The video got featured at popular American site Boing Boing

The Vacuum Flask Images: 1.  Amitabh Bachchan with Pran and Thermos for the music album cover of the film Nastik (1983) 2.  Calender Art for Chetak bath soap and Shakti laundry soap (probably from the 70s ). Found the captivating image in a wonderful essay 'Monuments, Landscapes and Romance in Indian Popular Imagery' by Kajri Jain for Tasveer Ghar . Love this site on South Asian Popular Visual culture!

Image courtesy: tomheroes.com (a site having great collection of similar items from the 80s) How many folks in India remember this mesmerizing for amazing pet creatures? This ad could be found in comic books like Superman, Archie and almost every other comic. The amazing Sea Monkeys were actually shrimps . And I used to fight with my elder cousin telling him these were real beings, why else would the comic have the amazing family portrait of these cute little sea monkeys. -0- Here's a  blog dedicated to sea monkeys called ' Sea Monkey Geek '

"Mummy, I'm hungry..." How often have you said this! Each time with  delightfully mouth-watering results. Because mummy  knows you love to eat Maggi Noodles, at any time of  the day. be it after school, or after play. Maggi 2 minute noodles come in four delicious flavours - Chicken, Masala, Capsika, and Sweet Sour. Try a different one each time. Maggi times are fun times...always! Maggi 2-minute noodles. Fast to cook! Good to eat! Maggi Noodles was first launched in India in Delhi in January 1983 by Food Specialties Ltd (associated with Nestle). It was an instant hit thanks to ever overworked mothers and ever hungry kids. Maggi became a phenomena. The following year, only people in the world eating more Maggi than Indians, were the Malaysians. Some tried to imitate Maggi's Masala for success and its instant formula, some like a brand called Favvy instant noodles, but none succeeded and now no one even remembers them. (But yes, a decade later, on board In...

Gentleman magazine: Publishers: Express Publications (Madurai) ltd. They also published Andhra Prabha Illustrated Weekly, Malayalam Vaarika and Cinema Express. Some of the regular columnists and names from the magazine: Adil Jussawalla,  Farrukh Dhondy, Sudeep Sen (Literary) Pradeep Sebastian (Literary and films), you bought a fat book by James Wood just because he recommended it, writes a popular co coulum for The Hindu Jaideep Varma [ blog ] and Leslie Matthew (Music) Rohit Gupta (for the stories 'Salmon day' and 'The pinhole camera'' in the 'Waking up in the year 2020' special) Sarnath Banerjee (Graphic comic series Road to Harappa) -0- Image on right: Cover of August 1998 issue dedicated to The magic of movies.  It has a great write up by T G Vaidyanathan titled 'The Romance of Movies: From Kiss Kiss to Bang Bang'.

Ghayab Aya was India's first completely "Made in India" serialized animation film. The film, serialized in 10-part, was first shown on the National television network Doordarshan on June 17, 1990. The story revolved around the adventures of Ghayab the friendly always do- gooder ' Casper type' naughty ghost. Ghayab Aya was directed and animated by Suddhasattwa Basu, who first started his career in 1981 as a designer and an illustrator for the famous TARGET magazine for children . Episode 8 of Ghayab Aya has been uploaded to Youtube by its maker Suddhasattwa Basu . A big thanks for bringing it all back! Do visit his page and say your thanks. And here is the video: video link Link to part 2 The much loved peppy title song still rings in my ears sounding like GaYa Baya GaYa Baya . Ghayab somehow, for no reason, reminds me of those sweet pink bubble gums that always came molten stuck to their paper wrappers. When I watched this video, I realized that th...

Found the following classic advertisements in the video of great television film Tamas (1986-87) . A big thanks to Arvind Gupta who uploaded the entire movie at Google videos . A lot of old Indian ads are already available online at Youtube or at Google videos, but the following ads were not available earlier. So I scavenged through the film to get these ads. The ads include classics like  Vicks ki goli, Inhaler, Ha Bhai Ha Vick action 500, VIP undies, Raymonds, Bajaj Bulb and a few more relics.   Now, prepare for the trip down the memory lane. Here are the links to the posts on classic Ads from the 1980s: Bulbs. Best. Suiting. Subtle . Something for the Khich Khich and something for the nose and something for the head Very Important Chaddies and Undies GVC video cassettes Kapda Store of pre-mall days Control Sun. No Sweat -0- You may also like to check this post for Vintage Print ads

video link Non-linear story telling, gripping cinematography by Govind Nihalani and by legend V.K Murthy , some great acting by Om Puri, animal fear and implicit violence. The atmosphere and tone for the television film Tamas was set by this brilliant opening scene and the award winning haunting theme, that sounded like death laments, created by Vanraj Bhatia . Govind Nihalani's television film Tamas (1987), based on a Hindi novel of the same name and two other short stories (' Chief ki dawat ' and ' Amritsar aa gaya ha i'?) by acclaimed Hindi writer Bhisham Sahni (1974), told the story of Partition of India from the perspective of common men. In 1986, the film ran into trouble at the time of its telecast on the only available channel of the time, national broadcaster - Doordarshan. The film was shown at time when Hindu nationalism was just sprouting in India.  Shiv Sena leader Pramod Nawalkar alleged that Tamas showed Muslims in favorable light. And BJP ...

Voltron was the first Japanese anime series that I started following religiously. It's the early 90s. The series had these space vans sort of things driven by young boys who would combine their rides together, in time of need...like when fighting a mega villain that deep recess of dark space has to offer, to form the mighty (colorful) Voltron , the defender of the Universe. Voltron had many weapons to take care of its foes, but weapon of its choice, a sort of super laser sword that it could summon by striking its giant robotic hands together over head. It was the ultimate weapon that could cut through any known (unknown) metals in the universe. Very few folks in India would remember this great series, excluding may be those who had loving uncles living in HK (Hongkong), who brought back video cassette of Dragonball Z , The Transformers and other similar stuff for their geeky nephew. No, I never had an HK walla uncle. What I did have, or rather what my TV had, was: a really goo...

The cover pages of all The Adventures of Tintin by Hergé, real name Georges Remi . The images are in chronological order of their release. Cover Tintin and the Lake of Sharks had been left out, as it wasn't drawn by Hergé. The last image is of the back cover of a version of Tintin and Alph-Art - The twenty-fourth adventure of Tintin which was left unfinished at the time of Herge's death The complete list: 1. Tintin in the Land of the Soviets (1929–1930) The first adventure appeared in 1929 in a children's supplement to a Belgian daily newspaper, Le Vingtième Siècle. Hergé was just twenty-three. In this adventure, Tintin and Snowy travel to communist Russia and get chased around by its infamous secret police. 2. Tintin in the Congo (1930–1931) The infamous second by Hergé. The one not for the kids . Tintin  is in Congo and a henchman of Al Capone, who has diamond interest in Congo,  tries to kill him off. Not only is this publication racist, an attempt at glorify...

Found this in my wallet while doing the annual Diwali cleaning. The cartoon was published in Hindustan Times on March 9, 2008. Jayanto Banerjee has been drawing cartoons for the last two decades. He has a corner in one of the middle pages of Hindustan Times titled Tooning In and sometimes his illustrations also appear in the paper. I stuffed this particular page into my wallet because it reminded me of Jayanto's most famous creation - Gardhab Das from  Target Magazine . A donkey and a politician, resemblance is obvious . At first first, I thought, 'Gardhab Das himself ', but on closer examination realized that Gardhab Das had longer more donkey-like ears. Still it felt good seeing Jayanto sketch up something that looked like Gardhab.

When suddenly Johnny gets the feeling he's being surrounded by arrows, arrows, arrows, arrows coming in in all directions white shining silver studs with their heads in flames, He saw arrows, arrows, arrows, arrows, arrows, arrows, arrows, arrows. The show was certainly meant for color television. Teeran se Kaatay Teeran Ko Teeran pe Teer Chalaye -0-  Update: Check out this 'Rock' version of the entire episode. -0- Found the complete Indrajit  vs Laxman fight from Ramayan ( 1987 to 1988 ) at Youtube: Part 1 , Part 2 , Part3 , Final Fight

Detective Moochhwala in "Robot Raiders" by Ajit Ninan (1988) Gardhab Das by brothers Neelabh and Jayanto Banerjee Both are from 1988 Annual issue of Target Magazine Want to see more Check out some more Requiem-ing done by Anita & Amit