8 highlights
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In 1950s, Dilip Kumar might have been Nehru’s Hero in the Life of India (to use Lord Meghnad Desai’s phrase) but it was Johnny Walker who enacted the first lyrical statement on Bombay in Hindi cinema in CID (1956).
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it was in Phir Subah Hogi (1958) that the great lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi captured the irony of the Bombay’s destitute with a song that was written as a satirical parody on Iqbal’s patriotic verse Saare Jahan Se Achcha.
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Sahir had penned another song picturised on Guru Dutt roaming the dark alleys of Bombay’s flesh trade hub for Pyaasa (1957). Sahir again mocks the ‘patriotic elite’ with the immortal lines in the poignant voice of Rafi
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Gulzar brought to words this alienation felt by a young man trying to find himself in meaningless urban spaces in a song for Gharonda(1977)
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In Gaman (1978), Farooq Sheikh enacted the song as a Bombay taxi driver with the taxi itself becoming a symbol of the anxiety and alienation in the city.
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An early sign of it came in Patthar Ke Phool (1991), in which Salman Khan, while romancing Raveena Tandon (making her debut) romantises the streets of Bombay
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Mira Nair’s Salam Bombay (1988) and Sudhir Mishra’s Dharavi (1991) were landmarks in Hindi cinema’s exploration of Bombay’s ‘underclass’ and underbelly
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The horror is that there is no horror.