With the demise of the great singer Manna Dey, Hindi film music has lost its last pillar of eminence. It’s a known fact that the legendary singer was very pally with yet another legend Muhammad Rafi and they loved to fly kite apart from singing. Very few people are aware that there was a time in the sixties when Manna Dey almost decided to quit film music and go back to Calcutta to devote his life to classical music. Thanks to Rafi, he changed his decision and stayed back in Bombay, much to the delight of the lovers of music. This happened in 1959.

Bade Ghulam Ali Khan had heard of Manna Dey and was all praise for his command over classical music. Once he got to listen to Manna Dey’s pure classical thumris and raag-based compositions in a programme in Jaipur, Rajasthan. So impressed was Bade Ghulam Ali Khan Sahab that he wrote a letter to Manna Dey. But it was written in Urdu!! Manna Dey rushed to Muhammad Rafi and requested him to read it for him. Rafi read the contents of the letter aloud simplifying its high-falutin Urdu in simple Hindustani.

The letter stated: ‘Main aapki aawaaz-o-andaaz se nihayat hi mutasir hua. Choonki aaghaaz se mein is tarah ki mausiqi ka paristar-o-pairokaar raha hoon, meri aapse iltija hai ki aap Bambai se Calcutte laut jaayein aur wahin pakki mausiqi (shastriya sangeet) ki khidmat karein. Ye filmon ke gaane gaana maia’ar se khaarij logon ka kaam hai aur Bambai namuradon ki basti hai. Ise tarq karein aur aap jiske liye banay gaye hain, woh kaam anjaam dein..’ (Your voice and style impressed me no end. Since I’ve always been a die-hard practitioner of classical music, I request you to leave Bombay and go back to Calcutta for the sake of classical music. Inferior people sing film songs. Moreover, Bombay’s fraught with lowly people. Please leave it and do what you’ve been made for.’

Truth dawned on Manna Dey and he decided to leave Bombay. But Rafi didn’t let him quit and somehow convinced him to change the decision. Manna Dey narrated this incident on Doordarshan immediately after the death of Rafi in 1980 and wept in the studio. There was no rivalry. Anyone in place of Rafi would have been happy at the thought of his/her rival leaving the scene. Manna also helped Rafi to come out of his self-imposed hibernation in 1964 when Rafi didn’t sing for six months as someone advised him in Mecca to sing only for Allah. Those were different times and different people. Now both the stalwarts are no longer amidst us. But their memories are forever with us.

source: http://www.milligazette.com / The Milli Gazette / Home> Offline News> National / by Sumit S Paul    sumitmaclean@hotmail.com , The Milli Gazette / October 24th, 2013

Aamir Khan says his colleagues’ good work makes him happy, and lavished praise on his contemporary Salman Khan, describing him as “powerhouse of star power”.

At India Today Group’s Agenda Aaj Tak conclave Wednesday, Aamir was asked about the Khan rivalry between Salman, Shah Rukh Khan and himself.

He said: “I can answer for myself. I don’t have any negative thoughts about competition with anyone and I thank my ammi (mother) for it.”

“It’s not in my nature. I understand that there are people who think otherwise, but it’s not in me to look at another person’s work, and think, ‘How come he did so well? How will I do as well?’ I just don’t feel like this.”

“When I saw Sanju (Sanjay Dutt) in ‘Munnabhai M.B.B.S.’ and ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’, I was so happy with his work, or even when I saw Ranbir (Kapoor) in ‘Barfi!’,” he added.

The 48-year-old, who is awaiting the release of action adventure film “Dhoom 3” later this month, then went on to praise Salman’s magic.

“Salman is my friend. He is a bigger star than me. When I see him in ‘Dabangg’, I feel very happy. Salman doesn’t need to do anything. He is a powerhouse of star power.”

” Woh sirf belt hilaata hai, chashme theek karta hai, and see his magic. I have no competitive feeling,” said Aamir, who is known to be a meticulous method actor.

At the event, Aamir received a request to either perform a bit of tap dance that he has learnt for “Dhoom 3” or to show his perfect body.

He did none.

Then pointing to the difference between himself and Salman, he quipped: “Salman would have done it both – tap dance and he would have shown his six-pack as well.”

“I am a shy kind of person,” he said.

source: http://www.dnaindia.com / DNA / Home> Entertainment> Report / Agency: IANS / Wednesday – December 04th, 2013

Farooq Sheikh continues to be choosy about roles and forthright with his opinions.

At a time when larger than life was the norm, Farooq Sheikh was the everyman on celluloid. With a series of films he brought out the anxieties of the middle class urban youth on the screen. A combination of choosy and laidback, of late we have seen him in shades he was not known for in his younger days. If in “Shanghai” he was grey without making it too apparent, in “Lahore” he delivered a National Award winning performance as a kickboxing coach. Even his turn as a father, telling his son the importance of family without shackling him, in “Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani” added some meaning to the gloss. “Some new directors are showing awareness and sensibility to experiment within the contours of commercial cinema. But even in my younger days I waited to play different roles. “Noorie” was different from “Umrao Jaan” and “Umrao Jaan” was different from “Chashme Buddoor” and “Katha”,” he reminds that after “Noorie” he could have easily repeated himself.

Farooq Sheikh is missing value-based entertainment but blames the audience for it. “We have to understand that cinema is still an expensive medium. There is no point in criticising filmmakers for when you queue up to watch monkey dance you are supposed to eat and throw peanuts.” He will soon be seen in “Club 60”, debutant Sanjay Tripthay’s film on a bunch of oldies who haven’t lost their zest for life. “If you don’t suffer from any debilitating disease, age is indeed just a number. It is all about attitude. I have seen young men with stooping shoulders. The film celebrates life without sermonising.”

Cinema is said to be a young man’s medium, with little space for stories of the old but Sheikh maintains, ““Mughal-e-Azam” is as much about young Salim and Anarkali as it is about old Akbar. “Gandhi” is essentially about an old man who led a country to freedom. I always say the backbone of a film is its storyline, if it falls flat even a spritely young man can’t make it run.”

On Muslim socials presenting a distorted view about the community, Sheikh says cinema is a mass medium and touches only the surface and goes by the general perception. “You can ask why Rajinikanth always plays South Indian characters. Why doesn’t he play a Khanna or a Kapoor? What should be looked at is when the credits roll, you get to know that the Hindu boy you were watching on the screen his real name is Salman Khan and the North Indian girl you fell in love with is actually a Padukone.”

Sheikh says people make a lot about nomenclature in Hindi cinema. “To me the idea is to keep it simple so that people could easily remember the name. I haven’t seen a single character named Shatrughan in a Hindi film despite the fact that we have a popular actor of this name.”

Ploughing the middle ground

As we enter into an election year, the choice is fast getting reduced between the communal and the corrupt. Sheikh, who is never shy of sharing his point of view on social and political issues, says corruption can be handled through a robust democratic process but what will you do of people who are eager to create social disorder leading us to a state of chaos. Sheikh is considered as a moderate voice among Muslims but the seasoned actor is not too enthused by this description. “The government either listens to those who threaten to go on fast unto death or those who pick up the gun. Where is the space for the moderate voices,” he asks.

While the government has paid little heed to the findings of the Sachar Committee, he says, the community also needs to look within. “Does a Farooq Sheikh need to buy a car or can he remain happy with his two-wheeler and donate some money for the betterment of the community. Do you procreate to have an educated and well informed citizen or do you just want another hand to help in the business. Do you want to become an asset to the society or do you want to become a huge weight around its neck. If you fall down one way is to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and move on. Another way is to keep lying and crying. These are some of the questions that the community has to address,” says Sheikh adding the community has yet to see a leader of the calibre of Maulana Azad.

Some of the clerics have shown their conditional support to a particular leader. “There is nothing like a cleric in Islam,” Sheikh counters. “They are useful only for the people who can’t read and understand Koran. And those who understand can make up their own mind.” On Lata Mangeshkar being hounded for supporting Narendra Modi, Sheikh says she has every right to air her opinion. “If somebody feels that an election can be win or lost according to the opinion of a film personality he is mistaken. In that case a political party just has to rope in one of the Khans,” says Sheikh denying he holds any political ambitions.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> Friday Review / by Anuj Kumar / November 28th, 2013 ( in Print November 29th, 2013).

He’s just going to turn 19 next month. But looks like he’s already chosen the career he wants to pursue. And there are  no prizes for guessing what that is. With actor parents Riyaz Khan and Uma Riyaz Khan, the young Shariq Hassan has also found his way into films, with a debut in Kalsan Movies’ Pencil.

The youngster reveals that it’s not just his parents who are actors.  “My maternal grandmother Kamala Kamesh is a character actor, who  has acted in around 400 films in various languages.” But surprisingly enough, being an actor was the last thing on Shariq’s mind. “I wanted to be either a football player or a cinematographer, since I play football regularly and love photography,” he says. The youngster is currently pursuing a BSc in animation. Shariq  has modelled for Univercell and Neengalum Vellalam Oru Kodi, earlier. It was director Mani Nagraj, who is a friend of his father, who made the offer after seeing his photos. “The offer came on my dad’s birthday. He had seen my photos on Facebook. We met up the next day at a coffee shop. I was quite nervous about the idea of acting on big screen. But when I heard that GV Prakash is debuting as hero in the same film, I was excited  since it would be a new experience for both of us. It seemed like the perfect project, with a character I could easily get into as well,” he says with a smile. Shariq plays  a schoolboy with various shades in the movie. So what advice did his parents give him? “Dad told me ‘don’t be nervous. Just be casual and be yourself. Above all, be dedicated to your profession. It’s a new life for you now,’ “ he signs off.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Entertainment> Tamil / by Rinku Gupta – ENS / November 27th, 2013