Monday, February 05, 2007

The List - I

Most of my close friends have been a little baffled at my fairly insignificant skill of recounting lines and scenes from my favorite movies with ease. Some of them think it comes effortlessly to me. I don’t quite intend to shatter that perception but the truth is that if I like a particular scene or a dialogue in a movie, I end up watching it again and again until I know I can recollect it on my own. It’s like a scaling a summit. The journey is immensely exciting and the accomplishment endearing.

However I realized that over the years, while I kept scaling those summits, because I didn’t keep a record of those scenes and dialogues, sadly most of those impressions have eroded from my mind. And hence, here is an effort to list some of the best scenes from Hindi movies that I grew up to and continue to be charmed with.

Now like in any field, the task of selection is inevitably an onerous task. Not because you don’t know which ones to select but because you have trouble eliminating options. Nevertheless, after 3 hours of thinking, this is what I could come up with.

1. Ashok Kumar wanting to light his cigarette in Jewel Thief in the flight: A charming thief brought to book finally after three hours of gripping screenplay. The Jewel Thief was defeated but alarmingly undeterred. I remember watching and still thinking if there was any way there could be another twist in the tale even now.

2. Amol Palekar’s moustache coming off in Golmaal: Ramprasad is eating a wholesome lunch at Utpal Dutt’s place when his moustache starts giving way. The rest is history. How Shubha Khote managed to pound Utpal Dutt with a club in his own backyard while both of them were looking for Ramprasad cracks me up even now!

3.Satish Shah in a coffin with a drunk Om Puri on the road in Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron: I would be betraying the trust of the numerous worshippers of this movie if I even attempted to describe it further…

4. Anupam Kher with a friend coaxing him to drink in Daddy: A loser to the world and a daddy to his girl is about to give a final performance on stage. He’s tempted by a jerk to get back to drinking; something his daughter has painstakingly managed to take him away from. One of Anupam Kher’s best performances after Saaransh.

5.Vijay Deenanath Chauhan: How else could I do justice to this? A TV programme once suggested that when the first prints came out, the distributors thought that there was something wrong with the sound of those prints because of Amitabh Bachchan’s gruff dialogue delivery style.

6.Sanjay Dutt in Naam being told by Paresh Rawal overlooking a busy street in Dubai that underworld is a one-way street: Similar scenes with exact lines have been enacted in numerous movies but none have been as subdued yet menacing.

7. Jackie Shroff in his desperate last scene in Gardish: I saw this movie on cable first and I thought this would be another of those cable-fit movies that you want to devote time to only because you have nothing else to do. All throughout the movie, the father son equation was a stirring tale of emotion. This was a remake of a Malayalam movie called 'Kireedam'. ( Thanks to Tushar, else all of you would have been led to believe, by me, that it was 'Spadikam' ). While the latter happens to be one of my favorite movies, I must say the Hindi version didn’t disappoint one bit.

8. Kamal Hasan in the song Dauda dauda bhaaga in Chachi 420: To add to the glee, the ensemble of Om Puri , Paresh Rawal and Amrish Puri was nothing short of a casting coup. Add to that the return of Johnny Walker and you had to have an eminently enjoyable joyride.

9.The song Tu Bin Bataaye in Rang De Basanti: Beautifully shot, beautifully scripted and beautifully sung. The shot where Aamir and his gang throw leaves over Madhavan and Soha Ali Khan is simply the most endearingly mischievous scene ever!

10.Snow falling over Amitabh Bachchan and Rani Mukherjee in Black: Right after the teacher tells his protégé, that she’s failed her papers, there’s a moment of silence. The stage is set for one of them to cry and instead the falling snow makes sure that they dance like two kids who just got news they could go home earlier than usual. Absolutely unadulterated!

11.Amitabh Bachchan waving his hand after being released from jail in Sarkar. Sarkar had just got bail and comes back to his mansion after a failed attempt on his life in jail. The foreground in the scene is a wave of his left hand protruding out of an SUV. The background, a huge group of his supporters cheering him on. Together, they signal a comeback. Everyone in the hall knew Sarkar would be released from jail but how was the question.

12. Abhishek Bachchan screaming and instructing his accountant in Guru: “Contractor ka naam gaali ban jaana chahiye. Gaali…” For sheer intensity. A typical scene that Al Pacino would have delivered with consummate ease. We don’t have an equal for the latter yet in Bollywood but at least we’re close to getting another angry young man after ages.


13. Johnny Walker breaking down in Anand: The one scene that has to be my most favorite scene of all time in Hindi cinema. An actor who lived his life making others laugh in all his movies made the audience cry in possibly the only movie he shed tears on screen for.

Like with any list, there must’ve been more scenes that I couldn’t recall while penning ( keyboarding?) this article. Readers of this post, few and far and as disappointed or delighted they maybe are welcome to suggest more scenes. If I think any of the scenes, is worthy of an inclusion, I’ll add it to the post!
As Calvin once said, “Big incentive!”: -P

P.S.: Tried keeping it down to 10. Couldn't succeed. Diffcult to eliminate! :-)

12 comments:

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Anonymous said...

So much have I found out and so much I haven't ... you will always surprise me .. Infact we never discussed about Hindi movies .. I have watched a lot of 'em ...
Nice to know abt Spadikam .. will watch sometime ..

Have u watched Gharonda and Mausam?

IssacMJ said...

@Ashok: Haven't seen Gharonda. Have heard my Dad talk about it. Mausam yes, but at the age I saw it , found it to be a little complex...

Anonymous said...

Well since your list is only Hindi Movies I don't know if I know of something better.....
I hate SRK but I quite liked the whole scene of him telling the villages that we cannot fall back on our 'sanskriti' for everything - in Swades.
As a kid I used to love Amitabh's raging and beating the crap out of someone in Hum (the background music!)
And of course - Anupam Kher and Vinod Nagpal in Khosla ka Ghosla - they were so cute

IssacMJ said...

I almost included 'Hum'. The scene in which he gets back to being 'Tiger' again when somebody teases his bhabhi/didi would've been it for me...
KKG of course was a standout.Particularly:" Aap broker hain ya party? " :-D

Anonymous said...

hahaha ! the scene in Hum was precisely the scene I was talking about. Something so Amitabh Bachchan about it , no ? The suppressed anger and the violent for a good cause etc

spiderman! said...

Anil Kapoor:Lamhe

He slaps the guy who wants Sridevi out of her home and the guy when asked to quote how much he would take to let go of the claims asks for 10 lacs and 1 lac each for th slap. He slaps him twice and tells his accountant "Isko 14 lakh de do"!

Amitabh:Silsila

Jaya:Kya aap khush hain ?
AB: Main ? haan, main bhi khush hoon...

Sanjiv:Silsila

Jaya: Is kahani mein aap kaun hain ?
Sanjiv: Bhabi, hum is desh ke raja hain...

Sanjiv: Silsila again

Sanjiv:Aur haan, maine kuch cheques sign kar ke rakhhe hain, zaroorat ho to paisa utha lena...mujhe tumahri yaad ayega...(a pause, where both are at a loss of words)then...tumne yeh nahin poocha ki main kab lautunga?

AB:Shakti

Last scene, AB and DK both !

Sunny:Ghayal

Sunny:Isse samjhao Chaddha, yeh sab khilona to baazar mein milta hain. par isse khelne ke liye jo jigar chahiye, mard woh leke paida hota hain !

AB: Sholay

The scene where Veeru tries to teach Basanti how to shoot. AB's dialogues are hilarious !

AB & Shashi:Kabhie Kabhie

The scene where Shashi asks AB about his relationship with Rakhee and Ab responds. With dignity and without guilt, albeit slightly proudly of what had transpired between them and how things stand now.


If I continue, it would be a post in itself. Actually, I had though of a similar post but discarded it due to the same problem of eliminating the choices !

SRK said...

Sholay:
Kitne aadmi the???
the game he plays wid those poor sidekicks... have seen tht in endless western movies, but Gabbar was something else...

Vaastav:
The aarti going on while a murder of the rival gang happens...
reminded me of Al Pacino in his church in the final scene in Godfather...

but, then, as u said, each one will have his own favorites, and i din sit for three hours on this

IssacMJ said...

@Spidey and SRK: It is too damn hard to create a list of our own!
Shakti is a hands down winner and yes Gabbar was goddamn menacing.
I think the charm of Gabbar lay in the fact as to how early you saw Sholay in your childhood. The earlier the better...

Anonymous said...

Hey isaac brilliant list ..just thot of bringing up a point...isnt Gardish a copy of Kireedam (thilakan playing the constable dad n mohanlal the son who gets a police job etc) ...
spadikam is the one where he is a truck driver...also a brilliant movie...

Tushar

IssacMJ said...

@Tushar: Oops! You're right. Edited and credited in the post... :-)
My grasp on Malayalam movies is getting from bad to worse...Sigh!

Anonymous said...

All Rajkumar dialogues-

Chinai seth, jinkey apney ghar shishey ke hotey hain woh doosron par patthar nahin fenka kartey!!

Yeh bachon ke khelney ki cheej nahin, lag jaaye toh khoon nikal aataa hai.

Kis Ramayan ki baat krati ho maan, usmein jahan ek maan ney apney betey ko chaoudah saal jangle bhej diya aur jahan ek bhai doosrey bahi ke khillaf dushmanon ka saath deta hai yaa fir us ramayan ki jahan Ram ney ek dhobi ke kehney par apni patni ko jungle bhej diya!!