Julia Roberts: An ode to a great artiste!!!

Remember the days when pop used to be hot as hell
And Ms Roberts was an obsession of every single male,
The day when a pretty woman walked down the lane,
And Mr Gere made us all fall in love with her again....

A Tribute to an Epic!

No wonder I am a movie buff, I was born to a couple who have seen almost
all the movies released in their 20s 30s and 40s. They just lost count
when they entered 50.
Well lets not diverse from our topic. I think it was my fifth birthday,I definitely have an elephants memory,when I first saw the epic. For the first time in my life. My father had
brought the new VCR (it was a big craze then, the days when rock n roll were famous and Pop was cult!) and he wanted all of us to see the best
movie of his era, SHOLAY. As a kid I never minded all those actions and chases and Sholay had a huge clearance sale of both of them. I fell in
love with the very first train robbery scene. The horses and the bullets and ofcourse Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra. I was glued to the TV for
the next 3 and half hours. Didn't even move to have food. Sholay had some magic around it and today when I see it I still feel the same
magic, even after watching it for more than a hundred times. The best thing about Sholay is it was unabashedly Bollywoodish. Naach Gaana Drama
and Action. It had it all and in plenty. The movie stayed with me even after it was over. 35 Years and its still with me.

There are various trivia about the movie. Mr Sippy had hired a couple of stunt experts from London to help him in this movie. That the movie had
two endings, the one in which Jai doesn't die. It ran for six months before it was declared a hit: reason being the cinema halls were running
houseful but the people were silenced by the action, drama and tension in the movie, so much so that not even a single person talked. Its only
when the second visit to the theatre started that the hooting and shouting started. Amit Ji always wanted to be Mr Gabbar, well Ramu gave
him his dream role but it turned out to be a nightmare (Aag is So-low and not Sholay, sorry RGV you sucked here BIG TIME). Even Amjad Khan was
not the first choice as Gabbar, our very own Hari Bhai was first taken as Gababr. None of the characters were the first choice for the movie,
for that matter. The movie also happens to be one of the cleanest Dacoit Saga of that time, it had no rape-scene or bathing scene. I am not
trying to be voyeuristic but movies at that time used to be loaded with such scenes to cash in at the ticket counters.
The movie had some of the dialogues that were immortal. Salim-Javed made Kaalia and Sambha famous with just one dialogue. Asrani will always be remembered
as Angrezon ke zamane ka police and Mr A K Hangal (the grand old man of Bollywood) "Itna Sannata kyun hai bhai". The popularity can be gauged by
the fact that it made inane / one scene characters famous. Take for example mousi ji, Kaalia, Sambha. Ram Lal and even Jalal Agha and Helen.
Everyone has his or her own Sholay moment and I too have mine. My Sholay moment will definitely be the one in which Jai goes to mousi and asks
for Basanti's hand for Viru. By scale, popularity, music and entertainment, it will be the biggest movie that Bollywood have ever
made. 3 Idiots might have grossed 100 crores. But I don't think any movie would have a mass following and popularity, a movie where the
actors are remembered by the character they played like Sholay, a movie where the characters have made an impact on your life and you have
accepted them albeit their larger than life projection.

फिर तुम याद आई

बड़े दिनों बाद तुमसे मुलाक़ात हुई,
हाँ ख्यालों में ही सही
तुमसे मुलाक़ात हुई।

फिर आँखें कुच्छ नम होने लगी
कुच्छ यादें ताज़ा हुयी
फिर हवा भी तेरी खुशबु से महकने लगी।

मेरे काश, मेरे शायाद
मुझे तेरे संग जोड़ते रहते हैं
मैं लाख भुलाना चाहूँ तुझे
तेरी मेरी राह फिर भी मिल ही जाते हैं।

सोचूँ के बरसों बाद जब मिलेंगे हम तुम
तो कैसे मिलेंगे हम तुम
कुच्छ बीती यादें,
कुच्छ भीगी पलकें...