Gloriously out-of-sync clip from Guru Dutt's classic 1959 movie starring Raj Kapoor. The great man is so drunk that he can't keep in time with his own lips. The playback singer is the great Mukesh and the song by Shankar-Jaikishan. Bhalu heard this playing incessantly in the Dongri bazaars during the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war. A companion piece widely played during the same period is the beautiful Yeh Jo Mohabbat Hai, which can be found below.

 

Thanks to Priyanka for permission to show her film here
and for sending me an excellent story

"Among the Badnaami material, sweet revival of old delight. A mass of notes, and photos of Johnny Walker, actor man, comic genius, my childhood favourite, Bombay’s raspberry at Jerry Lewis. JW’s real name was Badruddin Jamaluddin Qazi. At the start of the fifties he’d been a conductor on a B.E.S.T (BOMBAY ELECTRIC SUPPLY TRANSPORT) bus, red with yellow lettering on the side, streaked with paan spit. Number 132. Ding-ding. Ran from R.C. Church in the naval cantonment, up past Sassoon Dock, fishwives in parrot-hued saris reeking of pomfret and Bombay Duck (the sun-dried sardine Bummalo bummalo) to the Regal Cinema, Churchgate, Marine Drive, Chowpatty Beach in a fug of sweat, tobacco, jasmine and cheap hair oil, people running alongside executing balletic last-minute leaps onto the platform, the conductor pulling them aboard. He liked an audience and would cheer up his customers with jokes and silly faces, comic soliloquies, songs and scraps of ribaldry. The actor Balraj Sahni saw this performance (yes, in those innocent days film stars rode on buses with their public) and got him a screen test. The rest, as they say, itihaas."

From The Death of Mr Love

 

"The small tea-boy came up -- he could not have been older than nine or ten -- and set down a clutch of tea-glasses.
     Phoebe said, ‘He’s so young to be working. Would it be all right if I gave him something?’ She fished in her purse for some coins.
     ‘This lady wants to tip you,’ Dost told him. ‘What do you say?’
     The boy gazed into Phoebe’s eyes, levelled his palm at her, wiggled his hips and sang in a high, quavering tone, ‘Aati kya Khandala?’"

From The Death of Mr Love

 

A classic song from the movie of the same name sung by the peerless Mohammed Rafi. This is a remix with the bells and tiny sparkly sounds added. The old black and white footage has been colourised. This song also appears in the collection for Animal's People.

 

A poem of Mirza Ghalib. As sung by Nafisa Jaan in the "sweet" version of her story, which was told to the children by Maya on a day of rain and thunderstorms in the Ambona Hills.

 

Heard everywhere during Bhalu's Dongri period and especially sung to foreigners who were all thought by the street kids to be stoned hippies.

 

Not sure what this is doing here. Probably included because it's from the film Bambai Ka Babu, which does feature in the book. It's a lovely song, but terribly terribly sad, here beautifully sung by Mukesh sahib.