China in Indian popular culture, Haqeeqat and Manohari Singh
Release Date: 07/26/2020
Ep 10: What India Gave To The World & The Incandescent Talent Of Renu Saluja
Haal-Chaal Theek Thaak Hai
When we speak about India and its relationship with the world, we often focus on what we have received from the world. But what about what we have given to it? This doesn’t get covered as much. Even when it does, we go to the extremes. Either we were a vishwaguru or our only contribution is ‘zero’. Is there a more nuanced view? That’s what we explore in this episode. What have we given to the world? From the stories of our mythology that have parallels in Persian and Greek myths, the versions of Ramayana and Mahabharata in Indonesia, Malaysia and Cambodia, the spread of Buddhism from...
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Ep 9: Swanand Kirkire On Popular Culture & S.P. Balasubrahmanyam - A Voice For The Ages
Haal-Chaal Theek Thaak Hai
Aimless conversation is therapy. It is good for the soul. We drifted a lot in this episode. Because we had Swanand Kirkire as our guest. With Swanand we wandered all over the cultural landscape of India – the bylanes of Indore and its usal-poha, the ragas of Kumar Gandharv, the social commentary of Dada Kondke films, the multi-faceted genius of B.V. Karanth or the forgotten lyricism of Kamlesh Pandey. Swanand’s genius stems from his deep immersion in our popular culture and it shone through in this 2-hour long conversation. What also came across was his honesty, his conscious engagement...
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Ep8:Food In Our Lives & Mallika-e-Ghazal Begum Akhtar
Haal-Chaal Theek Thaak Hai
“After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relatives.” - Oscar Wilde Good food does that and more. We talk about food in this episode – its salience in our celebrations, its magic in evoking memories, being a marker of our identity, in experiencing the divine and as an expression of love. There’s no stopping our appetite to talk about food. From Gandhi’s letters and Vivekananda’s wanderings to Naipaul’s distaste and Rushdie’s memories, in the chaats of Assi Ghaat, the mahaprasad of Puri, in films like The Lunchbox and Maya Bazaar – food is everywhere in...
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Ep7 Finding Art In Bureaucracy & The Renaissance Man That Was Salil Chowdhury
Haal-Chaal Theek Thaak Hai
Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy. —Franz Kafka We don’t take such a dim view. There’s more to bureaucracy than the dreary reign of rules, files and approvals. We discuss the portrayal of bureaucracy in popular culture in this episode. We talk and talk – of the dry humour in Yes Minister, about Kafkaesque nightmares, on the satire in Krishan Chander’s Jamun Ka Ped, about Harishankar Parsai’s vyangya, of Madna in English August or Travancore of T.S. Pillai and the darkness in Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro. Bureaucracy didn’t bore us, for sure....
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Ep6 The Lifeline Of India And That Magical Sparsh Of Sai Paranjpye
Haal-Chaal Theek Thaak Hai
Trains. Watching them, travelling in them or waiting for them. Trains offered us an escape. Watching the world pass by through its windows, the fleeting glimpses of incomplete lives outside or falling asleep to their rhythmic sways. We discuss trains and the long journeys we made in them.
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Ep5: The Voice From The Sky And The 'King of Forest' Among Composers - Vanraj Bhatia
Haal-Chaal Theek Thaak Hai
“I'd sit alone and watch your light My only friend through teenage nights And everything I had to know I heard it on my radio” (Radio Ga Ga: Roger Taylor, Queen, 1984) We couldn’t agree more. Radio was our friend. It united us. It forged our national identity. And it brought the world to our homes. It is often said politics, films and cricket are what bind India. Radio made that cohesion possible. In today’s episode we talk about Radio and its profound impact on our society. The iconic mournful signature tune and its history; the sabha on the eve of our independence, the legends who...
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Ep 4: The Variegated Shades of Truth And V.K. Murtyh - Guru Dutt's 'Eyes'
Haal-Chaal Theek Thaak Hai
Twain wrote: “The Lie, as a recreation, a solace, a refuge in time of need, the fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man's best and surest friend, is immortal, and cannot perish from the earth.” We examine this immortality of the Lie and its bete noire, the Truth, in today’s episode. The legend of Ashwathama, the contribution of Dharmvir Bharti to our intellectual landscape, the unreliable narrator of Andhadhun, the straight-as-an-arrow Dharmendra in Satyakam and the lies in the fiction of Premchand and RK Narayan – we look for the role of deception and honesty in all of them. Is truth...
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Ep3: Rains In Our Culture And Mangesh Desai - A Forgotten Legend Of Indian Cinema
Haal-Chaal Theek Thaak Hai
Rains! The smell of the wet earth. In today’s episode we discuss rains in our culture. From Kalidasa, Tagore, T.S. Pillai to Raj Kapoor, Ramsays and Mani Ratnam. We discuss the influence of rains in our books, films and songs. In spotlight, we turn our attention to an artist who Satyajit Ray called indispensable. We close with our usual recommendations on what we are reading, writing and listening to these days.
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Ep2: Migration In Our Popular Culture, Jaidev and A Surprise At The End
Haal-Chaal Theek Thaak Hai
02 August, 2020
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China in Indian popular culture, Haqeeqat and Manohari Singh
Haal-Chaal Theek Thaak Hai
In this first episode, Pavan and Subrat talk about their backgrounds, China’s presence (or absence) in our popular culture, the legendary instrumentalist of Hindi film music, Manohari Singh, and what they are reading, listening and watching. They talk about how China appears in films like Dr. Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani, Haqeeqat, Bhool Na Jaana and Neel Aaksher Neechey. They discuss trivia about the combination of Madan Mohan and Kaifi Azmi, the ensemble cast and the roles of Bhupinder, Balraj Sahni and Jayant in the making of the Haqeeqat. They consider the invasion of Chinese martial...
info_outlineIn this first episode, Pavan and Subrat talk about their backgrounds, China’s presence (or absence) in our popular culture, the legendary instrumentalist of Hindi film music, Manohari Singh, and what they are reading, listening and watching.
They talk about how China appears in films like Dr. Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani, Haqeeqat, Bhool Na Jaana and Neel Aaksher Neechey. They discuss trivia about the combination of Madan Mohan and Kaifi Azmi, the ensemble cast and the roles of Bhupinder, Balraj Sahni and Jayant in the making of the Haqeeqat. They consider the invasion of Chinese martial arts films in the home video market in India.
They discuss the contribution of Manohari Singh to the success of some of the most popular Hindi film songs and share trivia about the making of these songs.
They close out with our recommendations about films, songs and books.
Also check out:
- Film Division documentaries of S. Sukhdev
- Mrinal Sen’s Neel Akasher Neechey
- Megha Majumdar’s A Burning on Amazon