Continued from Part 1
The seeds of frenzy for cinema were sown.
My father held that position for a good 4 years till he was transferred to Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh. In those 4 years, I watched close to 250 movies. I had a small notebook maintained of the movies I watched beside other details like cast, director, date of watching et al.
Eventually, new releases started hitting the defense theater as well. The first movie ever which I saw on the first day of release was Govinda’s Ilzaam and incidentally it was his debut movie as well. I do not remember much of that but same year Govinda had another release, Love 86http://blessed-curse.blogspot.com/2009/04/me-and-cinema-part-1.html and I saw that movie 3 times. Govinda instantly took over from Mithun as my favorite. Mithun and his Disco Dancer had left a massive impression on me and those days I could be found fighting with my brother for his stance that Amitabh Bachchan can kill Mithun with one punch. There were no arguments on who is better actor; that did not matter to us then as I recall now. There used to be just fights between us for who can defeat whom if they get in a brawl. Another point I used to put forward was Mithun is a good dancer and Amitabh cannot dance at all. For which my brother retorted with this: Mithun is Nachaniya (slang for cross dressers who dance in weddings up north) and Amitabh is real MARD.
All the time he said this, I did something horrible to him (apart from the ongoing punches and kicks we exchanged). Once, while playing in school during interval, I pronto jumped at him, snatched his glasses and threw far away and ran like hell. Or like pulling his knicker down during the assembly, stuffing his lunchbox with sand, emptying his water bottle.
And all this because of he had bad mouthed Mithun.
Govinda after that movie was my favorite for sometime till I saw a movie released much earlier than Love 86. It was Vinod Khann’s Hera Pheri. Well, it was Amitabh’s too but I was never Amitabh's fan. I had seen other movies of Vinod but Hera Pheri transformed me into a bona fide fan of his. And I knew I was his only fan. No one and I say as a matter of fact, no one in my vicinity ever said that Vinod is their favorite. If few did vouch for Mithun or Govinda, no one mentioned Vinod. I now know I was yet to meet some people who were sensible enough to appreciate what an actor he was and thankfully I do now know many such people and particularly few ladies who appreciate a lot more in him than his persona. I know one such who still gets weak-kneed speaking of him.
When it came to heroines, I was absolutely besotted with Sri Devi from then till now. I need a whole different post to talk of her. So, I am going to talk of other few who enormously caught my interest. There was Neetu Singh and her gleaming smile. Dekh Ke Tumko Dil Dola Hai song had three couples; Vinod and Neetu amongst them but not paired opposite. I was not so happy with that information. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoy that song (if not the movie) even now when I see it on some channel.
Bollywood then always came up with movies which were like mind puzzles. Whose son/daughter was born where, raised by whom, finally ending where to avenge whatever crime that was committed by whomever gazillion years ago? And I enjoyed all of them. One such was Dharamveer starring Dharamendra, Zeenat, Jeetendra and Neetu. Chuck all, Neetu was the one for me.
Amrita Singh was another who caught my fancy. I was upset with Mayapuri for calling her ‘Mard Singh’ and I was overtly glad few years later when Jackie Shroff called her the ‘Real Princess’. I am not sure if it was Jackie or someone else. I remember reading that though. Whoever it was knew the real her like I always knew.
As I grew older, I also criticized these very favorites of mine (Mithun, Vinod, Neetu, Amrita) for their idiotic roles and bizarre performances. I knew then, I cannot be anyone’s fan just for the sake of it. I found myself to be blatant in my opinion by the age of 10.
The seeds of unprejudiced position for performances were sown.
P.S. A little diversion here: I am not liking the posts/blogs written on MJ's death and how sad people who are writing these are after hearing he is finished.
When he was alive, none of these people wrote post/blog on 'how good an artiste he was' but post his death everyone seems to be mourning his death out of no where. Be it Shekhar Kapoor, Ram Gopal Varma, Adnan Sami or my fellow blog mates; everyone seems to get up from sleep to say something about him. I like anyone else grew up on his music but I never captured him in my writings all this while; so I see no reason to imprison him in my words post his demise.
I commiserate the sentiment of those who spoke of him. In fact, I did go and comment on few of the blogs which spoke of MJ’s death; but I did that out of friendship with the blogger friend who wrote the piece. I do not wish to offend anyone here by saying this; nonetheless I am finding it very uncanny to read plethora of piece upon his death.
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