Happy Holi !

होली है !! Happy Holi everyone!! How can I go without marking this day in my blog? Bollywood delivers, as usual, and provides us with many wonderful songs for this occasion. But I know what I want so I shan’t even go through the motions of reviewing the Holi songs from different films. Holi is about spring and colour, about joy and sensuality. Holi is about the visual. So I’ll go by scenes rather than the music . For me, there are only three serious contenders – Rajesh Khanna colouring up the world of the bereft Asha while singing Aaj na Chodenge in Kati Patang (1970).  Rajesh again but with Mumtaz in Bhang induced singing of Jai Jai Shiv Shankar in Aap ki Kasam (1974). And then there is Rang Barse from Silsila (1981).

For those in India, I know you are being bombarded with the same songs on all the TV channels but I am not there, and I will celebrate with my own little channel here.

As far as I am concerned, nothing can beat the erotically super-charged Rang Barse from Silsila. The combination of on-screen and off-screen stories, the drama of Jaya and Sanjeev’s dawning realisation of their partners’ infidelity, the earthiness of Amitabh which contrasts so strongly with what we know to be his real life mien, the caress of Rekha’s long braid on her body, the dehati tone of Amitabh singing in his own voice, the suggestiveness of the lyrics which match all this – its a perfectly put together screen event! For me this is THE Holi song. I know there are many of you who would consider the scantily clad figure of a nubile and lissom young thing gyrating to a fast beat to be sensuous, but in my opinion this song sequence gets the prize for on-screen sensuality in Bollywood.

Rang Barse–Amitabh Bacchan