Kashmir Ki Kali

I got to watch three of the bollywood movies this week. All three of them completely of different genres and era. The first one was Shakti Samanta's "KASHMIR KI KALI" (1964), then Mahesh Bhatt's "ZAKHM" (1998) and the most recent being the new release Mukesh Bhatt's "Jannat" (2008). All three movies are good when watched from their perspective but comparison between them will be a complete injustice as all of them are completely different kind of movies. Still, if forced to rank them according to my choice I would go with Zakhm as the best followed by Kashmir Ki Kali and Jannat in that order. This blog is concerned with Kashmir Ki kali. blogs on Zakhm and Jannat will follow this in a few days hopefully.

Shakti Samanta's Kashmir ki kali is a suspense-cum-love story wherein the audience has no clue about the suspense coming till quite late in the movie. Its a movie about a young guy, son of a rich mother (रानी माँ)who does not want to marry to a girl of his mother's choice. He flees away to kashmir to get away from all this. There he finds a girl who works as a flower-seller and gets a crush on her. He loses his heart to her and she also starts loving her. At the last, the hero comes to know that rani maa is not his real mother and also that she had given birth to a baby girl who was stolen. The hero starts searching for the girl and ultimately, his search ends at the flower-seller whom he loved.

The young guy is played by ever-refreshing Mr. Shammi kapoor and the girl is played by Sharmila Tagore. She made an emphatic debut in Hindi film industry with this film prior to which she had already made the Bengali film industry her own. She looked beautiful and refreshing in the movie and undoubtedly became the heartthrob of a million Indians.

The direction of Shakti Samanta is above all his standards. The beautiful picturisation of the valley of Kashmir makes the movie all the more refreshing. It is one of the many things that can be found common in betwen all the samanta's films. I don't remember names of much of his films but I do remember An evening in paris, Aaradhna and other Rajesh khanna movies of that time wherein similar beautiful picturisation made the movie lively. One more thing that i noticed as similarity in between this movie and Aaradhna is the way the hero and heroine are introduced to each other. Here Sharmila Tagore throws a full bucket of water unknowingly on shammi kapoor much alike in aaradhna wherein she again does the same but with Rajesh khanna.

The best part of the movie for me is its music. Nothing to say about Mr. O. P. Nayyar, one of the best music directors the Hindi film industry has ever had. Be it the words of praise for Tagore's beauty in "Taarif Karoon Kya Uski" or the evergreen love song "Deewana Hua Baadal" or the touching "Hai duniya usi ki", every song touches your heart and you can't resist yourself from humming some words from them. The most beautiful part is the solo Saxophone in Hai duniya usi ki that I have loved from the time I first ever heard it on vividh bharti.

All in all a good movie at last that completely entertains you with all the masalas of the hindi movies-------Love triangle(third angle being Pran), suspense, rich-poor descrimination and many more....................................