![]() ![]() The dances were also a delight, with Yakub and Gope, despite the latter’s portly figure, being so agile in their movements. ![]() The acting was mediocre at best but the song, oh the songs! I can still recall, 40 years later some of them – Piya Gaye Rangoon, O Dilwalon, Pyar Ki Jahan Ki Nirali Sarkar and Namaste Namaste (which incidentally is not a Dikshitar kriti). In many ways this was a movie that like Thillana Mohanambal, very theatrical, more so because the characters were all part of a drama troupe and many of the songs were in a stage setting, complete with audience, curtains and the proscenium arch. Patanga (1949) starring Nigar Sultana (one of Thatha’s favourites), with Shyam, Yakub and Gope, was one film that he and I saw together when it was telecast on Doordarshan in the 1970s. A railway doctor, he was good fun to hang around with, especially as we grew up, for he had a fund of ribald stories of the past, knew most of the scandals of his time, enjoyed Hindustani music and above all, loved old Hindi and Tamil films. Unlike my paternal grandfather who was a serious man devoted to Sanskrit and his library of 5,000 books, my maternal grandfather was, like Ol’ King Cole, a merry old soul.
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