Landmark Tunes- Hindi Films

There are a few landmark tunes that are associated in my mind with music directors in Hindi films.

Vasant Desai- Bole re papihara in Guddi. It is so different from the usual songs.

RD Burman- Dum maro dum from Hare Rama Hare Krishna. I don't think anyone else could have thought of this.

SD Burman- Wahan kaun hai tera, musafir, jayega kahan (film- Guide), in his own voice.

Jaidev- Main zindagi ka saath nibhaata chala gaya. A masterpiece from Hum Dono, sung by Mohammad Rafi.

Kalyanji Anandji- Pal bhar ke liye koi hamein pyar kar le from Johny Mera Naam. Dev Anand and Hema Malini added a lot of charm to it.

Shankar Jaikishen- Sayonara, sayonara from Love in Tokyo.

Laxmikant Pyarelal- Mere mehboob qayamat hogi from Mr. X in Bombay.

OP Nayyar- Piya piya piya mora jiya pukare, from Baap re Baap. Early use of Kishore Kumar's yodeling, and trademark hoofbeats that he used in many songs.

The Vanishing Bookstores

When visiting Pune recently, I found that the Landmark, which originally started out as a bookstore plus in Chennai a few years ago and then got taken over by the Tatas, had closed its branch at SGS Mall, which was accessible easily to me from where I live.

This is not the only bookstore I know that has closed, though. There are many more. Manney's also in the same area as above, shut down earlier. A few Crosswords that I knew of have also closed-one on Bangalore's Residency Road, for instance.

As a person who likes to browse before he buys, I am concerned. That civilisation is in danger, if we only order online and don't want to spend the time browsing in actual physical stores. There seems to be something wrong here. Airport bookstalls were almost a given, until I found two years ago that Delhi's budget departure lounge did not have a book store any more. This is such an obvious place to sell books, so I don't know what went wrong. The greed of the airport in increasing lease rentals, sounds like a plausible explanation.

Anyway, as I was saying, I am concerned. And I hope that there are a few good stores left to sell books during my lifetime.

Sachinesque Landmark

That Sachin completed yet another landmark without winning a series is an Ok landmark, like the height of mixed feelings joke- watching your MIL drive over a cliff in your new Mercedes.

But I managed a landmark that I am reasonably proud of, without going on a cricket field. That of crossing 10,000 views for this blog. I am not sure of the figure's relevance, but for me, it sounds like a lot, and means a lot.

The reason, of course, that I had no clue there would be readers at all when I started blogging around two or three years ago. What it means is of course, is that there are regular readers of what I write. It is gratifying, and encouraging. It might mean, of course, that I keep writing a lot more, Beware!