There is a good chance that most of the buffoons who chant "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" don't care to know anything at all about the country's gloriously rich history. The theocratic buffoons ruining running the country seem to be hell bent on making sure the world would understand Iran only as a country of nutcases.
A long time ago, I read somewhere (where? the older I get, the more I forget such details!) that even as Arabic gained currency in West Asia as the language of science, Persian reigned supreme as the language of culture. Something like the comparison between French and German, I suppose.
It was a good thing that the Central Asians invading India brought along with them the Persian culture, which then filtered all the way down to memorable Bollywood stars who played memorable Muslim characters with memorable melodies.
After talking to "D" for a long time last night, I suppose I keep going back to various India memories ... One of them was about old songs. I went searching for an oldie, "Raman eththani ramanadi" sung by P. Susheela, I think. But, dammit, YouTube didn't have that. Lots of memories associated with that song going back to maybe when I was maybe ten years old.
After a few unsuccessful searches, to cheer myself up, I watched the following classic மறைந்திருந்தே பார்க்கும் மருமம் என்ன from தில்லானா மோகனம்பாள் ("Thillana Mohanambal")
Padmini and her classical dances were always talked about at home, so much so that when I was young I thought she was a close relative of ours! Well, she certainly deserved all that attention. This entire song and dance sequence is a pleasure for so many reasons: the melody, the lyrics, the dancing, the expressions, and, most of all, the humor throughout. Including the puns in the lyrics. Am glad that unlike with Hindi songs, here I can actually understand the lyrics :)
It turned out, much to my disappointment, that Padmini was no relation after all. But, we do have other connections to this movie. "Thillana Mohanambal" was adapted for the screen based on a novel by Kothamangalam Subbu. My sister is married to Subbu's brother's son. There, finally, if not through Padmini, we have some real connections to this movie :)
Speaking of Subbu, one of the serialized novels that my parents had collected and bound was "Rao Bahadur Singaram." It had all the elements to draw in a young reader--a bull-headed young man in the countryside, falling in love with a rich girl, all the complications that arise when they get married, and then through hard work the young man and his bride becoming rich ... wait, this is a story that can work well even here in the US, right?
Here is one of those classic not-related-to-me Padmini's dance sequences, which many times my parents have referred to as nothing but "jalilo jimkaana"
As a kid, I loved listening to Hindi film songs even though I had no clue about the lyrics thanks to knowing only a few words in that language. That fascination hasn't exited my system one bit. Here is a video from a movie that came out forty years ago, and I bet I knew this song only because of my sister, five years older than me--I wonder if she knew what they were singing about :)
