Includes bibliographical references (p. 647-653) and indexes.
Contents:
Keynote -- Foreword -- Curtain-raiser -- A small thank you -- Introduction. Art and life, mirroring each other ; The longevity of art ; But it's a kind of give-and-take all the time ; Let's look at the art of cinema now ; A brief look at Hindi films ; The importance of music in our films ; The influence of moving images ; Dialogues we can't forget ; Lyrics in Hindi cinema ; Good songwriting runs on two tracks ; Peeling away ; The initial decades...films learn to talk ; But we don't have many of the early songs or films ; Our journey ; The warm-up to the talkies ; The arrival and proliferation of short films ; Early talking films -- Laying the foundations (1931-1950). The era of calcutta's new theatres ; A short detour around a Panghat ; Prabhat films ; Bombay talkies ; Inspiration from up above ; Mehboob Khan ; Wadia brothers ; Sohrab Modi ; The 1940s ; The steam engine ; Bird-related songs ; Shama-Parwaana ; Desi endearments ; Sensual touches ; Hindu-Muslim Bhai-Bhai ; The English hangover -- Gandhiji and the Charkha ; Freedom! ; Let's move on ; To recap the 1930s and 1940s with films and music in mind -- The golden era (1951-1970). Patriotism in various shades ; Foreign stories and influences were on the radar ; The devotional-mythological scene was pretty busy ; Devotion, the manna dey way ; Intimacy with God : thou or you? ; The philosophical and spiritual (Adhyatmik) flavour ; Songs from historical films ; The landmark decades ; A few women-centric films, and their songs ; Children and the Nehruvian influence ; The showman Raj Kapoor is here first ; Romancing the moon ; Bimal Roy ; We toggle away briefly, and see foley ; The intense Guru Dutt ; BR Chopra ; Mehboob Khan revisited ; From dust to dust ; Hrishikesh Mukherjee ; Nasir Husain ; Sohrab Modi and his minerva in the 1950s ; Dev Anand's Navketan ; V. Shantaram ; Distinctively creative imagery in film situations ; Vedanta stuff ; Beauty as epitomized by Madhubala ; Other beautiful actresses ; Vanity ; English words in Hindi film songs ; Coming of age ; More situational numbers ; Sharaab stuff ; Hiccups sound great in songs! ; Festival songs ; Hall of fame songwriting and words ; "My heart isn't me" idea ; Money matters ; Tears with Talat and others! ; Aasmaan ; Worthy writers submit to their imagination ; Shama-Parwaana gets more charged ; Lethal stuff ; After that deadly stuff, here's some general imagery again ; Let's take a break here to look at 'proper' Hindi ; Our Hindi break is over ; Taj Mahal, the symbol of love ; Let's see what else is up with songwriters these days ; It's Sufi time ; More situational songs and social relevance ; Letters on writers' radars ; Taken for a ride! ; Classical stuff ; Guru-Shishya songs ; Bhojpuri and more ; It's pouring! ; Dream songs ; Sensually-oriented ones ; Songs featuring unique syntax or unusual words ; Bambaiya Lingo ; Q and A songs ; The hair connection ; Saris, Shalwar-Kurtas ; Panghat (seen in the last section too) ; Fair is beautiful ; Loris and sleep ; Other significant film makers ; The folk element in the golden years ; Comedy films and songs ; Parody ; Ballads ; Nazms ; Qawwalis ; Mujras ; Ghazals ; Rubais ; The very popular 2-3-3 : 'Doteenya' ; Cabarets and 'item' numbers ; Picnic songs ; Cities and places ; Harbingers ; Summing up of this leg of our trip -- Big changes are happening (1971-1990). New times are here ; More question and answer songs ; Flower power ; Coming-of-age again ; Other issues ; Disco music ; Intoxicants in these years ; Learning stuff in these decades ; Devotional numbers ; Carry on, carry on, stop not! ; Remarkable songwriting from these times ; The emergency ; Women and their stories ; A reflection of the times (guest article) -- It's a new world now (1991-2010). Reaching for the sky ; The explicit scene gets turbo-charged now ; Shyness is no longer a virtue ; Some 'drowned' lyrics ; Globalization ; Punjabiyat ; The new society offers new challenges ; Recent burst of patriotism ; Topori Lingo ; The ninth decade has started ; Epilogue ; Where do we go from here? ; To sum up ; Brief profiles of a few songwriters ; Index of films with their songs ; Non-film songs ; Glossary ; Index of film or music personalities covered in this book -- Bibliography -- The last word.
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