Hi, this is FC Flashback. This month, we are celebrating the films of Vijay Anand and I’m talking about one of his early classics, Kala Bazar, made in 1960.
For many of you, the idea of a kala bazaar, might be alien. Once upon a time, before multiplexes arrived, movie tickets were sold in black right out side the theatre. Men and sometimes women would merge into the crowds, mumbling the rates of the tickets they were selling. If you want to see it done, hang outside a single screen theatre the day a Salman Khan film releases.
In a career spanning over five decades, timeless actress Waheeda Rehman, has been part of several memorable films like Neel Kamal, Bees Saal Baad, Khamoshi, Pyaasa, Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, Guide, CID, Chaudvin Ka Chand, and Solva Saal, among others, establishing herself as one of the finest artistes of the industry. However, the leading lady of the ‘Golden Age’ of Indian cinema said she didn’t show her skin for the roles she essayed and often refused to succumb to the demands of producers and directors, who were eventually convinced.
At a time when Hindi film actors were crying over heartbreak and struggling to live up to Nehruvian idealism on the big screen, there emerged a flamboyant anti-hero who filled the audience with optimism. With a cap dangerously perched on puffed-up hair, a smile on his face and a song on his lips, Dev Anand straddled the space between the good and the bad, old and new, sometimes as a rakish cab driver and at others as a debonair con artiste seeking redemption.
