This is one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite movies from when I was a kid. This song is from the movie Sholay, arguably the biggest Bollywood hit in history. My parents had the song on tapes and I think maybe even an LP. It’s one of those songs that just is permanently part of my life’s soundtrack. And, it’s such a good song too. Some more background about the movie from Wikipedia:

Sholay is the highest grossing film of all time in India. It has earned Rs. 2,36,45,00,000, equivalent to US$ 60 million, after adjusting for inflation. When first released, the film was declared a commercial disaster. Word of mouth convinced movie-goers to give the film a chance and soon it became a box-office phenomenon. It ran for 286 weeks straight (more than five years) in one Mumbai theatre, the Minerva. Sholay racked up a still record 60 golden jubilees across India and doubled its original gross over reruns during the late 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. Sholay was the first film in the history of Indian cinema to celebrate silver jubilee (25 weeks) at over a hundred theatres across India.

In 1999, BBC India declared it the “Film of the Millennium”; Indiatimes movies ranks the movie amongst the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films. In that same year, the judges of the 50th annual Filmfare awards awarded it with a special award called Filmfare Best Film of 50 Years.

Bollywood films, especially from that era, always feel campy to me, but I think I might have to give this another viewing soon.

Bonus video from the 1965 film Gumnaam. This song, Jaan Pehechan Ho, also appeared in the movie Ghost World (which, if I’m remembering correctly, is the first movie my wife and I watched together):

We always wonder if her neck hurt after shooting finished…

(PS. I’m actually reasonably impressed that I can translate much of both songs without looking up words… considering my parents don’t speak Hindi in the house (we’re Gujarati), I think that’s an accomplishment)