I recently saw The Burning Train again and I'm reminded of why I love the combination of Dharmendra and Jeetendra. Released in 1980, the star studded film was declared a below average performer despite its 100% opening. I don't care about those numbers, it is a great movie...
The story is quite interwoven but in summary its the story of a railway engineer, Vinod (Vinod Khanna), who got awarded the contract to build a train which he names 'Super Express'. This happens to the disgust of another engineer, Randhir, who was also chasing the same dream. Incidentally, Randhir also looses his love interest, Sheetal (Parveen Babi), to Vinod. This makes him plot an evil scheme against Vinod and the Super Express...
It is also a story of Ashok (Dhamendra), best friends with Vinod who meet, fall in love, and get engaged with Seema (Hema Malini) and are soon to be married. Ashok however, looses his father to suicide because he was debt-ridden and further lost all his properties as well as Seema.
Then, there is the story of Ravi (Jeetendra), a common thief, who tries to befriend Madhu (Neetu Singh) in order to steal from her. Madhu had eloped from her arranged marriage with money and jewelries and Ravi had seen this.
Super Express is bombed, goes up in flames, and it won't stop... It is a tale of how these three characters put their lives at risk to save the passengers of the doomed train!
My favorite song is the prayer song by the school children and their teacher - 'Teri Hai Zameen'. It's a very emotional song and the meaning is just wow!...
"You are the Lord of the Heavens and the Earth
You are the most compassionate one
You belong to all, and all belong to you
Be merciful to us Lord
We have come into this world by Your will
By Your grace we have received this body and the life within
Keep us under Your watchful eye
Please take care of us
You may admonish us or keep us close to you
You are the Master of our destiny
This body and the life belong to You and so do all the desires that arise therefrom"
Over 34 years ago, Amitabh Bachchan (Big B) regained consciousness after a near-fatal accident while filming "Coolie" and the legend remembers the day as his second birthday.
On July 26 1982, Big B suffered an accident and was injured in the intestines while shooting a scene from the film in Bangalore. In the fight scene, Bachchan was supposed to fall onto a table, but mis-timed his jump. This resulted in an internal abdominal injury. He was transferred to a Mumbai hospital, where according to the actor, he went into a "haze and coma-like situation", and was "clinically dead for a couple of minutes".
Despite critical injury, Bachchan recovered remarkably and resumed shooting on 7 January 1983. In the final cut of the film, the fight scene during which he got injured was frozen and a message appears marking the scene as the one in which he was injured.
Due to Bachchan's injury, the ending was also changed. The original script showed Amitabh dying after Kader Khan shot him. But later on, after the injury-and-recovery episode, Manmohan Desai, decided to change the ending. The modified ending has the hero recover after his operation.
Big B took to Twitter same day last year to thank his fans for their wishes and prayers on the incident...
“To all that wish me today, may I just say I am overwhelmed by your prayers and concern and love … Indebted.”
On July 13, 2016, he shared a throwback picture of himself and veteran actor Dharmendra and wrote... :T 2315 - When Dharam ji came to wish me on my first day on set after Coolie accident recovery .. !"
His son Abhishek also took to Instagram last year to wish him. He shared a picture of Big B from a scene in Coolie and wrote, “I can’t even remember how many times I would drape a bedsheet in the same way and re-enact this sequence from Coolie. Would make my friends play the role of Zafar and shoot me with a plastic play gun and I would play the part of Iqbal. Yup, I learnt very early in my life that God made only one Amitabh Bachchan. Happy second birthday Pa. You are my inspiration...”
We all remember Coolie right? It remains evergreen; actually Big B himself is evergreen...
There were tons of wishes for the legend on Twitter for this second birthday including one from me too... 😍
Let's throw it back to 2001 with the star studded cast of Karan Johar's Kabhie Khushi Kabhie Gham (or K3G) I believe it means 'Sometimes there's Happiness, Sometimes there's Sorrow'.
The movie stars Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, ShahRukh Khan, Kajol, Hrithik Roshan, and Kareena Kapoor in major roles. Although, this movie is about 16 years old. It remains evergreen...
PLOT
Yashvardhan Raichand (Amitabh Bachchan) is a rich businessman who lives in India with his wife Nandini (Jaya Bachchan). They have two sons Rahul (Shahrukh Khan) and young Rohan (Kavish Majmudar). Rahul is an adopted son of Yash and Nandini; this is known to everyone except Rohan.
Rahul meets the feisty Anjali (Kajol), the daughter of a confectioner who lives in Chandi Chowk, a local and low class vicinity (sort of like our own Ajegunle 😃) when he had gone to check on their order for his father's 50th birthday and also give their nanny, Daijan (Farida Jalal) some medicines because she was ill. It was a love at first sight kind of situation for him.
At the same time, Rohan meets young Pooja (Maalvika Raaj) but theirs was not pleasant as Pooja taunts Rohan with some other local kids.
As Rahul and Anjali's love blossomed, Yash had his own plan of marrying his son to Naina (Rani Mukherji). A situation, coupled with some other unfortunate incidents between Yash and Anjali, that would make Rahul and Anjali's love forbidden.
In the midst of all the drama, Rohan is sent to a boarding school, which is part of their family's tradition; and Yash announces his desire for Rahul to marry Naina. Naina learns that Rahul is in love with someone else, and encourages him to pursue her.
When Yash finds out about Rahul and Anjali's relationship, he is enraged. Rahul, at that point, promises not to marry Anjali and sets out to inform Anjali but discovers that her father (Alok Nath) had died and marries her (Here, I thought to myself - wtf - is that how people just get married?! 😒). Yash learns of the marriage and disowns Rahul, reminding him that he had proved that he was not his blood. Nandini and Rahul share a tearful goodbye and she sends Sayeeda (aka Daijan), to watch over him. Rahul also visits Rohan in school and begs of him never to ask where he went or why he left, and asks him to take care of their mum, join the cricket team, and loose some weight.
Ten years later, Rohan (now Hrithik Roshan) returns home from the boarding school, and learns from his grandmothers (Achala Sachdev and Sushma Seth) that Rahul was adopted; he also learns the reason why he left the house; whereupon Rohan vows to reunite the family. He finds out that Rahul, Anjali, and Pooja moved to London, and tells his parents that he wishes further his studies in London. In London, Rahul is now a wealthy businessman; he and Anjali now have their own son, Krish.
Grown up Pooja (Kareena Kapoor) is now a popular student at King's College London, she is popularly called 'Poo'. Rohan enrolls there too and plots his meeting with Pooja where he tells her that he has come to London to bring his brother and sister-in-law back home and asks for her help.
Pooja tells Rahul that Rohan is her friend's brother who has nowhere to stay and persuades him (more like bully him, lol), to let Rohan stay with them. Rohan introduces himself as Yash and set a series of event in motion to remind his brother of home.
Finally, at Krish's school function, he sings the Indian national anthem, and thereafter, recites an advice which Rohan had given him. This advice had been given by Rahul to Rohan ten years back. Rahul thus realise that Rohan is his brother. Rohan begs Rahul to come home, but he refuses.
Pooja convinces Rohan to invite his parents to London and had to buy him a gift upon arrival. They agree and come. Rohan tells his father the exact mall where he should by this gift in a plan to get everybody at the same place. His plan works as Rahul and Nandini see each other but Rahul still refuses to talk to his father.
Yash is angry with Rohan after he finds out what he tried to do, he even slaps him at a point in the heated arguement. He then learns that his mother had died and that her last wish was for Yash, Rahul, and Rohan to light her funeral pyre together. Anjali convinced Rahul to let them go to India, he agrees.
The entire family attends the funeral, and Nandini tells Yash that she thought he was wrong for disowning Rahul. Rohan and Pooja convince Rahul to talk to Yash, he does and all is well between father and son.
Rohan and Pooja are also married and the family hold a belated celebration of Rahul and Anjali's wedding. And I guess... they lived happily ever after!
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I love love love this movie! Infact, it was my first 'modern' bollywood movie (as I was used to classics of Dharmendra and co). It was that which introduced me to the jodi world of SRK and Kajol 😉
But then, like many movies, it wasn't perfect. There were some really minute details that didn't get attention... I love you Karan but you just missed them! 😏
1. Rahul wore the same shoes for good ten years. Amazing! Despite all his wealth?! He could relocate to London but could not change his shoes. But then again, maybe he kept them so his mum could recognise him ten years after... or he simply loved those exact design that he just kept buying them year in year out - don't worry Rahul, I got your back! 😖
2. Pooja's shoes magically match at the party after leaving home with mismatched shoes. Perhaps, we missed the scene where she stopped by a store to buy a new pair of shoes... 😄
3. The movie was set in 1991 and Yash used a Nokia communicator that was launched from 1998... but then again he is not a rich mogul for nothing. With all his wealth, he definitely could have afforded a time travel machine to buy it from the future 😎
4. The song that Yash sang to Nandini on his birthday - 'aye kya bolti tu' is from the movie Ghulam which was released in 1997. Need I remind you that Yash is so rich that he could go to the future to get gadgets and information... so why should we be surprised! 😝 #OKBye....
Popular Zee TV's show, Jamai Raja aka King Of Hearts on Zee World Africa is finally coming to an end. The serial which launched in 2014 and ran 3 seasons is being reported to air its last episode on March 3.
Ravi Dubey (aka Sid) confirmed the news to a leading daily saying, "The show will end immediately after completing 700 episodes. We have had a successful run. I played over 18 characters in the show. I am grateful for the terrific opportunity; it helped me grow as an actor."
Those who follow the series on Zee TV have seen Ravi transform from Sid to Tai to Raghu to Satya (at least, those are the characters I am familiar with).
After Roshni (Nia Sharma) left the show, I just stopped following. Read here to see how her exit was played out. I mean, without #SidNi, there is no #JamaiRaja.
So for those following King Of Hearts, well you still have time. Let me give you some spoilers...
They will soon introduce Shabnam who will show Sid/Roshni/DD pepper. Shabnam is Roshni's half sister and older sister of Aisha - yep! Aisha is Roshni's sister...
Sam will start coming for Kritika under the impression that she (Kritika) wants to steal Yash.
Yash will become evil and kill DD (YES!)
There is more oh! I just can't deal! And this is still season 1 (there are 3 seasons with different themes)
Brace yourselves people... it's a long and tiring ride! 😔
What happens when the 'He-Man' fall in love with the 'Dream girl' of Bollywood?!.... A sizzling love story of two drop-dead gorgeous people...
Dharmendra and Hema Malini's love story is epic! The stars fell in love on the sets of Tum Haseen Main Jawan in the 70's. That time, Hema was allegedly engaged to actor, Jeetendra and Dharmendra was already married to Prakash Kaur with two sons, Sunny and Bobby.
Dhamendra married Prakash in 1954 when she was just 19 years old. A few years later, he moved to Mumbai to pursue a career in films and soon became a star. While this marked the beginning of a new phase for the couple, it also laid the seeds for the affair that would shake the foundation of their marriage.
Hema's biography says that she got attracted to Dharmendra because he was strong and silent like her mother. The actress finds her husband very romantic and says he still looks at her the same way he did when they first met. It was rumoured that when the film, Sholay, was being shot, Dharmendra bribed some of the light boys on the set to constantly disturb the lights. This leads to many re-takes and gave him more chances to hold Hema close to him!
They were in a relationship for several years before they finally decided to tie the knot and because Prakash did not want a divorce, the couple decided to convert to Islam in order to get married despite the strong opposition from both families. Hema's father was strictly against the marriage, so Hema married Dharmendra only after he died. They got married in a Nikahnama ceremony when Hema was 29 and Dharmendra was 44; the nikah was kept secret for a year.
The families also expressed disappointment in them for converting to Islam but eventually, gave in to their love and accepted them.
This famous couple have acted in 42 movies together; they have two daughters, Esha and Ahana (whom are also married) and Dharmendra still lives with his first wife, Prakash.
They truly epitomise love in all forms. Even now, whenever they appear on screen or on any show, they look the same - beautiful and madly in love! 😍😍😍