When Parveen Babi entered Hindi cinema…

Many would not know if the name of Roshan Lal Sharma is counted among known directors who had a noticeable body of work for nearly three decades, with its highs and lows. Call him by his nom de plume BR Ishara(1934-2012)and many middle-aged men would remember his path-breaking indie film ‘Chetna’, a film talking about rehabilitation of prostitutes. In a media interaction, the film’s hero, Anil Dhawan, a Film Institute product had remembered how the heroine Rehana Sultan was seen just sporting the hero’s shirt in a scene from the film, a very bold one by the standards of the ‘70s.

This was a good 47 years ago by a helmsman, who continued to have such a daredevil approach with his films, which brought a host of new comers into the Hindi film industry, which included Parveen Babi and cricketer Salim Durrani in the 1973 release ‘Charitra’.

The ‘mobile gold shop’ music director Bappi Lahiri, who became a sensation afterwards for his pseudo-Western stuff was also launched by him. He had nearly three dozen films to his credit till he stopped working in 1996. Ishara died on July 25, five years ago.

Not many again would know about BR Panthulu (1910-74), a colossus in southern cinema, who had phenomenal work to speak for his abilities in the three main languages – Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. He was one more showman like a few of the big banners in Madras which worked on the backward integration principle – producing films and shooting it in-house within its studios and availing of post-production work later from its own trusted people. Many of his hits in the regional languages were remade into Hindi.

One of his well-spoken work was which included the 1962 release ‘Dil Tera Deewana’ whose title number is still hummed by both Shammi Kapoor and Mohammed Rafi fans. He was born on July 26. Two renowned lyricists, one who died very young and the other, who was counted among the pantheon of the most-in-demand ones in Hindi cinema died during the final days of July.

Rajendra Krishan (1919-87), considered the richest writer in Hindi cinema had won a jackpot in horse racing to the tune of Rs 46 lakh, a huge sum in the ‘70s by any standards. He worked with almost all the big music directors beginning with Chitragupta to RD Burman. He not only wrote songs but also doubled up as a dialogue writer for many hit films. He breathed his last on July 28.

The connoisseurs of ghazals and the lovers of Lata Mangeshkar’s voice would never be able to forget Raja Mehdi Ali Khan (1928-66), who composed a huge list of popular numbers set to tune by Madan Mohan and the trio is an unbeatable one in this regard.

He passed away on July 29. Two days later, July 31, ask any Hindi film lover whose death anniversary it is on that day and they would scream their answers for sure: Mohammed Rafi, born in 1924 and died in 1980.