Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Jangal mein mangal
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Are you single, feel like a Pringle, ready to mingle?
Or do you skulk in a corner like a wrinkle, wondering if you are Hangal?
A reader of ours remarked on his blog, that he is reaching the age where his hitting on women makes him, what I have referred to in the past as, the ‘lecherous A K Hangal type’. Since I have been made out to be some sort of expert on the matter of lascivious geriatric men, and I love being an expert on matters, especially those that I know nothing about, I decided to make a quick checklist for the denizens of the blogosphere. So, if you ever look in the mirror searching for the Hangal in you, this will help you find him.
- Have you tried to get a refund on hair regeneration products recently?
- Do you feel like the oldest person in any group you are with? Even when you meet up with your parents’ friends?
- Have you addressed at least one person as arre betaa in a quivering voice, in the last week?
- Are at least three of your friends married? Do at least two of them have kids? Does at least one of them have an annoying wife/husband who perpetually tries to set you up?
- Are you lately, beginning sentences with a hamaare zamaane mein .. ?
- Have you shrugged your shoulders and philosophized about the inevitable ignore/rejection by a girl with a — honii ko kaun taal saktaa hai?
- When you asked a girl out, in the deathly and awkward silence that followed, did you find yourself muttering in your mind — itnaa sannaataa kyon hai, bhai?
Now this is obviously a checklist for men, so don’t start crying foul about a gender bias. He may be antediluvian, but Hangal is very much a man. A virile stud-types of his days, even if that was a long, reeeally looooong time ago. If you’re still having doubts, think of all those jawaan betiyaan who eventually became the bojh of his boodhe kandhe. They didn’t appear out of nowhere without Hangal indulging in some jangal mein mangal, did they? So there.
So, if you nodded yes to at least half the questions, chances are, when you got all nouveau-Bollywood, and trooped off to Goa for the weekend with two of your buddies, intending to have a Dil Chahta Hai (2001) moment, you more likely had a Shaukeen (1981) moment instead. Shaukeen, by the way, is a tender tale of three geriatrics who go to Goa, try to hit on Mithun’s girlfriend and have their butts kicked. (If they got their butts kicked, their tail will understandably be tender, no? Heh heh. I am so easily amused.) But really, it is a sweet and fun movie by Basu Chatterjee. Do watch it. Lovely music too, by R D Burman. Incidentally, today would have been Pancham’s 67th birthday, had he been alive. If only. Sigh.
Okay now, for the sake of giving this post some respectability, let us conclude with an interesting trivia question for you all. Hangal has been the oldest character in pretty much every movie that he has starred in. He’s the resident paidaaishi budhau for as long as Hindi movies have been around, almost. But but but! (No, not the jurassic ones that Mithun kicked.) There is a movie in which Hangal has a dad! Imagine that! An actual on-screen dad, who addresses Hangal as beta. Any guesses, which phillum? And who be the dad?
The correct guesser will get a free pair of dentures.
I aint no film buff like you, so will leave the guesses to the experts…but “itnaa sannaataa kyon hai” was a dialogue we laughed ours hearts out during our school days…mean on our part no? :|
Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 12:40 AM
Ummm.. dentures!!! Appealing prize, but no thanks. However we think we knows the answer!
Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 12:44 AM
The eternal budda having Jaawan betiyaan? hmm! Hangal venturing into jangal itself is far streched let alone he indulging in mangalgiri. Having established that, where could have all those beautiful jawaan betiyaan come from! *wink wink* heh heh! (can’t help the moment of pondigiri)
Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 12:47 AM
I think i’m the exact antithesis of the A K Hangal type cos I feel like the youngest person in the group even when I am with kids and also cos I’ve never asked anyone out.
I dont know abt that movie in which AK Hangal had a dad but whoever commited the crime of miscasting him in a son’s role must be punished (if he’s not already dead).
Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 1:22 AM
[:)] The movie was “Bawarchi” and AK hangal’s screen dad was harendra nath chatopadhyay
Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 2:13 AM
Nice “Hangal-ness”defined by you….
what is suprising though, is how he looks ALMOST same in Sholay and Lagaan…..
;-)
Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 5:57 AM
Hey Megha,
The movie was Bawarchi. AKH is an alcoholic in that, who of course, is understood and then brought back on the track by the one and only Rajesh Khanna. That, too, was a refined movie, like Shaukeen. Did you see a duplicate of that? With Sanjay Dutt in the lead role? I don’t remember the name of the movie, but it had the song: ‘Ae Shivani, too badi hai diwani, ae Shivani…’. What a bakwaas movie that was.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 8:21 AM
please don’t be so partial to Hangal…do one on Nirupa Roy and the world will be good again.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 9:30 AM
OMG!
YES,YES,An emphatic yes to all your questions.
All my friends are married,all are making babies like rabbits & all try to get me fixed so I can be atleast as miserable as them.AND I have felt like the oldest person in any group since I was 25.
That rejection is the reason I became a philosopher in the first place.
The silence that followed gave me the first inkling of Satori.
Now the only thing left is the mangal in the jangal.[:)]
Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 12:35 PM
Vaishali - The remake would be Khoobsurat. Not to be confused with the movie of the same name starring Rekha and Rakesh Roshan.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 12:40 PM
aah finally an actual post - we thought we will have to be pleased with just photographs and tags - but she is back :D
Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 1:23 PM
Bawarchi I would think. It is quite hilarious when the old patriarch (i forget the bong grandpa’s name) wakes the whole household by calling Hangal “Munnaaaaa”..:)
Among the paidaishi budhe actors, Ashok Kumar is a close contender too, methinks..:)
Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 1:52 PM
The movie is Bawarchi, one of the funniest movies ever made (I swear I didn’t look at the comments posted above).
Another suggestion for your checklist - If you were offended by everything said here, you’ve reached the Hangal stage (kinda sounds like Jeff Foxworthy’s “You know you’re a redneck if…”
Great job with the sunflower spelling.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 3:21 PM
Oh, it’s Bawarchi……BTW, methinks there are a bunch of others who have been in their 50s/60s in any movie I have seen them in…..Satyen Kappu, Iftekar, Om Prakash all come to mind…..
And yeah, nothing is as bad as dealing with the friends’ wives trying to set one up because ‘you need to settle down at some time!!’ I HATE that phrase…..and always wonder, why one cannot be considered to be living a pretty settled life until they’re married……
Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 11:24 PM
Vaishali, I’m not too sure that Khoobsurat was a remake of Bawarchi. It might have borrowed few scenes at the most. Hero No. 1, on the other hand, did copy a lot of things from Bawarchi.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @ 11:26 PM
The most amusing thing I’ve read about Mr Hangal (from Anupama Chopra’s book on Sholay) is that he claimed to have used a “psycho-technique” to simulate the feeling of blindness for his role - apparently he “projected himself millions of years into the past” to get an understanding of what it must have been like for our sightless amoeba ancestors!
And we thought Hollywood’s Method actors were a precious lot…
Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 6:06 AM
Piece of cake, ‘Bawarchi’ it was where he plays the elder truant son of Harindranath Chattopadhyay in another Hrishikesh Mukherjee (btw is he alright now?) classic
Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 8:13 AM
*giving an ear-to-ear, toothless smile* It’s been a lucky week! Yesterday that refund and now these dentures…
Arrey Beti!The movie is Bawarchi.
But it is a very simple question, beta! You shud not give away dentures like that…. Humare zamane mein hua karte the…A-1 trivia questions..
Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 7:16 PM
And yes u can hold on to those dentures for now :)
Wednesday, June 28, 2006 @ 9:09 PM
That would be bawarchi and his father was played by Harendra Nath Chattopadhya and HNC was a poet, so I have heard.
Thursday, June 29, 2006 @ 11:32 AM
yoiks.. Am I thankful I dont even need to go thru that “quiz” :p
BTW beautiful shot that of the sky..
Friday, June 30, 2006 @ 8:05 AM
Gamemaster G9, no no, I’d never mistake it with the Rekha-Rakesh Roshan starrer. Because that was a good movie. This Sanjay Dutt flick was better to be avoided.
Raj, I too thought of Hero No.1. However, that was at least an entertainer, even though a copy. Khoobsoorat, although it did not have the protagonist in a cook’s role, the rest of it was all same. Stopping a family from falling apart. Bringing all family members together. Making the young girl in the family feel more feminine. Setting her kinda free. And blah blah… Don’t you agree?
Friday, June 30, 2006 @ 12:12 PM
He’s so old that for sometime we thought he was dead, till he surfaced in some movie a year or so back… and quite frankly I thought him insufferable but must admit he added flavour…especially with the dialogue “itnaa sannaataa kyon hai bhai?”…still laugh because of that! hee hee.
The movie is Bawarchi, but you already know that…but did you know there is only one movie wherein he played villain!?
And as for Nirupa Roy… rumours and gossips are that she was not really the Mother India she loved to portray herself as… app she harassed her daughter-in-law for dowry!!! ;)
Tuesday, July 4, 2006 @ 5:47 AM
Boy - for some reason cannot remember this movie… he he he Hangal as a son… just a little hard to digest! :)
Tuesday, July 4, 2006 @ 7:58 PM
The movie is Bawarchi.. i c so many people have guessed it correct ….
but A K Hangal has been a celebrated actor apart from being a freedom fighter, theatre performer and many things else….
something similar on Nirupa Roy would be most welcome…
Wednesday, July 5, 2006 @ 9:07 AM
Just the thought of a Hangal-Mithun faceoff is enough to give me the shivers…..incidentally there was this Bachchan movie where AK Hangal was stripped (his clothes torn off–he was B’s honest dad)—-I cannot remember the name. I just hope that such a movie exists and this is not a projection of my demented mind….
Wednesday, July 5, 2006 @ 11:02 AM
Hahah - AK Hangal is a gem of his kind :D
Now here’s a trivia question for you :-) - what do A and K stand for in A. K. Hangal? :)
Enjoy.
Gr8 post!
Suyog
Wednesday, July 5, 2006 @ 12:44 PM
arey beti…yes to all those questions…
and Bawarchi is it? where in Rajesh Khanna gets Hangal coke to mix with tharra…( inspired a friend of mine to try mixing sprite and gudumba..he is still alive ..unfortunately…imagine what a story that would have made…and we would’ve had a holiday )…and i could do with dentures at my age..
Friday, July 7, 2006 @ 2:09 PM
itnaa sannaataa kyon hai, bhai?
Don’t know about lecherious, but we sure are waiting like AK Hangal (if not becoming one) for your next postie! Post no? Post no?
Monday, July 10, 2006 @ 9:25 PM
Another trivia question: Do you know what the initials A.K. in Hangal’s name stand for?
Wednesday, July 12, 2006 @ 11:38 AM
Ooops…just read the comments and realized that Suyog has asked the same question! So at least one other than me knows the answer :-) anyone else?
Wednesday, July 12, 2006 @ 11:43 AM
Avtar Kishan Hangal
Wednesday, July 12, 2006 @ 8:32 PM
hi! Megha,
“Shaukeen” was a Hrishikesh Mukherjee Film (not Basu Chatterjee) although both belong to similar school of thought..And music was good..the theme song “Jab bhi koi kangana” is one of my fav songs by R.D.Burman.i dont know who wrote the lyrics, was it Gulzar?
Saturday, July 29, 2006 @ 11:38 PM
Eet eej Bawarchi with Rajesh Khanna playing a cook/crook and some Mr.Naidu as the papa who addresses Hangal as ‘munna’.
Friday, August 4, 2006 @ 6:42 AM