Miscellaneous Facebook posts & comments in April 2020

Last updated on 14th June 2020 

Note that most of the COVID-19 (novel coronavirus 2019) related FB post contents of mine are put up here: My April 2020 FB posts on novel coronavirus 2019 (SARS-CoV-2) / COVID-19, https://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2020/05/my-april-2020-fb-posts-on-novel.html.

When author of post or comment is not mentioned, it should be assumed that it is me (Ravi S. Iyer).

To save time, I am usually not providing my FB post links but only contents. I am also not hyperlinking links. So readers will have to copy-paste links from this post onto a browser link box and then browse to that link.
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I have got a lot of joy from watching Rishi Kapoor films during my teens and young adult days (late 70s & 80s). Very sad to know of his passing away (from cancer).

Here are two of the songs of the film Amar Akbar Anthony which was released in 1977 where (the 2 songs) he is the actor-star and which film I saw perhaps a few months after its release, when I was around 15 years of age. I remember both the video and audio of these songs so well!

The lady he is romancing in the first video (below) is Neetu Singh who later married him in real life.

Parda Hai Parda Full Video - Amar Akbar Anthony | Mohammad Rafi | Rishi Kapoor, Neetu Singh, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch-i9iBrCYQ, 8 min. 19 secs.

The song below is the famous Shirdi Sai Baba song from the same movie and I think it has been the first major exposure I had in my life to Bhagavan Sri Shirdi Sai Baba.

Shirdi Wale Sai Baba Aaya Hai Tere | Amar Akbar Anthony Songs - Sai Baba Devotional Songs, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIngyZEsXmI, 5 min. 26 secs.

The elderly lady in the video is blind and gets her eyesight back during the song. She is the on-screen mother of Rishi Kapoor but has been separated from her children including Rishi Kapoor in childhood, due to villains (the key villain is shown in the beginning of the video, along with his junior, trying to reach her to do some harm to her but is stopped by the cobra in the temple entrance). Typical complicated emotionally charged Hindi film script of those days!

Thank you so much Rishi Kapoor sir for the joy you gave to so many Hindi film watchers, including me, of those days.

May God shower His Grace on the soul of Rishi Kapoor sir and give strength and courage to his family, friends and fans to bear the loss.
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FB post: https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/2830130757203483

In response to a comment, I wrote (slightly edited):
I think that is reflective of you being some years elder to me!
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In response to a comment, I wrote:
Well, I think some of the pre 1980 movies of Dev Anand, Shammi Kapoor etc. were also typical masala Hindi movies.

People's tastes change over time. And then there is the film critic community which looks down on masala movies as inferior, and which worships serious movies like Satyajit Ray movies as great.

I have outgrown the period where I came under such film critics views. I think there are different genres of films based on different tastes and different target audience.

Hindi masala movies have their place and their pros and cons, and so do more serious Hindi movies. Sai Paranjape, Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, Farooque Sheikh, Amol Palekar are some of the actors/producers who were involved with more serious Hindi movies in the 1980s which typically were not blockbusters (at the box office) but made some money and were interesting.

I think both Hindi masala movies genre and Hindi serious movies genre of the late 70s and 80s have contributed to my teen and young adult life. I enjoyed many of these movies and consciously or unconsciously imbibed some great values from them (good winning over bad eventually, family values, respect for multi-religious ethos, money corruption being bad etc.). And many of these movies had great songs which have contributed immensely to my life. Note that the main medium for Hindi songs was Hindi films, and that's how great song writers, music directors and singers like Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar, Mohammad Rafi etc. were able to entertain and even emotionally uplift millions of Hindi film watching/Hindi film song listening Indians and grow as song writers, music composers and singers.
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In response to a comment, I wrote:
Well, my view is that tastes change over time, depending on our circumstances. Masala movies surely have their plus points.

In some cases, people move on from masala movies to more serious movies.

In my case, I think it has been masala movies to more serious movies to no movies and from around 2012 back to Hindi masala movie songs (though not movies themselves) and to watching Western Spaghetti movies (a kind of masala movie genre but Western) about USA's Wild West. I find that the Western Spaghetti movies reflect the reality of those times in USA's Wild West (not accurately portray but reflect, like Hindi masala movies also reflected the reality of those times even if they did not accurately portray them). Understanding the Wild West in the USA through the reflections of these films, helps me better understand today's gun culture in the USA, life in rural USA, and life in rural Anantapur district (where Puttaparthi lies), especially the life of the poor in Anantapur district (a very tough life).
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In response to a comment, I wrote:
I vividly recall seeing the Richard Attenborough produced movie (Gandhi) in early 1980s in an uptown theatre in Mumbai. I was studying in college then. It made a powerful impact on me even though I was just a college student then. Ben Kingsley made Gandhi a human figure that I could understand much better.
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In response to a comment about revisiting Gandhi movie on youtube, I wrote:
I am not so attracted by that prospect now. What I have done instead is I have read reports and viewed actual TV clips of Gandhi. That was very interesting.
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In response to a comment asking about my views on Gandhi Salt March, I wrote:
About Salt March, I think I have not significantly added to my school and college student days knowledge about it, except for following visits of some dignitaries to Ahmedabad who refer to it e.g. USA President's reference to it when he visited Ahmedabad early this year.

Quit India movement was something that I have read up more about since my college student days, and later as I became a social media writer on such matters (after 2015 or so). I think that's because Mumbai/Bombay was an important part of Quit India movement and one of my uncles (father's cousin) had participated in it as a youngster in Bombay and got jailed. After independence he was awarded some Freedom Fighter recognition by the Indian govt. In case you want to have a look, I put up a post on it in 2018 here: 75th anniversary of 1942 Quit India movement; Mahatma Gandhi's speech then; Relative of mine participated in Quit India movement in Bombay and was jailed, https://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2018/08/75th-anniversary-of-1942-quit-india.html .

I was also very interested in some footage of Mahatma Gandhi's visit to textile mill workers in Lancashire, UK in 1931. Here's my 2017 post on it: Mahatma Gandhi and Lancashire textile mill workers in 1931, https://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2017/10/mahatma-gandhi-and-lancashire-textile.html .
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I guess I have lived in a soft world. So I am just astounded to know of a Facebook page with this scary name: https://www.facebook.com/Guillotines-For-Billionaires-2020-2234430709944577. Now I am NOT a rich guy and so I guess I don't need to worry personally. Still the name evokes memories of reading about the brutality of the French revolution (from 1789 to 1799), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution .

Hmm.

OK I just saw that it says satire/parody. But is that just a way to put on just a show of a joke? I still find it scary. But then maybe I am just too soft for the rough, rough world out there.
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Interesting!

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta travels to Pakistan, India & Michigan with his parents, wife & 3 daughters to uncover their roots, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9ivklq8q7U, 21 min. 24 secs, published in 2014 by CNN.

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When I recently read about Bill Withers passing away, I had not known that he was the 'Lean on me' song singer. I loved his 'Lean on me' song right from the first time(s) I heard it in the early 1980s - I could easily follow the lyrics, the words touched a chord in me, his voice was great and the music was good with the beat getting chirpy later on in the song.

Sad that Bill Withers is no more.

Here's the audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOZ-MySzAac, 4 min. 17 secs.
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Bill Withers / Lean On Me / Live 1972, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iw6HeeuvTWo, 5 min. 2 secs.
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