I hope you can place and remember what I’m mentioning here. These scenes may be absolutely obscure, but on a personal note, it is these very scenes that have elevated my movie going experience from mere entertainment to something much more enriching, something much more sublime, and something much more soul-stirring. (List restricted to 5, less due to lack of space, more due to the sheer novelty of such scenes)
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1) Hum Aapke Hain Kaun(Its been almost ten years but I still cant get over it)
If there ever was one scene in any movie that made me jump out of a slumber it was this one. It came as a blast of fresh air, after those interminable, suffocating hours of feeling sick to my core watching all those songs, those wedding sequences; those family get togethers, those smiles etc.
After learning about Sallu’s forthcoming wedding with her sister Madhuri, Renuka Shahane breaks into a sudden, unexpected, uncharacteristic and entirely uncalled for lavni (Yeah it was a lavni number, only the navv-vari and nathuni were missing. How I wished Madhuri would go “ji ji ji, ji ji ji” in the background) and then runs huffing puffing to answer Mohnish Bahl’s phone.
Important Note:- This huge sprawling mansion has only one phone, only on the ground floor. There is no extension on any other level, in any other room. So one simply has to rush downstairs to answer the phone. Too bad if you are wearing a saari and trip on it.
Which is exactly what happens to Renuka, she trips on her gaudy saari and goes thump thump thump down the long winding staircase. Thus bringing the weary viewer the much needed breezy respite. At least it made me wake up, applaud lustily and exclaim gleefully, “Finally! Finally, something actually happened in this movie.”
An equally good scene comes immediately after when a shatter boned, purple faced, internally clotted Renuka is on her deathbed in the hospital. She takes one long hard mournful look at Madhuri and then another longer harder more mournful look at Sallu. Thence trying to explain, to the eighteen odd family members surrounding her (waiting for her to die, actually) that these two have the hots for each other.
Alas, the other eighteen odd nitwits were only too dumb to realize what the dying woman was attempting to convey. Except Tuffy, of course.
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2) Sansar
Background
This was sometime in the 80s, a movie about a big joint family headed by patriarch Anupam Kher and his mute wife Seema Deo (now it wasn’t established whether she was clinically mute, but yes, the lady hadn’t one line in the movie). Kher has an assortment of sons and daughters of which Raj Babbar is one (son, obviously). Raj usually is on business tours, and it is frequently shown that when he returns from them, his chatterbox wife Rekha warms water for his bath, serves him food, rushes to bed with him etc.
The actual memorable scene
Sometime later, on returning from one such business trip, Raj sees Rekha simply standing with her back against the wall, not uttering a word, not conducting her usual tasks of warming water for his bath, serving him food, and rushing to bed with him etc. She just stands there looking all flustered, while he goes “ Kya hua, kya hua, parr hua kya?”
Silently, she turns around 180 degrees to her left, in utter dignity with downcast eyes, accompanied by background music of furious sitar strings, displaying to him her back, on which a 12” X 16” poster of a smiling cherubic infant is pinned strategically on her blouse sleeves.
What a way to disclose a pregnancy! The thick husband still asks “Kya Hua” once more even after seeing the poster.
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3) Mohobbatein
Is it a noisy sparrow? Is it a parrot with a sore throat? Or is it Minnie Mouse on a bad hair day? No, its something called Kim Sharma. Throughout the movie it is clad in shorts that show half a bum, and in bustiers that show almost all of her twins. But Minnie Mouse wasn’t the one to be bothered about over-exposure and was pretty gung–ho about it all.
And then, Lo and Behold, there comes one scene in which her half-brain twit boyfriend forcibly dunks her into a swimming pool during a party, and Minnie Mouse, is suddenly all laaj –sharam personified, comes out of the pool, dying with shock, shame and embarrassment, covering her wet clothes with her arms, palms etc, hoping no one saw any of her body parts. But, hadn’t we had seen them all before throughout the movie? Perhaps she didn’t realize we were watching.
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4) Anubhav
This is my fav. cheapo scene in my fav. cheapo movie. City Slicker Shekhar Suman gets married to Padmini Kolhapuri, a rural belle so dumb she has neither knowledge nor interest nor inclination nor appreciation about the whys and hows of marital conjugation. All the while, Richa Sharma, a resident dhoban of the village lusts for Shekhar, and in one of my fav. ever scenes tries to trap him in a desolate village bylane by faking a thorn poked her foot, makes a big ruckus, cries a lot, till the gallant Shekhar tries to remove the thorn. While he is doing that she makes him roam his palms all over her legs, giving him directions on how to find the thorn, till she cant fake no more and says, “Ramessss Babu, kanta pairr pe nahi, dil pe laga hai” (Mr Ramesh, the thorn pricked not my foot, but my heart)
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5) Maine Pyar Kiya
Everyone who has seen this movie knows how Suman (Bhagyashree), is a touch me not types, who quivers at the mere thought of Sallu, the hero coming within 4 feet radius to her. Some very memorable scenes are the ones that try to hard to establish this fact.
In the last stanza of the Kabutar Ja Ja Ja song (the first shows her getting dressed in front of a mirror, the second shows him getting bored in a factory inauguration, I’m talking about the third one which goes as follows)
“Jahan bhi dekhun tum hi tum ho aur nazar na kucch aaye”
Bhagu comes running into a garden strewn with apples. She stumbles on the apples and lies supine on the grass.
”Jee yeh chaahe iss aalam ke saath zamaana ruk jaye”
Sallu sits next to her and tries to touch her legs. He merely places his palm parallel to her shin, 5 inches away from it.
“Aaj se pehle kabhi nahi thi ho- o-o-o-o”
As soon as his palm reaches 3 inches away from her shin, Bhags immediately shuts her eyes, passes her hands through her hair, rises and all the apples which were around her fall off her shoulders, while she goes into the throes of violent passion
“Aaj se pehle kabhi nahi thi itni haseen duniya”
Sallu still keeps sitting with his palm 3 inches away from her, wearing a dumb expression that conveys, “Hey, what happened to her?”
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While you gasp in disbelief at my choice of fav scenes, the last and all time fav scene is in the comments section
