Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Happy birthday to Vaijayantimala.







Happy birthday to Vaijayantimala.

The viewers of bollywood films wish happy birthday to dancing queen Vaijayantimala on 13th August, 2009. She had ruled bollywood films during the 50s and 60s, during an age when muslim actresses like Nargis, Madhubala, Meena Kumari rocked silver screen. She was the first South Indian actress to create a sensation in bollywood films and paved the way for other South Indian actresses to follow like Hema Malini, Sri Devi, Jaya Prada, Meenakshi Sheshadri, and others.

Her online chemistry with Tragedy King Dilip Kumar created history in bollywood. Most of their films including Devdas, Naya Daur, Madhumati, Paigham, Ganga Jumna, Leader, Sunghursh ended up being blockbusters. Besides dancing, she was sublime in the role of a tawaif in Bimal Roy’s film Devdas, in the role of village girl in Bimal Roy’s Madhumati. Probably Madhumati marks the best performance of Vaijayantimala in her entire career. Her innocence reflected in her acting and she made the audience spellbound with the lips given in songs composed by Salil Choudhury including “aa ja re pardesi”, “ghari ghari mera dil dharke”, “daiya re daiya re”, etc. She received the filmfare award for the best actress for the brilliant performance in the film.

On one hand she was brilliant opposite Dilip Kumar, on the other hand she created sensation with Raj Kapoor as well. Their film Nazrana did mediocre business. But Sangam was probably one of the biggest hits of Raj Kapoor in his entire life. Vaijayantimala’s stylish performance opposite both Raj Kapoor and Rajender Kumar created a benchmark which could hardly be reached. Sangam still remains one of the most landmark films based on triangular love story shot at exotic locations in London, Paris, and other European countries. Shankar Jaikishan was matchless in Sangam. The acting performance was excellent and she received the filmfare award for the best actress once again.

In the 60s, Vaijayantimala was matchless. Her name was enough to make any film hit. The list of her films include Nagin opposite Pradeep Kumar, Suraj opposite Rajender Kumar, Amrapali opposite Sunil Dutt, Prince opposite Shammi Kapoor, Choti Si Mulakat opposite Uttam Kumar, Jewel Thief opposite Dev Anand, Pyar Hi Pyar opposite Dharmender, to name a few. In fact her combination with Rajender Kumar and Shankar Jaikishan created sensation in the 60s. All their films ended up being silver jubilees including Aas Ka Panchi, Suraj, Sangam, Zindagi, etc. Besides her standard of classical dancing in films like Katputli or Amrapali had created interest among viewers to appreciate aesthetic dance numbers which became an art in due period of time.

Her films should be restored and preserved.

2 comments:

samik said...

vaijayantimala's beauty both in her acting performance &also in her God gifted graceful appearence spellbound's me, her films particularly with dilipkumar&rajendrakumar shold be revived more &more with the aid of modern technology.

Souvik-indrajalik said...

Some of the old films of Vaijayantimala had been coloured and the new version again released, like Ganga Jumna, released in 1961 and Naya Daur in 1957. Both were originally black & white.
Souvik Chatterji.