Yaaahooo !!

Hi,

Nope .... this mail is not about Jerry Yang, the founder of Yahoo !

It is about Shammi Kapoor ... yeah, you got that right :-D

Shammi Kapoor songs have always been a delight to watch. In fact I suspect that producers brought out movies only to film Shammi Kapoor's hysterics and paid scant attention to story, script and other non-essential matters.[Of course, some of his films like "Teesri Manzil" are said to be among the very good ones.]

There is hardly any film of his whose songs are not popular even today. and if I may say so, Mohd Rafi's voice was a major factor which helped him in getting established in film industry.

Shammi Kapoor perhaps choreographed his own songs, and he danced with total abandon throwing caution to air. Indeed, it would be a crime to call his body-movements a 'dance'... but nevertheless public loved it and for good reason. He brought a youthful energy to the screen and liberated movies from the sighs and moans of Rajendra Kumar and Company.

Doordarshan had the good sense to air a special 2-hour program on ocassion of Shammi Kapoor's 60th birthday. We were having dinner then, and none of us budged from our place even to wash the hands, until the programme was over. It was a rare treat indeed !!

I have about 60 audios and a dozen videos of Shammi Kapoor songs, as of now. The idea is to create a DVD of all his songs ( all videos). Nothing would be more entertaining, ha ha !!Some of the best songs are those which have O P Nayyar/Shankar-Jaikishan at music and Rafi-Asha at the playback, with Shammi bouncing up n down on their tunes.

Yours,

-G.