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romantic sub-plots resulted in love songs. 1962 war. However, the most memorable
Here, we are not talking of period films, song of that period wasn’t from any film.
capturing ancient wars with historical Lata Mangeshkar’s iconic ‘Ae Mere Watan
significance – thus there will be no Sikandar, Ke Logon’, written by Kavi Pradeep and
Porus, Prithviraj Kapoor, Sohrab Modi, ‘kee composed by C. Ramchandra, was dedicated
thi ladai’ or ‘main kya karoon’. The most to Indian soldiers who lost lives during the
common themes were thus involvement in war. It moved everyone, including then
World War II, the Indo-China war of 1962, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, with the
the Indo-Pak war of 1971 and the Kargil war lines ‘Ae mere watan ke logon, zara aankh
of 1999. Besides that, there was the 2019 film mein bhar lo paani, jo shaheed hue hain unki,
Uri: The Surgical Strike, based on the Uri zara yaad karo qurbani”.
incident of 2016, and some films involving
isolated military excursions.
Paltan had songs like the title track and ‘Main Zinda Hoon’
One also heard a good patriotic song ‘Vande
Mataram’ in 72 Hours: Martyr Who Never
Died (2019), based on Rifleman Jaswant
Singh Rawal, who fought against Chinese
Dev Anand and Nanda in Hum Dono troops. Sukhwinder Singh sang the lines ‘Ab
When one talks of films inspired by World jeene aur marne ki parwah karte nahin’ and
War II, the Dev Anand starrer Hum Dono ‘Tan ko qurban karte hain aur rooh reh jaate
(1961) comes to mind. However, none of the hain’ to Sujoy Bose’s music, with Anupriya
songs related to war, as there was a love song Chatterjee doing the female lines.
(‘Abhi Na Jaao’), a spiritual song (‘Allah Tero J P Dutta’s Paltan, based on 1967 clashes
Naam’) and situational songs like ‘Main in Sikkim, had songs like the title track
Zindagi Ka Saath’ and ‘Kabhi Khud Pe’. and ‘Main Zinda Hoon’, which had shots of
Then, there was the Rajendra Kumar- soldiers and Army exercises. Music was by
Dharmendra film Lalkar (1972), where a Anu Malik and lyrics were by Javed Akhtar.
group of army officers were shown singing
Rafi’s ‘Aaj Gaalo Muskuralo’. Most of the
other Kalyanji-Anandji songs are romantic.
In 2017, Vishal Bhadwaj’s Rangoon used the
wartime scenario in Burma as a base, but
besides shots showing army trucks, there’s
nothing war-related about the songs.
Haqeeqat was the biggest film about the Aakraman saw Sanjeev Kumar and Rakesh Roshan falling
in love with Rekha
SENIORS TODAY | ISSUE #29 | NOVEMBER 2021 43
