Music Forever: Long performing music duo L-P, alias Laxmikant-Pyarelal Ajay Poundarik is neither a writer nor a journalist. But if he is anything, he is a fanatic admirer of the work of the music composer duo of Hindi films, Laxmikant and Pyarelal, better known as L-P. LP, which, in music parlance, is an acronym for Long Playing Record, is a term that fits them like the proverbial glove. They were indeed a long-playing pair, to be sure. As a tribute to his ‘deities’, Poundarik ...

(Ms. Alin Taşçiyan-President Fipresci, Ambassador of Turkey to India--H.E. Mr. Burak Akçapar and Leading Actor--Mr. Ali Sarp Levendoğlu) Turkey--key country at Mumbai Film Festival, by Siraj Syed ‘Zabaan-e-yaar-e-man Turkey, va man Turkey na mee daanam’ went a duet in the Hindi film Ek Musafir Ek Haseena, made in the late 50s/early 60s. The lines are not in Turkish, but Farsee (Persian), and translate as ‘My love(r)’s language is Turkish, and I do not ...

Indian film-writer, lyricist, Akhtar Romani no more A rare film-writer and lyricist from the Dawoodi Bohra community, Akhtar Romani (nom de plume) passed away today in Mumbai, his home for almost all his life. He was in his early eighties. His contemporaries at the Saint Xavier’s College, Bombay, included Vijay Anand (who was to direct classic films like Guide, Jewel Thief and Johnny Mera Naam), Mahendra Kapoor (one of India’s best known playback song singers) and Ameen Sayani (ra...