Censor Board Certified 959 Hindi/Urdu films during 1961-1970.
Of which we had 664 (Some were contributed by Pradeep Asrani and Vivek Kumar, many thanks both of you!).
Number of songs in these films is 6,433 of which we had 4,330 on video from the films.
I watched all these songs carefully to note down who were the singers onscreen. I also noted down the Group Dancers and Junior Artists present in the songs. In this exercise the two books on Junior Artists (Upendra Samaranayake) and two books on Group Dancers (again Upendra; Edwina, and Narsingh D Agnish) were very helpful. Also very useful were Facebook groups dedicated to Junior Artists and Group Dancers, led by Dr Ramnath Iyer. Hats off to their dedication and hard work.
Sadly about 300 people remain unidentified.
Some of you may be wondering, how me, a self-declared fan of the 30s and 40s films and songs, survived watching these movies. The answer is simple.
Whatever my current tastes may be. I grew up with these 60s movies that I watched in the theaters with many dear friends and it brought back memories of playing truant from school and walking from the Ludhiana cinemas to home and from the Chandigarh movie halls to the Panjab University Hostel Number 3, late at night and going to my room, not through the main gate, which was closed, but climbing a fence specially prepared for this purpose.
It took me about 6 months, it is done. Now the hard work of preparing the files for the database website and for writing books starts.
Now You Know!
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