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Subhash K Jha shines the light on Pradeep Sarkar’s Parineeta, which featured Saif Ali Khan, Sanjay Dutt and was the debut film for Vidya Balan. We also hear from Saif Ali Khan talking about the brilliant romantic drama that was released in 2005.

There’s no getting away from Devdas in this Parineeta a fascinating, absorbing: and largely sensitive rendering of Hindi litterateur Saratchandra’s other study of the male ego and its tragic repercussion on matters of the heart, set within a feudal backdrop. Parineeta had been done on several occasions in the past with actresses as varied as Meena Kumari and Sulakshana Pandit playing Lalita, the protagonist.

Debutant Pradeep Sarkar’s adaptation of the complex original material is as far removed from Bimal Roy’s Parineeta as Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas was from Bimal Roy’s earlier classics.

Literary classics are open to more than one interpretation.

Indian film music has always and will always have a varied range of music to create and support the story being told onscreen. From ballads to heartstopping dramatic pieces to full-on dance party tracks, even mash-ups of all are also included to really set a scene, and they are devotional tracks. In this incredible feature in honor of Ram Navami, Subhash K Jha shares his lists some of the best Ram Bhajans and they are from films you might not have heard of. Read on, and then definitely watch and listen. Do not wait!

1. ‘Abb toh aao Dhanush ke Dhari’

(Lata Mangeshkar, Film: Bajrangbali, 1976):

This 1976 film featured Biswajeet as Sri Rama and Moushumi Chatterjee as Sita. Music composers Kalyanji-Anandji said to this writer that the challenge here was to compose songs in praise of Rama that sounded fresh and unheard. My pick is Lataji’s solo, where her plaintive...

The discordant notes in the musical Pandit family continue. Sibling composers Jatin and Lalit Pandit and singers Sulakshana and Vijayta Pandit are now gearing up for a long court battle for the murder of their eldest sibling Sandhya Singh. Ironically the prime suspect in this foul murder case is Sandhya's son Raghubir. The thought of the family's honour being so displayed in a courtroom is weighing heavily on the Pandits. Says Lalit Pandit, "Yes, sadly there's going to be a court trial. And the family has to face it. Our slain sister Sandhya's son Raghubir has been charge-sheeted. The cops say they'll keep investigating further. But circumstantial evidence points to only one murder accused." Tragically the eldest Pandit sibling singer Sulakshna Pandit, now of delicate mental health, is still in the dark about the gruesome developments in the family. Says Lalit, "She won't be able to handle the shock.

As the police have begun to treat Raghuveer Pandit alias Bhola as a prime suspect in his mother's gruesome murder, the Pandit family braces itself for what could turn out to be an indelible slur on the family of musicians, namely sister Sulakshana and Vijayta Pandit, brothers Jatin, Lalit and Mandar. Speaking on behalf of the family, Lalit Pandit says, "We're very happy with the way the police has been investigating the case. Himanshu Roy (Mumbai Police's Joint Commissioner) is doing a thorough job. They have one by one eliminated all other suspects. And now we are very disturbed because our nephew Bhola (Raghuveer) is a prime suspect. It is very distressing to have this calamity befall the family. We all have begun to think like crime investigators after our sister's murder. And we wonder if our nephew is capable of this unimaginable crime." Apparently, Raghuveer has been keeping the...

The Pandit family, siblings Jatin, Lalit, Sulakshana and Vijeta Pandit, are currently going through a period of monstrous churning. The heinous murder of the family's eldest sister Sandhya has changed the family's life forever. "We spend the entire day at the Crime Branch. Now that we know our sister has been so brutally murdered we want a decent closure of her case. We want to know who killed her," says the murdered woman's brother Lalit who has been quoted by "police sources" as laying the blame on the slain woman's son. Lalit completely denies ever holding anyone culpable. "I was shocked to read police sources claim that I had blamed my sister's son Raghuvir. After reading the report I spoke to the police at the Nerul police station. He told me that no such statement had been issued by anyone in the police department. It'd be the height of irresponsibility...

Police discovered a skull of an unidentified body upon at the marshlands near Delhi Public School (Dps) in Nerul (West) on Sunday and geologist Michael John Oates stumbled upon the skull and finally the owner of the skull was identified and it was none other than Sandhya Singh, sister of renowned music-composer duo Jatin-Lalit and yesteryear actresses Vijayta Pandit and Sulakshana Pandit who was missing since December 13th. The police have also recovered a salwar kameez, a gold chain and a rudraksh near the skull, after digging at the spot. The family was informed and later they identified these items as Sandhya’s belongings. Sandhya we...

Mumbai, Dec 26: Former actress and wife of music composer Aadesh Shrivastav, Vijeta Pandit, is sickened and distraught with worry about her sister Sandhya Singh, who has gone missing since Dec 13.

Vijeta, whose fear is that her sister was killed for her jewellery just as she was about to enter a bank, is baffled that Mumbai police have not been able to gather any information on her whereabouts.

Crazed with worry Vijeta says: "What has happened to my sister? We don't know! She's happily married and she is the prettiest among us sisters. She's two years older than me. Unlike Sulakshana Didi and me, she never wanted to be.

Films that gained a ‘cult following’ over the years, despite being unnoticed on release

Back in the 80s, all we had was Doordarshan. Anything you wanted to know about cinema, mythology, world literature, astronomy, science fiction, history; it was all there – right in your living room. So, in that glorious age of kitsch, I remember noticing this bubbly-looking but rather demure young woman in two films – one was Raghuveer Yadav-starrer Massey Sahib (1985) and this obscure film with an interesting name – In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones (1989). By the third time I caught her on TV, she had won a Booker Prize for fiction, for her book The God of Small Things. She was Arundhati Roy – the above-mentioned films were made by her then husband, Pradip Krishen. But we’re more interested in the second film – In Which Annie… was about a group of students in an Architecture College in Delhi,...

What: Anniversary bashWhere: Sun ‘N’ Sand, Juhu Aadesh Srivastava and wife Sulakshana Pandit celebrated their wedding anniversary. Shekhar Suman who came in midway mingled with everyone except lyricist Sameer. Both of them were later seen having a fierce war of words outside the venue. Sonu Nigaam chatted with the shutterbugs. His wife Madhurima flaunted her new tattoo on her back. ...