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News18
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- News18
Film Heritage Foundation Celebrates Raj Khosla's 100th Birth Anniversary With Restored Classics
Last Updated: Raj Khosla's centenary will be celebrated with restored 4K screenings of C.I.D., Bambai Ka Babu & more at Mumbai's Regal Cinema. Free public event. On the occasion of legendary filmmaker Raj Khosla's 100th birth anniversary, the Film Heritage Foundation (FHF) has announced a day-long celebration titled 'Raj Khosla 100 – Bambai Ka Babu'. Taking place on May 31, 2025, at Mumbai's historic Regal Cinema, the event will offer a rare chance to revisit some of Khosla's most iconic films on the big screen—restored to their original cinematic glory. The retrospective will feature special screenings of C.I.D. (1956), Bambai Ka Babu (1960), and Mera Gaon Mera Desh (1971). Two of these films—C.I.D. and Bambai Ka Babu—have been restored in 4K resolution by the NFDC – National Film Archive of India under the National Film Heritage Mission, a government initiative dedicated to the preservation and restoration of Indian cinema. The event will also include a panel discussion featuring distinguished guests such as veteran actress Asha Parekh, filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, and Amborish Roychoudhury, author of Raj Khosla: The Authorized Biography. Together, they will reflect on Khosla's cinematic vision and the cultural impact of his diverse body of work. Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, Director of Film Heritage Foundation, described Khosla as 'the Howard Hawks of Indian cinema," referencing his mastery across genres—from thrillers and musicals to romance and action. 'He was a filmmaker whose name on the hoarding was as important as his stars," Dungarpur noted, adding that Khosla's innovative storytelling and nuanced depiction of strong female characters made him a trailblazer. 'We are proud to celebrate his centenary with this retrospective, and grateful to the NFDC for restoring two of his classics for the occasion." For Asha Parekh, who worked with Khosla on several hits including Do Badan and Mera Gaon Mera Desh, the tribute is deeply personal. 'He gave me one of my most memorable performances," she said. 'His understanding of emotions and song picturization was unmatched. I'm thrilled the Film Heritage Foundation is keeping his legacy alive for new generations." Mahesh Bhatt, in a heartfelt statement, recalled Khosla as a philosophical mentor. 'He once told me fame is like starlight—traveling across time even after the star is gone. Raj Sahab was that star. His influence lives on in all of us who were lucky enough to be shaped by him." NFDC Managing Director Prakash Magdum emphasized the importance of the restored versions being screened. 'Bombai Ka Babu has been preserved in our collection for decades, and showcasing it in 4K for the first time is a landmark moment. It's our honor to present these restored prints during such an important celebration." The screenings are free and open to the public on a first-come, first-served basis—part of Film Heritage Foundation's ongoing mission to make classic cinema accessible and preserve India's rich film legacy. The foundation has previously curated tributes to cinematic icons like Dev Anand, Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, and Amitabh Bachchan, earning praise for its commitment to cultural preservation. Over the course of his three-decade career, Raj Khosla directed 27 films that redefined the grammar of Hindi cinema. From his early days as an assistant to Guru Dutt to his collaborations with stars like Dev Anand and Asha Parekh, Khosla was an architect of visual storytelling whose work bridged art and commerce. He introduced a lyrical style to thrillers, reinvented romance with psychological depth, and pioneered narrative song sequences that would become standard across Bollywood. As Raj Khosla 100 – Bambai Ka Babu brings his work back to the silver screen, audiences old and new will get to experience the light of a cinematic star whose brilliance refuses to fade. First Published: May 31, 2025, 17:54 IST
The Print
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Print
Cinema meant everything to my father: filmmaker Raj Khosla's daughter Sunita
Legacy was something that Khosla never thought off or even talked about with his family, said Sunita, the second of the director's five daughters. Khosla was an important figure in Hindi with several hits like 'C.I.D.' (1956), 'Woh Kaun Thi?' (1964), 'Mera Saaya' (1966), 'Mera Gaon Mera Desh' (1971) and 'Dostana' (1980) to his credit. His 100th birth anniversary will be celebrated on Saturday. Mumbai, May 30 (PTI) Cinema meant everything to Raj Khosla and he kept working till the very end, says daughter Sunita Bhalla, reminiscing about the director's career and the close bond he shared with Guru Dutt, Dev Anand and Vijay Anand. 'He never thought or talked about legacy, like what he is going to leave behind. He just worked and worked. That's all he did all his life. He never regretted what he did. He never regretted his work. He loved his work. He was very happy with what he did till the end. Cinema meant everything to him,' Sunita told PTI in an interview. Khosla would take good care of people who worked with him and maintained a calm atmosphere on his sets, she said. 'He used to enjoy his work and that was the best part… The stars used to enjoy working with him. He would just say, 'Give your best.' Everybody worked so happily with him. He worked with many top actresses — from Madhubala, Sadhana, Mumtaz, Waheeda Rehman, and Asha Parekh, and others,' she added. Among the over 25 films that her father made as a director, Sunita said she loved 'C.I.D.', 'Bombai Ka Babu' and 'Mera Gaon Mera Desh'. She remembered being on the set of 'Mera Gaon Mera Desh', which featured Dharmendra and Asha Parekh in lead roles with Vinod Khanna playing the antagonist. 'It was in Udaipur. I saw my dad taking shots for the movie, the song 'Maar Diya Jaye Ke Chhod Diya Jaye', which is such a brilliant song, was shot in the studios. 'Apni Prem Kahaniyan' was another memorable track. 'We fell in love with the costumes and jewellery and we would tell dad we wanted to wear all that,' Sunita said, adding that she also saw the shooting of 'Dostana' in Ooty, and 'Kachche Dhage' in Mahabaleshwar. Dev Anand and Guru Dutt played a pivotal role in Khosla's life. The director wanted to be a playback but destiny had different plans for him. He served as an assistant director to Dutt before making his directorial debut with 'Milap' in 1955. Anand and Khosla collaborated on several hits, including 'C.I.D.', 'Kala Pani' and 'Solva Saal'. Sunita said the bond between the trio was 'strong' and unbreakable. 'I've been with him to Dev Anand's house. He had close association with Chetan Anand and Guru Dutt. So, it was four of them together. They would often talk about films. I remember a discussion around who would direct 'Guide'. Some of the portion was shot by dad also, and then Vijay Anand took over after that.' She said Bhatt considered Khosla as a mentor. 'He was an assistant at that time, working under him, assisting in movies and all that.' Khosla was also close friends with poet lyricist Majrooh Sultanpuri, lyricist Anand Bakshi, filmmaker Hrishikesh Mukherjee and writer Rahi Masoom Raza. 'They were like a family (Bakshis). I must be 14 or 15 maybe that time. There were so many good moments… Rahi Masoom Raza was his close friend. He also had a bond with Majrooh Sultanpuri, and Hrishikesh Mukherjee. With Hrishkesh Mukherjee, he used to play chess everyday. That's how he used to pass his time in the evenings.' Sunita shared that as a father had set certain rules for his five daughters to follow and weekends were always reserved as 'family time.' 'He used to make sure that all five of us used to be in the house at seven o'clock in the evening. Nobody was allowed to go anywhere (after that) unless we told him. Every Saturday,Sunday, we used to have family time at our ancestral house. My grandfather would be there and keep all our stuff ready for us. We used to eat biryani over there, and enjoy it,' she added. Despite making some of the most critically-acclaimed films of Hindi cinema, Sunita believes her father hasn't been appreciated much. And that's why a retrospective to commemorate his 100th birth anniversary is a 'special' moment for the family, she added. 'All the heroines and people who have worked with him should come together and just honour him. That's all my request from the industry. I would appreciate it if people in the industry understood and just honoured him,' Sunita said. Titled 'Raj Khosla 100 – Bambai Ka Babu', the event will take place on May 31 at Mumbai's Regal Cinema and also features a special panel discussion on the legacy of one of Indian cinema's most versatile directors. As part of the celebrations, three of Khosla's acclaimed films — 'C.I.D.' (1956), 'Bambai Ka Babu' (1960), and 'Mera Gaon Mera Desh' (1971) — will be screened. PTI KKP RB BK BK This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.
Scroll.in
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scroll.in
In Raj Khosla biography, a portrait of an director as a ‘gloriously flawed human being'
Raj Khosla was born in 1925, the same year as his mentor Guru Dutt. Khosla went on to become a well-regarded Hindi cinema director, making his debut with a Guru Dutt production – the crime thriller C.I.D. in 1956. Khosla then moved smoothly into other genres. Ghost stories, melodramas, dacoit dramas – Khosla rolled them out mostly with panache until 1989, two years before he died at 66. 'No other filmmaker has, arguably, made so many iconic and path-breaking films,' says the introduction to Raj Khosla, a new book about the filmmaker. ' It is as if they are all from different filmographies. How on earth can the same director have made a C.I.D. and a Do Raaste? The same guy, without breaking a sweat, created Main Tulsi Tere Aangan Ki and Dostana within a span of two years.' Written by Amborish Roychoudhury along with Khosla's daughters Anita Khosla and Uma Khosla Kapur, Raj Khosla is a well-researched and engrossing chronicle. Khosla's films attested to his technical feats – especially in the shooting of songs – as well as his troubled personal life, the biography suggests. The book will be released on May 31, which is Khosla's birth centenary. To mark the occasion, three of his best-known films will be screened: C.I.D, Woh Kaun Thi? and Mera Gaon Mera Desh. The event at Mumbai's Regal cinema have been organised by Film Heritage Foundation, with restored prints supplied by the National Film Archive of India. Roychoudhury, who has previously written Sridevi: The South Years, was approached by Khosla's daughters to work on the biography. He spoke to Scroll about the complexities of profiling a filmmaker with a varied filmography and a colourful personal life. Here are edited excerpts from the interview. What are the challenges of profiling a filmmaker who worked between the 1950s and the 1980s, whose contemporaries have mostly died, and about whom there is largely anecdotal material? A lot of narrative gets lost over time. Unfortunately, we as a country really suck at archiving or preserving our past. In this case, he said or she said wasn't possible since people weren't around to talk. There weren't too many interviews even when he was making his major films. But there are resources available if one wants to do the research. There are bread crumbs. I found the gossip columns in old Filmfare issues useful. They talked about films that were under production, so I found some stories there. For instance, how Solva Saal (1958) is based on a real incident. The family was very helpful. They had some material, but not a lot. They had photographs, books and his diary, which is written in Urdu. A lot of the things that were discovered in the journey of writing this book were also news to them. The book states, 'Like his mentor Guru Dutt, a lot of Raj Khosla's later work was autobiographical. As with every sensitive artist, the trials and tribulations of his private life had a direct impact on his creative approach and output.' How did you approach the sensitive aspects of his off-screen self in an authorised biography? There's a lot of information on him available on Google, which I have not said out loud or written explicitly. The family has been helpful and forthcoming. They didn't have qualms. They extended phone numbers of people who were party to the developments. But I didn't get permission from the concerned people to quote them or state their names, which is why I didn't. I didn't want to sensationalise anything. There is a thread that you can join from Guru Dutt to Raj Khosla to Khosla's protege Mahesh Bhatt, in terms of their scars and demons and how these found expression in their films. The distinction is that Mahesh Bhatt opened up and spoke about it publicly. Guru Dutt clammed up. Raj ji also didn't speak about it very often. What did you discover about Raj Khosla while working on the book? That he was a passionate singer. He was so passionate about his singing that he squeezed in some of his humming into his films without his music director knowing. When I was interviewing Mr Pyarelal, I told him about one such instance and he said, humein to bataya nahi [He didn't inform me]. Then, there was the aspect of how what was happening in his life came into his films, like Main Tulsi Tere Aangan Ki or Sunny. He always wanted to run away from his work. There are many instances of how he found excuses to say pack up or go back to sleep – do anything but shoot. I also found his relationship with his co-workers and people who worked for him fascinating. He used to pay salaries for months on end even when he wasn't making films. There is the incident of how his father was dying, so his secretary hesitated to ask him about singing pay cheques. When Raj Khosla got to know, he was furious. He said, my father is the one who is dying, why should these people suffer? There was a lot of respect for him and genuinely so, not just from the standpoint of success but also as a human being. He was a gloriously flawed human being. I developed deep respect for his personality, his filmmaking, his storytelling. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Film Heritage Foundation (@filmheritagefoundation) And what did you discover about his filmmaking? I don't think he had a very exalted view of himself as a creator. He basically said, I don't want to be celebrated as the maker. Filmmaking is a collaborative project, there's nothing grand about it. People come to see the actors and the stories. At the same time, he had certain fascinations. Creators like Guru Dutt, Vijay Anand and Raj Khosla used songs as narrative devices, not only in terms of moving the plot forward but also in terms of building a personality for the character or emphasising the relationship. Raj ji did this very well. His songs had a beginning, middle and end, like his films. Take Achcha Ji Mein Haari from Kala Pani (1958). There's a story in how Dev Anand moves, how Madhubala moves. A conversation is happening through the lyrics. The way he filmed the songs was very special. He had a dysfunctional relationship with women in terms of how he wanted to project them. Some of his female characters had flaws and regressive aspects. At the same time, certain characters had agency and spoke for themselves, such as Asha Parekh's character in Do Badan, who stands up to her husband. The Sadhana trilogy [ Woh Kaun Thi?, Mera Saaya, Anita ] is all about the women. Several of Raj Khosla's films have been ripped off from novels or American films. How do you view this lack of originality in his plots and scripts? A work of art needs to be seen in its historical context. We would be hard-pressed to find films from previous decades that had not been adapted from somewhere, whether it's William Shakespeare's plays or Wuthering Heights. The sources were not acknowledged – it wasn't a done thing, which doesn't make it right. That said, the world of the Hindi film was so restricted in the past that the filmmakers probably felt that the audiences wouldn't know, and that nobody outside India would see these films anyway. A film like Bombai Ka Babu is based on a short story [O Henry's A Double-Dyed Deceiver ], but there are big changes in the script and storytelling. So I don't think we can say that it is a blatant copy.
Time of India
01-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
She once solved murders on TV. Now CID actress is helping people buy their dream Dubai home. Who is Shweta Kawaatra?
MORE STORIES FOR YOU ✕ « Back to recommendation stories I don't want to see these stories because They are not relevant to me They disrupt the reading flow Others SUBMIT About Shweta Kawaatra In an industry where reinvention is key, few transitions are as striking—and seamless—as that of television star Shweta Kawaatra . Once a household name known for her gripping performances in iconic TV serials like Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii, Kumkum – Ek Pyara Sa Bandhan, and C.I.D., Shweta has now stepped into a completely different arena: luxury real estate . And she's not just dabbling—she's diving in the actress who once kept audiences hooked with dramatic storylines and crime-solving brilliance has now shifted gears from entertainment to entrepreneurship. Shweta Kawaatra is now making headlines as the face of premium property marketing , particularly in Dubai, where she's seen actively promoting high-end real estate through her Instagram handle and dedicated realty a recent video that took social media by storm, Shweta was spotted showcasing a Dubai-based property on behalf of RK Realtor. Clad in a kurta, with minimal makeup and a poised hairdo, she looked every bit the confident businesswoman. Her articulate pitch and commanding presence weren't just about looks—they revealed a deep understanding of the product she was selling, reflecting her serious pivot into isn't doing this alone either. She often appears alongside her partner Rishi Bagga in real estate-focused videos, offering viewers inside peeks into premium properties and sharp insights into the housing market. Together, they've built a growing digital presence that blends credibility with charm—traits Shweta honed during her years in front of the to fellow TV actor Manav Gohil , whom she met on the sets of Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii, the couple have enjoyed a strong, enduring bond for nearly two also proud parents to their daughter, Zahara Tabeetha. From breaking families apart or solving crimes to now helping families find their dream homes, Shweta has charted out a different career path for herself.
