Do you want a partner?

I love thetears that well up in my eyes each time I watch the old widowed Sharmila Tagorein Amar Prem break her bangle by the riverside after her long-forgotten brute ofa husband shows up to die at her doorstep.Where do we get suchlarge-hearted women in cinema any longer? Compare Bollywood���s newestBengali beauty Bipasha Basu���s femme-fatale act in Race withSharmila���s captivating purity and nobility in Amar Prem.Fromgrace to race? Where do we have an actress possessing Sharmila���soverpowering aura of glamourous seductiveness today? Where are thosedistinguished filmmakers from the old Bengali Bimal Roy school of filmmaking...Asit Sen, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Shakti Samanta... all gone!Thepassing away of Shakti Samanta is truly the end of an era... my era. My ownfavourite place of escape in my growing-up years. Shaktida���s cinema in thefirst-half of the 1970s is to me the golden period for Hindifilms.Rajesh Khanna(RK), RD Burman and Samanta... what a threesomethey made! And add Sharmila Tagore to the brew... and I���m in heaven meredost, tears and all.Aradhana, Amar Prem, Anuraag, Charitraheen are allfilms that I swoon over. Even Anurodh where Samanta���s favourite hero andlucky mascot RK persuaded the director to give his saali Simple Kapadia abreak.Wah, Anand Bakshi Saab! Anurodh was a rare film whereShaktida broke his indelible musical bonding with Burman and worked withLaxmikant-Pyarelal.The last time that Shaktida came together with RK andRD it was for the compromised Alag Alag where Mr Khanna was cast with the ladyhe was seeing at that time.Movies are not made FOR the heart.They���re made FROM the heart. The day Shaktida changed that golden role ofmovie making his films went downhill. Though Shaktida remained active even afterthe end of the Rajesh Khanna���s era he couldn���t regain that glorygone. It makes you wonder... is it right for a filmmaker to be constantlyconnected to one actor? Manmohan Desai and Prakash Mehra couldn���t make asuccessful film after their association ended with the Big B. And after Khanna,Shaktida couldn���t make a success out of The Great Gambler or Barsaat Ki EkRaat although they starred the formidable Big B.