bappidas

I didn't know Kalpana Iyer had been a winner of the Miss India title. Having discovered this, I decided to check her filmography out. All my memories of Madame Iyer were of her as a vamp in hits churned out by Bappi Lahiri (hari Om hari in Pyaara Dushman and rambhaa ho in Armaan). Her filmography did not yield any surprises, however; there was no phase of roles indicating a desire to try some serious acting and snag an award or two. But I stumbled upon Manokaamnaa. I knew Bappi's songs for the film, but I had no idea that Madame Iyer had starred in this Raj Kiran flick. Predictably, the video for my favourite song on the soundtrack was up on Youtube. As with most of the songs for Bollywood films, what goings-on on screen added naught to my favourable impressions of the song. I, however, realised that in addition to sounding like himself, Bappi also seemed to be doing an impersonation of Yesudas. What the song would have sounded like if Yesudas had sung it is unfortunately a matter of speculation.