Hindugreek music /songs /movies .

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In the photo you ve seen  Mr Nargis ,one of the most important and older time popular Hindu actor in Greece.  Her movie Mother India is one of the most known movies with  length of ca 3.5 hours . I have this movie in DVD taken from a newspaper as insert.
This interesting Hindi movies started  here in Greece after 50s . One of the reasons that they had big success is that their characters spoken to the heart  of the Greek people of the time. Many Greeks became immigrants  to Germany looking for work as they do today and some of them returned back sot start their jobs after  they earned some money. Greece was under a second inner war after the  end of the German dominance and had a 3-5 yeas  delay to 'resurrect' herself from both war's disaster.
Thus Greek of the era were very poor and  looked for simple stories to watch. Specialized halls , second class at most,    played  Indian movies and were always full. It is something that my father told me years ago.
Medium or higher casts  preferred  to listen /watch other kinds. Medium preferred  rock and roll (60s) and classic (higher cast )

Some facts
1. Nearly all Hindu  movies  reaching  the local cinemas were  dramatic    Many of these movies  were here edited  for  a happy end . (This is what the moguls of the  Greek cinema wanted  Greeks   to see. Many of these movies had dramatic or depressing end)
2 . Most of these are very complex stories (as mine!) with unpredictable end in contrast to most Greek or western movies of the time
3. All these movies are mixed with nice music .Dalianides , a famous movie maker 10 years after  used the same idea  to make his productions (musical movies)
4.Greek population of the time preferred to watch Indian movies because except they were very lengthy (3 or more hours)  offered a  rather 'shallow' (ie stories  you don't need  to think much) and easy to understand story that comes close to their  way of thinking. However   today's standards are completely different and someone can laugh watching  Mother India. it was happened when it was  played on 2008 in a lcoal cinema
5. The today's (90s ) hindi movies approached  Holywood standards with violence sex etc something  that oleder times  did not occur.
This interest of Greek arisen also the interest  of musicians to play or even edit many songs the Greek  way. There are several songs  played here intact (as the original )  though most of the original Indians  has been heavily changed to more greek standards  tough they have some Indian color . This book  lists  about 150 songs with their greek names - only 10 are the exact original

 Xanthopoulos is the best example  ( he is known as 'folks child; one  of the most important actors of that time projected te after war situation in his movies. Most of his songs are of Indian origin  though under heavy 'version-ing '  ) Also Kazanjidis who sing more than 40.
On late 70s when Voula Palla a singer of traditional songs  tried to revamp Indian singing.Voula was not well known singer but the  Greek audience knows her  as the only Greek singer with the Hindi voice!.
Just google for these names and songs .Good luck !!

The Indian era in Greek cinema and music was on 50-65 and again on end of 80s fr a very short time  only for music and on mid 2000 with new wave of Bollywood (movies of mid 90)

Some very known  Greek songs of the time  were Madhubala (after a very nice  actress but Greek song  ) Jingoala (same ), Oso glyka ehune ta hili su  (your lips are as sweet/surga dunia in Insia/inchi unchi dunia ke vivare indian song  )  Oso axizis esy (you  are so valued /dunyavalon se dur indian )
I think that this litle  info can be helpful

PS 2: Not only Greeks  imported  hindu  movies or  replayed songs. The same happened on most 3rd countries among them Msia Insia Tailand but also   NIgeria

PS 3 Indians have 4 Greek songs!  Theere are eg the  'Pedia tou pirea' & 'never on sunday mixed' into one hindi song . I have heard another called in both countries as 'bumpa bumpa pararam'/'mpros gkremos kai pisw rema' (renders to : in between  Scylla and Charybdis ) that is clearly Greek music

My personal interest and view as a fan of Indian movie and music

Movies:
I dont like the older movies (60s)  but prefer to watch movies from 70s and then that suits better  to  interest . Amibtabh Bachchan is the most known actor of the 80+ . I have seen and enjoyed  some movies of he post 70 period  . THey are quite entertaining as like Pukaar and Silsila (with the best indian songs of the time )  .
Good source of watching Indian movies was  satelite TV and radio since the start of TVRO  in Europe is ca  86 . I dont remember names of TV channels but nearly all  scrambled in short time after thy started sat transmission.I didn't keep any of them into cassettes  for that time.
A now extinct newspaper called Eleyfthrotypia after 2000  offered two collections  of Bollywood mvies of the 90 era as free inserts. It was 4 movies per collection. I immediately bought them and watched . I also  watched HIndi movies via satelitte.

My movie and actor   preferences :
Ash Rai,  Sharukh Khan,  Jaya bachan , Prety Zinta, Kajol are part of the big list of  good Hindi actors of 90s i know. Ash known to me was also known from a role in Pink Panther
Some of the best  movies of th 90s  are Devdas with Ash   ( Bangla version  of Romeo and Juliet/ Ash's  version is poss the 3rd) Hum tum  (me &you ), kal ho naa ho कल हो ना हो ( tomorrow will never be from the greek title ) , dhoom (havoc /races with bikes ) Kabhi khusi kabhie gham (pleasures and sorows ) adn surely the most important and famous for my wife but not me   Kuch kuch hota he कुछ कुछ होता ह  (something happens - in my heart ) that  i even  heard its OST  in NIgeria ! (heard versions the song from Afganistan  and also two from Indonesia and Msia )
My most important  movie is however : Pinjaar पिंजर  (cage ) one of the  most dramatic stories ever. I have it original in English.

Songs:
It is nearly he same interest as with movies.I was first connected with Hindi songs from the greek editions of our well known singers but my interest was quite low as i preferred to listen  to the so called here soft music and later with rocks  . I continued listening to Hindi music from  shortwaves and later i received several tapes after my relatives gone in business trip on 82 on UAE. They bought several  videotapes and audio cassettes with music of 70s which i didn't like so much. The best songs have bee found in ther movie Silsila  as noticed above.
I  irregularly continued to listen  to HIndi songs in general  from  shortwaves (ie India and Pakistan ) One of the songs i liked much was a song  form Aaina series. (rothe  ho tum/nayara nur ) and wws one of the very few  recorded on more n 10 years and was just by chance while tuning to R Pakistan .
Shortwaves were  my preference to  listen to Indian music but not recording regardless if signals are very good here . it was more systematic with Malay after 90
There is no listing of top songs other than the above even into the streaming era i only listen sometimes to some interesting streams .

And this ends my personal interest in Indian music and movies