Padosan

Starring Kishore Kumar, Mehmood, Sunil Dutt and Saira Banu, ‘Padosan’ (1968) is an effervescent comedy based on the life of naïve Bhola (Sunil) and his beautiful neighbour Bindu (Saira), with whom he falls head-over-heels in love and tries to win the girl with the help of his friends to outwit Bindu’s music teacher and his rival Master Pillai (Mehmood). A complete family entertainer and a great comedy which includes stalwarts of Indian cinema, ‘Padosan’ included melodious tracks sung by Kishore Kumar, Manna Dey and Lata Mangeshkar such as ‘Mere saamne wali khidki mein’, ‘Ek chatur naar karke shringaar’ and ‘Main chali main chali’.

Chupke Chupke

A Hrishikesh Mukherjee film, ‘Chupke Chupke’ (1975) is one of the most loved Bollywood comedies starring Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan, Sharmila Tagore, Jaya Bachchan and Om Prakash. A fun filled family film, ‘Chupke Chupke’ is a comedy of errors revolving around Botany professor Parimal Tripathi (Dharmendra), English professor Sulekha Chaturvedi (Sharmila Tagore), Sukumar Sinha (Amitabh Bachchan) and Vasudha (Jaya Bachchan). The film was bejewelled with SD Burman’s music which included evergreen hits like ‘Chupke chupke’, ‘Sa re ga ma’ and ‘Abke Sajan Sawan Mein’.

Khatta Meetha

Basu Chatterjee’s ‘Khatta Meetha’ (1978) starring Ashok Kumar,Rakesh Roshan and Bindiya Goswami was loosely based on ‘Yours, Mine and Ours’ (1968). The film revolves around Homi Mistry (Ashok), an old Parsi widower, whose desire to marry Nargis Sethna (Pearl Padamsee) triggers hysterical consequences in both Mistry and Sethna family.

Gol Maal

‘Gol Maal’ (1979) is a critically and commercially acclaimed comedy directed by Hishikesh Mukherjee which is based upon the classic case of mistaken identities. Starring Amol Palekar as Ramprasad Dashrathprasad Sharma, Utpal Dutt as Bhavani Shankar and Bindiya Goswami as Urmila, ‘Gol Maal’ is based on a Ramprasad’s bare-faced lie to land a job at Bhavani Shakar. However, things go out of hand when Ramprasad cooks up a story about his twin, but clean-shaven brother Lakshamprasad Sharma. An effervescent comedy, ‘Gol Maal’ is still a hit among all ages.

Angoor

‘Angoor’ (1982) is a Bollywood comedy film based on William Shakespeare’s play ‘The Comedy of Errors’. Starring Sanjeev Kumar, Deven Verma, Moushmi Chatterjee and Deepti Naval, ‘Angoor’ is about two pair of identical twins separated at birth and all the chaos when they accidentally meet in adulthood.

Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron

‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron’ (1983) is a cult satirical comedy by Kundan Shah. Starring theatre stalwarts like Naseeruddin Shah, Ravi Baswani, Om Puri, Pankaj Kapur, Satish Shah and Bhakti Barve, JBDY takes a dig at the rampant corruption in Indian politics, bureaucracy and media. A critically acclaimed film that went on to become household name in the 80’s, the characters of Vinod, Sudhir, Shobha, Tarneja, Ahuja and Commissioner D’Mello are still relevant in today’s times.

Andaaz Apna Apna

A Rajkumar Santoshi film, ‘Andaaz Apna Apna’ (1994) is the only movie in which Aamir Khan and Salman Khan ever acted together in comic roles along with Raveena Tandon, Karisma Kapoor, Paresh Rawal and Shakti Kapoor. The film is based on the trials and tribulations of Amar Manohar (Aamir) and Prem Bhopali’s (Salman), who want to make it big without any hard work and their only desire in life is to become rich by marrying a wealthy girl.

Hera Pheri

A Priyadarshan film, ‘Hera Pheri’ (2000) is a hysterical comedy starring Akshay Kumar, Suniel Shetty, Paresh Rawal and Tabu. ‘Hera Pheri’ is the story of three broke men Raju (Akshay), Ghanshyam (Suniel) and Baburao Ganpatrao Apte (Paresh), who for the lure of quick money try to save industrialist Devi Prasad’s (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) kidnapped granddaughter and end up being at the wrong side of law and up against the real kidnappers.

Munna Bhai

A Rajkumar Santoshi film, ‘Munna Bhai’ (2003) stars Sanjay Dutt as Murli Prasad Sharma and Arshad Warsi as Circuit, affable Mumbai tough guys who have a heart of gold. ‘Munna Bhai’ elicits great deal of laughter and mirth when Munna joins a medical school to please his father’s wishes but trouble arises when he ends up living in his inimitable bhai style.

Golmaal

A Rohit Shetty film, ‘Golmaal’ (2006) stars Ajay Devgn, Arshad Warsi, Tusshar Kapoor and Rimi Sen. The story revolves around four friends Gopal, Lucky, Madhav and Laxman who are thrown out of their college and end up at the bungalow of a blind couple, pretending to be their US return grandson. A highly enjoyable film, the film was strewn with loads of wit and humour.

Bheja Fry

‘Bheja Fry’ (2007) is a remake of French comedy film ‘Le Dîner de Cons’ (1998) starring Vinay Pathak, Rajat Kapoor, Ranvir Shorey and Sarika. ‘Bheja Fry’ revolves around the music producer Ranjeet Thadani (Rajat) amd his Friday parties where they invite fools to ridicule them. One fine day they invite Bharat Bhushan (Vinay Pathak), a wannabe and talkative singer, who leaves no stone unturned to fry the brains of his hosts with his ridiculous, almost eccentric ways.

By Aman Kanth