On Valentine’s Day, ‘Pyaasa’ among Time’s top romantic movies

WASHINGTON - Indian director Guru Dutt’s fifties’ classic musical-drama “Pyaasa” has been listed fifth among Time magazine’s Valentine’s Day list of top Romantic Movies.

For the Feb 14 day celebrating love and affection between intimate companions, “Time.com has a list - from the songs you need to ease the pain to the movies that will sweep you up in a romance nearly as epic as your own”

In picking up “Pyaasa”, the Time asked: “Where did classic Hollywood go when it died?”

And itself answered: “To India, where the nation’s pop cinema (Bollywood to you) still attends to antique conventions of family fealty, personal integrity and, of course, all-conquering love.”

“In this achingly lush tale of a poet whose one true friend is a prostitute, director-star Guru Dutt creates a musical drama as shimmering and ethereal as the poet’s verses, as sultry and earthy as Waheeda Rehman, the 20-year-old actress who became Guru Dutt’s mistress and muse,” Time said.

“‘Pyaasa’ means ‘thirst’; if this film is your introduction to the glamour and heartbreak of Indian film, it’ll leave you parched for more,” it said.

Here are the top ten Romantic Movies:

* Son of the Sheik (1926)

* Dodsworth (1936)

* Camille (1936)

* An Affair to Remember (1957)

* Pyaasa (1957)

* Jules and Jim (1962)

* Chungking Express

* Moulin Rouge (2001)

* Talk to Her (2002)

* Brokeback Mountain (2005)

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)