About This Blog
My name is Uday Nandivada, and this blog is a love letter to Hindi cinema and the songs that shaped my life.
I grew up in the ’60s and ’70s, but not in the Hindi heartland. I spent the first decade of my life in Andhra Pradesh, where my exposure to Hindi was limited to whatever my Hindi teachers tried (often unsuccessfully) to drum into me. In other words: not much.
Everything changed in the early ’70s, when my family moved north to Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh. Overnight, Hindi went from being a school subject to a language I had to master simply to survive in the classroom and the playground. I had to learn Hindi in a hurry.
Two things rescued me:
- Binaca Geet Mala
- Hindi movies
Week after week, film songs on the radio and stories on the big screen became my informal Hindi tutors. I picked up vocabulary, idioms, accents, and—more importantly—the rhythm and emotion of the language. Somewhere along the way, the struggle to “cope at school” turned into something else entirely.
Thus began a life‑long romance with Hindi film music and cinema.
What You’ll Find Here
This blog is where I revisit that romance—slowly, lovingly, and with a generous dose of nostalgia. Here, I share:
- Memories of growing up with Hindi films and songs in the ’60s and ’70s
- Reflections on movies that left a mark—sometimes famous, sometimes forgotten
- Playlists of songs I grew up listening to, often with a narrative that binds them together into a cohesive theme, much like the lists that my fellow bloggers put together on their blogs
- Occasional detours into language, culture, and what it meant to be a non‑native Hindi speaker falling in love with Hindi cinema
- Trivia to whet your appetite for the unusual, the intriguing, and the poetic essence of Bollywood.
Why I’m Writing
I’m not a film scholar or a critic by profession. I’m simply someone whose life has been quietly, persistently shaped by movies, melodies, and the language they came wrapped in.
Writing these posts helps me:
- Preserve memories before they fade
- Re‑experience the joy of discovering movies and songs for the first time
- Connect the dots between places, people, language, and cinema across the decades
If any of this echoes your own journey—or simply sparks your curiosity—then this blog has done its job.
Join the Conversation
I’d love for this space to be more than just my memories on a screen.
- Share your own stories in the comments
- Tell me which films or songs shaped your Hindi (or any language)
- Suggest movies or themes you’d like me to write about
Thank you for stopping by and spending a little time in this corner of nostalgia.
Frames of Reference 