Odd finding me watching Feroz Khan serenading Hema Malini among a flock of sheep, and the general prancing about on some barren hill slopes. I did not get why he came looking for her in such arid inhabitable region, or why she was hiding there in the first place with no cosmetic or medical relief nearby, or how a jeep could drive over such terrain, or why she would be prancing along dust storms and crevasses, or why she was barefoot and yet had no calluses on feet, or who was really herding that huge flock of sheep if not her.
However, leaving aside these puzzling coital rituals, my fingers immediately got googling over something else.
It wasn't the hyper hero or the whitewashed heroine I was after, but the flattering backdrop, of what seemed like a chain of lakes, which was as blue as I'd never seen in an old Indian movie.
Turns out, this song (from Dharmatma, Indian remake of Godfather) was shot around the ethereal Banda-e-Aamir lakes in Afghanistan in 1970s. This movie, in fact, was the first Indian movie to be shot in Afghanistan. Feroz Khan (being the Producer-Director here) had a bug inside him that saw him filming in places like Afghanistan and even Uzbekistan, and raise the style quotient of Indian cinema by manifold. And it were unspoilt features out there, like these Banda-e-Amir lakes, to complement his bug.
Banda-e-Amir (often spelled Band-e-Amir) is a chain of 5 lakes in central Afghanistan, in the Hindu-Kush mountain range (these lie 75km N-W of Bamiyan). Water rich in carbon dioxide left huge calcium deposits that formed the walls that today separate and encircle the lakes. They now hold the credit of being Afghanistan's first national park (in 2009), as well as being on UNESCO's World Heritage List. Read more technical stuff on wikipedia.
Another coordinate on the globe to mark my attendance now. But don't even think having this on itinerary for your winter vacations as temperature falls upto -20C.
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