Maine hi India mein Disco Laya!!!!

Don’t we all come to a point in life when we cannot remember any incident, movie, song or news completely? It comes back to us in snatches like a melody played in Vividh Bharathi some five households away and we are able to hear only the high notes!!

Speaking of Melodies(!!!!)…I keep seeing Bappi Lahiri on TV these days. My mom is a fan of his comments and his Bongliness. She keeps Saying that he is very Bhadro (eeks.. with all those chains, does’nt he get choked!!) and my missus freaks out on his mannerisms and comments for all the wrong reasons (the amajhing accent..main hi Disco India mein laya..Oneek you are tha naambaar oane..types). Well, the poor guy is a hopeless case on TV and is a prime candidate for situational comedy but he has had a brilliant run in Indian movie industry!! I started to find out how much I could remember of him from my childhood and youth. After all the guy made us trip over the Disco beats all those years back, didn’t he!

Disco Dancer comes first. I begin with “I am a Disco Dancer”. A pulsating number that made all of us do the Mithun foot tapping trick and the trademark pelvic shove at all possible places including my school assembly once when I heard it in a distant loudspeaker in Chandrapur. The number had a continuous disco beat but Bappida had done some amazing things with Vijay Benedict’s vocals. I went orgasmic with “Aao mere saath nacho – gao!!”. Mithun had done this like a stage performance in the movie and the song was apt as it was one strong appeal for guys to Disco. The drums rolled and the Sax made new sounds that had not been heard in Indian movies before that. A crescendo never seen before!!
Next in Line is “Auvva..Auvva…koi yahan aha naache naache”. This is the song that actually I took fancy to when I heard the tracks the first time. It had an oomph that only an Usha Uthup could put across. The gruff vocals and those smooth transitions from top to base. Effortless! I should mention here that a guy called B Hiremath who suspiciously sounded like Bappida himself did the male riffs here and what Disco. Priceless! Only, it translated onto screen through Karan Razdan (?) and Kim (??), two complete non entities in Indian cinema and with two great left legs. B Subhash was completely intent on making money only through Mithun’s antics. Now, you see what was Bappida’s contribution to that super hit!
After this was Kishore Kumar’s crazy “Ae o ah..ah o aha…Zara mudke dikha aankhen”..if you do come across the song again, mark the “Tere Liye!!” that he does in five different ways. Yes, Bappida did a classical touch in a total Disco gaana! KK had a fantastic take on the Disco dhoom that was happening then. When asked why he sang such songs that was beneath his capabilities, he said, “Tum khilaoge mujhe…Ghar le jaake!!”. The interviewer had just shut up after that.
Jimmy Jimmy aa ja..was a refrain that had its roots in some English ditty that I am unsure of but what the hell…here was a pure Indian melody just given a Disco face. Imagine, it had a sad version too. Bappida’s genius was in getting Parvati Khan to go as full throat as she could go and drawing those breaths from her to make it sensuous for the listeners. Wow!!
Yaad aa raha hai….was again sung by Hiremath and some very good lyrics pervaded the number. I don’t remember all of it but it was enjoyable to the core. Bappida excelled here and with a voice that never made any other significant contribution to Indian cinema.
Last but not the least were “Goron ki na kalon ki” and “Krishnaa..dharti pe aaja tu”. Goron..was sung by Suresh Wadkar and Usha Mangeshkar. There is an amazing bongo riff in this otherwise normal Indian road song that went turrr…turrrrr. I remember that I used to sit in the last bench of my class and try to do this on my writing table with my fingers tapping the rhythm. “Krishnaa…” was sung by Nandu Bhende. I had a hard time finding out his name when I first heard the song. The violins were used very imaginatively in this song. Hear it and you would know what I am talking about and it had Bappida doing something new ‘Pathos Disco’. That’s something I have invented now, as there was no classification of this ‘Mithun in distress’ number.

Disco Dancer heralded the arrival of B. Subhash as the Disco producer of India. Kasam paida karne wale ki and Dance Dance were to follow. Tarzan came even later.

I should follow this up with a write up on the other tracks of B Subhash, Mithun and Bappida mentioned above. Save it for another day!!!

A Poem - My Friend Venky wrote!!!!

This poem is indeed a true reflect of how anyone with a heart feels when you lose love and get in back in different forms…
Love indeed is a mirage… Love is a contradiction to oneself... yet the unsinkable truth holds that love is forever... As with very sunrise, we never know what the tide has in store for us... so love and live life to the fullest… it will never deprive you of what you really deserve... with time!!!
Unknown to the myths of heart aches…
Welcome one and all
A game you must play
lest you look with a wider moral.

Rules put up by both players
But one with knack shall slay
It’s all but a mere game
A game of wit and dare.

Never known reality
To strike as lightning unwelcome
Yet to watch the game go on
As days goes by & by.

Bleeding heart is timeless
None wiser than before
If only the heart would not succumb
To all the bruise deepened

Time heals... true to the word
Not sparing the ugly scars
Without indeed none have know
What it is to grieve.

Yet the new day dawns…
Washing away the tide
Behold the new rays
All that life’s to spare again!

I saw "RGV ki Aag"the film yesterday with the wife in a Pune multiplex. The hall was 40% full (a 400 seater). My wife had already called up friends in Mumbai and got the news that it was bad. She wanted to see Dhokha. But my RGV success anxiety made me chose this film. When we queued up for the tickets we could see that people were ignoring Aag and plumping for Dhokha and Heyy Babyy. I put it to RGV fatigue. 1 good movie and all of them would again fall in line for true blue RGV movie again.Then, the movie started. I could actually see that here was a completely off kilt script going in no direction except run down every original Sholay situation. Nisha Kothari was so awful and poorly characterised that she was actually fumbling and the editors could not do anything with her large screen presence. Ajay and Prashant did not have even one single memorable line. Forget, the original sholay…this did not get upto TLV Prasad levels..then poor Mohanlal had a characterisation that could not evoke any sympathy, honour or a sense of belonging!Sushmita was plain disinterested. I think she had smelt long back that she had been hard done by the director.Into this muddle came in AB. Now, It was very apparent that AB wanted to rule the frames from the time he came into the picture. But, with all the problems in the characterizations..he was plain stupid..one minute he was groaning..next he was giggling…suddenly he was roaring..then he was limping…then he was striding across the screen…HERE IS WHERE I FOUND THAT THE MEGALOMANIAC WAS NOT ONE BUT “TWO” - RGV AND BIG B.What do you do when you have two people intent on destroying a movie for themselves and their whims!AB is at such a point where is starting to go overboard in his portrayals if he is not guided well as he is like that guy who says “I know it all and I can do it all”. Also that he had done pretty much everything over all these years, so he wanted to get kinky and quirky..and How!!!RGV let him be and constructed the rest of the movie around his antics…imagine the thing with Urmila in the car!! So bloody unnecessary and tasteless!Also, just as I feared…any remake of Sholay needed a big budget..and I know RGV has tight budgets these days..so he did what he could..put the whole set up in some rundown factory lot…and that looked..in spite of some ajeebogareeb cam angles..no that does not make good frames..sorry..the lack of budget came through totally..even the Ooty - Mithunda movies have better finishes!!!!Probably, the first time…i had no good word for a RGV movie..I feared it..seeing the poster and how all the other decent actors were elbowed aside by Urmila’s boobs and AB’s smirk!!If RGV has such an ache for Urmi..he should sort out his issues, get back with her, stop that Nisha business…and at least try to make another decent prequel, sequel or anything of Satya!!! Because only she lived at the end of it!!!! Probably, that would be much more palatable…Now, all of you..be forewarned about Sarkar Raj…the two megalos are at work there too…thsi time I shall take it easy and catch the movie if I hear at least ONE guy here speak of it in decent terms!!!Imagine..to get over, I had to see “Bawarchi” midnight on to smile through and regain my faith in the movies!!