Browsing through the supermarket lanes that are stocked with things I don’t need, but will buy eventually, a familiar song gets me humming and then singing in gay abandon. “Can I touch you there? Touch you deep inside? ……….Can I touch you thereeeeeee?” At the sound of me screeching, my 10 year old turns around; her eyeballs ready to pop out of her sockets “YUCK MOM!!! What are you singing? Please stop embarrassing me!!! ”. I sheepishly tried to explain that Michael Bolton was talking about touching the heart (??) of a woman, but she simply did the Houdini on me. (And you thought only Bollywood suffered the lame lyrics syndrome, ha!)
Talking about musical idiocrasies, the 1990’s were so traumatic for me that I was almost left scarred for life. Now get this, I am a hardcore non-vegetarian and no, the many videos urging me to turn in my fangs, did not yield any success. But that first time I heard Bappida croon ‘Youare my chicken fry, you are my fish fry, kabhi na kehna kudiye, bye bye bye’…….I almost signed up to be the PETA poster girl!
Around the same time, Bollywood decided to unleash the fresh Virar ka chokra unto us along with his khatiya, chaadar, takiya and tambu. The recycled Mithunda and Big B were still going strong (?) and we had a deluge of songs of strange human sounds unheard before. These chartbusters were blaring the eardrums everywhere right from Superhit Muqabla and Navratri to Ganesh Visarjan.
Coining a new word almost became the equivalent of the ‘item song’ today or the ‘cabaret’ of yesteryears. Novel expressions that joined the receding Hindi vocabulary were chu chu chu, gutur gutur, tan tanantan tan tan tara, tammatamma, oye oye, tutak tutak tutiyan, ole ole ole, hai huku hai huku hai hai, tu tu tu tu tara, angoori angoori, uee ya uee ya, aa ee uu oo, kuku kuku and sexy sexy sexy (changed to baby baby baby coz it was just not acceptable) just to name a few.
Catchy phrases that made it right from eve teasing to proposing to a girl or for simple fraandships sake were considered hep. Some gems were ‘kurta phaad ke’, ‘saiyanne aisi bowling kari’, meri pant bhi sexy, ‘atariya par lotan kabutar’, ‘sarkailo khatiya’, ‘ek chumma tumujhko udhar de de’, ‘aaja meri gaadi main baith ja’, ‘Een Meen Sade teen,‘Bharo, maang meri bahro’, ‘tu cheeze badi hai mast mast‘, ‘Khada HainKhada Hain’, and ‘choli ke peeche’. No prizes for guessing, my sanity and vanity both were irreparably damaged. I thought nothing could be worse!
And then Himmmmmmmmesh happened! Euthanasia should have been made legal there and then; SLB would not have needed to make Guzaarish to prove a point. For fear of losing page views and (my face) on my blog, I won’t be listing his nasal war cries that he subjected us to. Please to Google! Though AR Rehman brought interim relief, with the onslaught of the Munnis, Sheilas, Razias, Jalebi Bais, Lailas and their ilk, all mayhem broke loose! Today, music is something I shudder to think of as soul soothing. Noise and non- sense pretty much take up most of the space. The rest, if any left at all, remains for the gyrating movements that are meant to titillate the front benchers. BTW does this tribe still exist? Whatever happened to the intelligent cinema goers tag?
Never mind that, have you heard the latest? Since books are slowly becoming redundant to the newer generation, age old fairy tales have now been revamped as musical video books with an original soundtrack. Here, a sneak peak of the future chartbusters, think you can figure the stories?
What’s my name, what’s my name, what’s my name? My name is Rumple…. Rumple…stiltskani, I am just too sho-rt for you, bas yeh mere life ki kahani!
Eeen Meen Saade teen, baaj gayi apni been, bhedi-ya aaye din, lega badla gin gin, kaise bachhe hum ab, ghar jo gaya hai udh udh udh udh?
Batak Batak, Batak Batak, Arrree beh gaya paani main re, mere aasoonoon ka samundar hai ….
Ek chumma tu mujhko udhar dai de, hum badle toh, ‘Gar hum badle toh Congress Sarkar lai le!
Banno badnaam hui, bhootnath tere liye….banno ke gal gulbai, hont sharabi, baal kebabi haiii, tulsi aangan ki hui, bhootnath tere liye
Sona kitna sona hai, sona hai tujhe jaane mann, sun zara sun kya kehta hoon, 100 saalon ki aye buddhan, tu meri, tu meri, tu meri, tu meri, tu meri Beauty No 1.
Ella main toh, ella main main toh, ella main toh, ella main main toh, ……….ella main toh ella….. Cinderella!
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| All image courtesies : Google |
Now that you are probably scratching your head as to when did we become the glorified Bhojpuri industry, I’ll leave, happy to have transferred the scary musical notes unto you. I’m going to unwind with a cup of coffee and one of my fav songs ‘Chupke Chupke, raat din……aasoon bahana yaad hai…………….humko ab tak aashiqui ka woh zamana yaad hai’
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