The other day while channel surfing I came across the song YAARA O YAARA from a movie called JEET. Any ardent bollywood fans out there who remember this movie?? It had Sunny Deol, Karishma Kapoor and Salman Khan.
What struck me was the picturisation of the song – here we had a great looking girl in some garish outfits and an awful hairdo swaying her hips to a masala song at the favourite Hindi cinema location – Switzerland. The guy on the other hand, was Sunny Paaji. Now what to say....the man can’t dance to save his life. The definition of two left feet seems terribly meek compared to what he was doing in that song.
I couldn’t stop laughing. In fact I was sympathising with what the choreographer must have gone through during the shoot “Sunny ji, aise haath hilaiye...nahi nahi...legs nahi...haath hilana hai” or “Sunny ji, thoda apna waist move kijiye...nahi nahi full body nahi move karni hai” or “Sunny ji thoda romantic expression dijiye...nahi nahi itna gusse mein nahi” and after an exasperating rehearsal would have given up and said “Sunny ji, aap aisa feel kijiye ki aap cheenti maar rahe hai...full force ke saath” and Sunny would have said “haan this suits my action hero image too...I’ll do it”. Poor Karishma had no choice but to follow suit.
So in the entire song, we see Sunny only killing ants (forcefully hitting the ground so that even if the poor ants had an afterlife, they wouldn’t survive to see it). The second step is him using his hands in the air as if he is about to punch someone. While Karishma on her part, is the saving grace who manages some groovy moves to keep the song alive (much to the choreographer and directors relief, I bet!)
Nevertheless, the song was incredibly popular. It was a chart buster when it released and the movie was a super hit courtesy the action packed performance from our junior garam dharam Sunny Paaji. I for one, had gone to a theatre to watch it...all awestruck with Salman (ok at the age I was smitten by his charm and magnetism over Sunny’s heroic abilities)
But the point of this entire note is to bring back some memories of what Hindi movies were all about. They weren’t as classy, tasteful, sensible or realistic as they are today but they had this unbelievable charm, a larger than life aura, a this-is-too-good-to-be-true feel in them. Think about it, where else will we see Salman wearing a pink suit with a green shirt or Sunny Paaji screaming “Laashein beechan doonga” or Karishma wearing a tent like skirt with a choli? Gone are those days guys! The golden days where Bollywood was full on paisa vasool, where the protagonist was a hero who could take on 10 goons in 1 shot, where the heroine danced with 300 extras in the background, where the villain looked truly evil or when we as kids got inspired by movies and bought "jumma chumma frocks" or "the COOL locket worn by Shahrukh in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" ...aaahhh the alluring magic of Hindi cinema!
And while I was retrospecting, the next song that came on the channel was HUN HUNA RE HUN HUNA, HUN HUNA RE HUN HUNA from a Kajol and Vikas Bhalla starrer. Obviously, I stayed on to watch the 90's dance moves and wondered if Kajol would ever get back to doing a song like this. What do you think?
Showing posts with label bollywood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bollywood. Show all posts
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Thursday, September 2, 2010
The Krishna Leela Escapade
So today is Janamashtami.
If this was 20 years ago, I would be busy running through my lines, cramming each word and expression, trotting between my house and my neighbours house to check the costume, making multiple trips to the pandal to supervise the stage and preparations, getting all other kids together to ensure our flighty dance steps are in sync. Yes, all this at the age of 7 when the BIGGEST thing in life was becoming Krishna in the local Janamashtami celebrations (the younger version; the older/macho Krishna was always my elder brother...wonder why).
Even though Noida was a part of Delhi or UP (people conveniently choose whichever state they want Noida to belong to) the place was like a small town, growing in the shadows of a big city. It wasn’t developed, there weren’t too many sectors and there definitely was no Metro or DND. We were the early settlers (newly moved from the ever so lavish up-market Lodi Road), the place was small and everyone knew everyone. As kids, we used to cycle around the sector, play badminton, gallery and stapoo on the road, get excited with the sound of Jain tikkiwala when he used to roll his cart at 5pm to dish out fabulous tikkis and gol gappe and over excitedly greet every adult we saw with an eager “Namaste uncle or Namaste aunty” (even when it was uncalled for!)
One such evening after play, my mom (she was the MOST social and MOST active member of RWA) got all kids and parents together and made an announcement about celebrating Janamashtami. It stemmed from a basic idea of setting up a pandal in our lane (A block, Sec 15), putting up photos of Krishna and doing an aarti with prasad distribution at midnight. We decided we should invite the entire sector but this meant organizing money and the best way to do so was to collect chanda. So every day after school (10 days prior to the main day) we visited each house with our receipt book, begged people not to be stingy and asked for contribution. One thing led to another and after the huge response we got with 1st year celebrations, we wanted next year’s event to be BIGGER and BETTER.
So we (the kids) with my mom in tow put on our creative hats and started writing the script for Krishna Leela. This was BIG...this meant becoming actors = learning dialogues = costume, jewellery and dance = everyone from the sector watching us = drama = excitement = fun = stories to share in school = becoming popular as stars (we belonged to Noida, and yes were star struck and wished their kind of stardom in our own small way) = OH MY GOD, WE ARE DOING SOMETHING AWESOME!!!
We had it all planned. The money from chanda would go in set up and production, costumes would be borrowed from the local Ram Leela organizers, food would be arranged by someone’s mom, rehearsal area would be someone’s terrace and one of the girls (a local dance instructor) would teach us raas leela. But hey, we couldn’t forget bollywood! So instead of using traditional songs we used filmi numbers (We assumed, Lord Krishna being a modern age God with a colourful personality won’t mind). So while we were not mouthing our dialogues in shudh hindi, we were swaying to “natkhat bansi wale gokul ke raaje, meri aankhiyan taras gayi ab toh aaja from Saudagar, bada natakhat hai re..krishna kanihya..kya kare yashoda maiyaan from Aradhana or Madhuban mein radhika naache re...Mohan ki muraliya baaje re from Kohinoor”
Division of roles was easy and there weren’t ego clashes, we had an audition and whoever did best got the role meant for him/her (although, apart from my over enthusiastic acting abilities, I was made younger Krishna because I looked like a boy!)
Now to recap, I started with how IF it was Janamashtami, two decades ago, I would be busy preparing with butterflies in my stomach. We eagerly looked forward to the evening for lights and sound to fire up, for audiences to quickly fill the chairs and for the magic to begin (we had nearly 200 people attending and the no. increased YoY). Looking back, WE ROCKED IT!
After 1 months sweat, toil and continuous rehearsals, we had phenomenal entries planned for every rakshas appearing from within the audience and scaring their guts out (with the makeup, they aced their part), we had background music of the river Yamuna to depict Vasudeva crossing over with baby Krishna (the Krishna in hand would be a plastic doll wrapped in a dupatta) and we had a Kansa who roared his way through the play. And at the end of it, Krishna in a very ceremonious manner would kill Kansa and win everyone’s heart. (FYI – Our play started with Krishna’s birth and depicted him in his growing up years, ending with him killing his evil mama – Kansa)
The audiences LOVED us and we soon became the talk of the sector (if not the town). Every year, like the chanda our small play also grew. Of course roles were interchanged; I’ve also played a gopi with my head covered with a cap because I had given my hair in Tirupati...yes, some memories!)
Hmm...anyway, life moved on and with the Krishna Leela exposure, I later got to play a monkey’s role in Lord Ram’s vanar sena in the local Ram Leela. Their production was much bigger than ours and securing a role in Ram Leela was HUGE (Although, my brother ONCE AGAIN did better and grabbed younger Ram’s role while I was left being a monkey!)
But as years went by, my parents decided to move to the BIG city.
With such fond, fun and colourful memories we shifted base to a land where all the above could not be possible.....because what happened in Noida was one of the experiences of growing up in a small town, where one was crazy yet modest - stupid yet grounded and where one could live unabashed :)
Having said that, I don’t hate big cities - I love Mumbai, it’s given me a life beyond childhood, it’s given me a career and most importantly given me the person I want to spend rest of my life with. Although, someday I wish the younger generation from big cities get to experience the kind of fun I had growing up!
If this was 20 years ago, I would be busy running through my lines, cramming each word and expression, trotting between my house and my neighbours house to check the costume, making multiple trips to the pandal to supervise the stage and preparations, getting all other kids together to ensure our flighty dance steps are in sync. Yes, all this at the age of 7 when the BIGGEST thing in life was becoming Krishna in the local Janamashtami celebrations (the younger version; the older/macho Krishna was always my elder brother...wonder why).
Even though Noida was a part of Delhi or UP (people conveniently choose whichever state they want Noida to belong to) the place was like a small town, growing in the shadows of a big city. It wasn’t developed, there weren’t too many sectors and there definitely was no Metro or DND. We were the early settlers (newly moved from the ever so lavish up-market Lodi Road), the place was small and everyone knew everyone. As kids, we used to cycle around the sector, play badminton, gallery and stapoo on the road, get excited with the sound of Jain tikkiwala when he used to roll his cart at 5pm to dish out fabulous tikkis and gol gappe and over excitedly greet every adult we saw with an eager “Namaste uncle or Namaste aunty” (even when it was uncalled for!)
One such evening after play, my mom (she was the MOST social and MOST active member of RWA) got all kids and parents together and made an announcement about celebrating Janamashtami. It stemmed from a basic idea of setting up a pandal in our lane (A block, Sec 15), putting up photos of Krishna and doing an aarti with prasad distribution at midnight. We decided we should invite the entire sector but this meant organizing money and the best way to do so was to collect chanda. So every day after school (10 days prior to the main day) we visited each house with our receipt book, begged people not to be stingy and asked for contribution. One thing led to another and after the huge response we got with 1st year celebrations, we wanted next year’s event to be BIGGER and BETTER.
So we (the kids) with my mom in tow put on our creative hats and started writing the script for Krishna Leela. This was BIG...this meant becoming actors = learning dialogues = costume, jewellery and dance = everyone from the sector watching us = drama = excitement = fun = stories to share in school = becoming popular as stars (we belonged to Noida, and yes were star struck and wished their kind of stardom in our own small way) = OH MY GOD, WE ARE DOING SOMETHING AWESOME!!!
We had it all planned. The money from chanda would go in set up and production, costumes would be borrowed from the local Ram Leela organizers, food would be arranged by someone’s mom, rehearsal area would be someone’s terrace and one of the girls (a local dance instructor) would teach us raas leela. But hey, we couldn’t forget bollywood! So instead of using traditional songs we used filmi numbers (We assumed, Lord Krishna being a modern age God with a colourful personality won’t mind). So while we were not mouthing our dialogues in shudh hindi, we were swaying to “natkhat bansi wale gokul ke raaje, meri aankhiyan taras gayi ab toh aaja from Saudagar, bada natakhat hai re..krishna kanihya..kya kare yashoda maiyaan from Aradhana or Madhuban mein radhika naache re...Mohan ki muraliya baaje re from Kohinoor”
Division of roles was easy and there weren’t ego clashes, we had an audition and whoever did best got the role meant for him/her (although, apart from my over enthusiastic acting abilities, I was made younger Krishna because I looked like a boy!)
Now to recap, I started with how IF it was Janamashtami, two decades ago, I would be busy preparing with butterflies in my stomach. We eagerly looked forward to the evening for lights and sound to fire up, for audiences to quickly fill the chairs and for the magic to begin (we had nearly 200 people attending and the no. increased YoY). Looking back, WE ROCKED IT!
After 1 months sweat, toil and continuous rehearsals, we had phenomenal entries planned for every rakshas appearing from within the audience and scaring their guts out (with the makeup, they aced their part), we had background music of the river Yamuna to depict Vasudeva crossing over with baby Krishna (the Krishna in hand would be a plastic doll wrapped in a dupatta) and we had a Kansa who roared his way through the play. And at the end of it, Krishna in a very ceremonious manner would kill Kansa and win everyone’s heart. (FYI – Our play started with Krishna’s birth and depicted him in his growing up years, ending with him killing his evil mama – Kansa)
The audiences LOVED us and we soon became the talk of the sector (if not the town). Every year, like the chanda our small play also grew. Of course roles were interchanged; I’ve also played a gopi with my head covered with a cap because I had given my hair in Tirupati...yes, some memories!)
Hmm...anyway, life moved on and with the Krishna Leela exposure, I later got to play a monkey’s role in Lord Ram’s vanar sena in the local Ram Leela. Their production was much bigger than ours and securing a role in Ram Leela was HUGE (Although, my brother ONCE AGAIN did better and grabbed younger Ram’s role while I was left being a monkey!)
But as years went by, my parents decided to move to the BIG city.
With such fond, fun and colourful memories we shifted base to a land where all the above could not be possible.....because what happened in Noida was one of the experiences of growing up in a small town, where one was crazy yet modest - stupid yet grounded and where one could live unabashed :)
Having said that, I don’t hate big cities - I love Mumbai, it’s given me a life beyond childhood, it’s given me a career and most importantly given me the person I want to spend rest of my life with. Although, someday I wish the younger generation from big cities get to experience the kind of fun I had growing up!
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