Chumma Doge ya Tamma Loge? The controversy rages on

The debate never ended. Many able men and women -- heroes, great thinkers, all -- on both sides have fallen, without a solution in sight. Who would win in a fight between the songs, Jumma Chumma De De from Hum and Tamma Tamma Loge from Thanedaar?

In case you were either a Mooninite up until last night, or just too young to know what I'm talking about: in 1990-91, Indians were in possession of a copy of Akwaba Beach, an album by Guinea native Mory Kanté. At least three of the album's tracks were featured in Bollywood movies over the next few years. Yé Ké Yé Ké was played in Agneepath during Amitabh's character's visit to Mauritius, and the intro to Inch'Allah became the "inspiration" for the chorus to the title song in Amitabh's Hum (1990-91). The track that had the most done to it, however, was Tama -- it "inspired" two songs featured in two different Hindi films. Ignoring the fact that they had both ripped off the same song, the Laxmikant-Pyarelal (hereafter LP) camp and the Bappi Lahiri camp began the finger-pointing, each accusing the other of having stolen original music from them. LP's version was intended for the Amitabh comeback vehicle Hum (1990-91), and Bappida's track for the Sanjay Dutt starrer Thanedaar (1990). Although the movies were scheduled for release within months of each other, Thanedaar didn't actually hit the box office until much later (1992) because of release date issues complicated by Sanjay Dutt's alleged role as supporting actor in some shady deals with the Bombay underworld. The makers of Hum assumed this resolved the controversy in their favour. With enough time having passed since then, I believe we can revisit the problem without letting our judgment be clouded by all the ancillary details.

In this post, I carefully analyze both songs as well as their accompanying videos before I present my verdict.

Compare the videos:

The original:  Tama by Mory Kanté (Akwaba Beach, 1987)	Jumma Chumma (Hum, 1991)	Tamma Tamma (Thanedaar, 1990)

Analysis:

Category	Jumma Chumma	Tamma Tamma
Audio
Ripoff factor	2 points for covering Mory Kanté, regardless of who "originally" copied it. 2 extra points for adding the chorus of Eddy Grant's Gimme Hope, Joanne. (listen starting at 4m56s, for example).  Compare: [Chumma de] de de chumma... [chumma de] de de chumma de Gimme hope, Joanna gimme... Gimme hope Joanna till the morning come. Score: 4 points	2 points for covering Mory Kanté, and an extra 2 points to Bappida for trying to justify the controversy thusly: "Lokhikant COPIED my version of the song, [which was] INSPIRED by Mory Kanté." 2 more points to Bappida for including a tiny sample of Yé Ké Yé Ké in his version (This happens during Madhuri's keytar recital, starting around 0m42s . Thanks, Subroto!) Score: 6 points
Lyrics	Gets 2 points for rhyming jumma (Friday) with chumma (kiss). Heroine named Jumma -- sometime spelled Zumma in the movie, resulting in confusing lyrics -- is he referring to the heroine, or to the fact that it's a Friday? I could give the movie makers a point or two for thinking, "always build some redundancy into the system", but what eventuality would ever force the movie to forget the Urdu word for Friday, or the word for kiss? I'll give you Tiger, I'll even grant you Kaancha-Cheena, but you lose 1 point for the unnecessarily retarded Jumma. I'm making a point here -- you could have saved some money and hired a stupid monkey with ass herpes to look the word up in an Urdu dictionary in the public library instead of paying some Allahabadi asshole who calls himself a lyricist to come up with this idea. Score: 1 point	1 point for using part of the original song title. 2 points for pretending tamma tamma refers somehow to making out, 2 points for the following lines of dialogue in the final scene of the movie: Jaya Prada (very seriously): Yeh Tamma Tamma kya hai? Jeetendra (just as seriously): Zara kone mein aao, batata hoon. Jaya Parada (innocently): Achcha, chalo. 3 points for the following lines in the song, and 1 extra point for having Bappida sing them: Tu premi (aa hah!) main premi (aa hah!) Tu raazi (aa hah!) main raazi (aa hah!) Phir kya daddy kya amma Ek bas tuhi pyar ke kaabil, saara jahaan hai nikamma! Score: 9 points
Vocals	Sudesh Bhosle copying Amitabh's on vocals. Congratulations, you just furthered the career of another Bhosle. This one excels at IMITATION, even! What was wrong with having Amitabh sing? Score: 2 points	Bappida on male BHocals. BHocals refers to Bappida-specific Bong effects lent to the song, such as pronouncing the word ek (one) as "A.K." Score: 5 points
Music	Superior to Bappida's version, sadly. Although, I think this might just be due to the fact that this camp got way more positive publicity for the song than Bappida ever could, what with Sanjay Dutt on his side. Score: 5 points	Sorry for the harsh judgment, Bappida. Frankly, I haven't heard this song as often as Jumma Chumma, and while in the process of writing this article, heard it more times than I ever have, and it grew on me. But, original points system says: Score: 1 point
Sound effects	Two doo, oooh hanh! Score: 3 points	Not enough octopad noises in this Bappi tune. Score: 1 point
Backing vocals	Good job, works well with the rest of the song, especially during the Gimme Hope, Joanne (Chumma de! De de chumma!) part. Score: 3 points	I wouldn't miss the backing vocals if they were absent. They're doing nothing special. Score: 0 points
Audio Total	18 points	22 points
Video
Production/Design	Unlike the late 70s or early- and mid-80s, Amitabh's presence alone wasn't enough of a selling point for Hum. They had to make sure to plug and overhype this one song so people would come see the film. Blowing your budget on that one song, therefore, makes fiscal sense. I'm sure they probably did, too. Sadly, I don't see where the money went, other than maybe renting a prison along with inmates, cups and plates, and the most powerful fire hose they could find. I'm pretty sure Kimi Katkar's awful makeup didn't cost more than a few rupees (it was probably being sold by the kilo anyway). For this pathetic attempt, I give this song 1 point. Kimi Katkar's costume gets -2 points. Kimi Katkar's makeup gets -1 points. While trying to make her more appealing by spraying water on her gets them 1 more point, casting Kimi Katkar as the heroine renders this attempt futile, so I'll take away the point I just gave them (-1 point). Thankfully, they didn't go overboard when picking costumes for Amitabh or for his posse. For the aesthetic choice of WHITE, I'll give you people 2 points. Unfortunately, using washing soap instead of beer to overemphasize the foam in everyone's prison mugs loses them street cred, so -1 point for their trouble -- I'm sure that Surf and Hindustan Lever, Ltd. appreciate their business nevertheless. I haven't made up my mind about whether the swing in the middle of the prison was a good thing, so we'll leave it at that. Please don't send me email telling me it wasn't supposed to be a prison scene, I know they all live by the docks, which apparently randomly include a bar[n]. The cups DEFINITELY make it a prison. Score: -1 points	What is it with Hindi movie song sequences that involve the hero and heroine performing onstage with a band in front of a teenage crowd (said crowd having been hand-picked from outside the nearest college where they happened to be loitering -- it's called a Home Depot, jackass. If you aren't going to study, at least get a job doing real work)? The backing band often consists of fat girls in ponytails and tight shorts that show off their ample thighs, and self-proclaimed sessions musicians (quite often with their faces blackened to make them look African, especially if it's a tribal-themed song) who do a terrible job of syncing their drums/trumpets/guitars to the background music. Worst of all, the fucking fog machine that renders things next to invisible. If you're going to spend a bunch of money on shitty stages and garish lighting, don't you want the audience to at least be able to see said shitty effects? Please fire your overzealous fog machine operator Cheeniya, and accept -5 points for this mess. What were you smoking? You knew you were going up against Amitabh, right? Madhuri Dixit's costume is not too different from Katkar's (the BLACK theme is evident in both videos), but the wearer also matters. 1980s Madhuri can look innocent in the whoriest of clothes. 3 points. Sanjay Dutt in a mullet and a moustache. 4 points right there. What's with the awkward pause in the middle of the song, complete with the "Ey! Khatam ho gaya kya?" followed by a weird out-of-focus close-up of the hero and heroine's eyes? -2 points! Whatever you were going for didn't work. I wish you had followed it up with a Javed Jaffrey-esque, "Ey, khatam nahin hua, chootiye!" Score: 0 points
Choreography	The main theme and driving force of this song is the chumma, and you don't really have to put a lot of thought into choreographing it. 5 points for choice of theme that results in ease of flow during song picturization. 2 extra points for the water hose, even though it was used on Kimi Katkar and didn't really do anything to her all-covering black Wild West Whore outfit. The decision to concentrate on gimmicks instead of choreography (Amitabh flipping a coin to pass the time while the intro music plays, doing stupid stuff with it. What the fuck, did I just travel back in time to when I was seven and forced to go to Apollo Circus? I wasn't entertained by those legerdemain-ing dwarfs back then, and it sure as hell won't amuse me if a seven-foot dwarf tries the same shit without having the decency to wear clown makeup. -3 points. Score: 4 points	Madhuri Dixit (guided by Saroj Khan, I'm sure) is amazing. Look at the dance moves with her pointy heels. Her face expressionless when it needs to be (gives it the extra I'm-in-Riverdance-but-I-don't-give-a-shit-because-I'm-so-cool feel). 5 points to my dream girl. Sanjay Dutt doing what looks like the AT-AT Walkers in The Empire Strikes Back do when they... um, walk: 2 extra points. Shitty backup dancers not walking in line (either that, or they're forming some Illuminati symbols, when viewed from above, that I don't know about): -2 points. Score: 5 points
Star power	Definitely one of the best Bachchan movies of the 90s. It was downhill from here on, for most of the 90s. AB's appearance in this song gives it a total of 12 points, 5 for his attendance and 7 for his cooliyat. Kimi Katkar happened to be available, I guess. 2 points. Score: 14 points	Madhuri Dixit instantly gets 8 points for her cute self. Dutt gets 2 points. For the special appearance of a keytar in Madhuri's hands, this video gets 1 extra point. Score: 11 points
Video total	10 points	16 points
Total (audio+video)	28 points	38 points

Judge's summary: Even if the two were neck-and-neck as far as the songs go (which they aren't), when you take the videos into account, Tamma Tamma blows Jumma Chumma out of the water. It wins in the song category solely because of Bappida, while Madhuri carries the video through to a clean win. Now that I've finally solved the debate, we can move on to other matters. If you need any similar debates moderated and judged, feel free to drop me a line. But seriously: a technical discussion of the controversy What? You're still here? Here's a discussion Subroto and I got into about which song came first. According to him, Agneepath was released before Hum, and it features the unadulterated version of Yé Ké Yé Ké (played in the background during AB's Mauritius visit), the song that made Mory Kanté world famous. He also points out that the intro to Yé Ké Yé Ké is sampled in Tamma Tamma during Madhuri's keytar solo. Subroto concludes that since Agneepath involved the LP team, it would mean that they knew about the existence of Akwaba Beach before Bappida. I could be wrong, but at this time, AB signed on to do multiple films simultaneously, and it could have happened while they finished filming Hum before Agneepath, the latter got an early release (maybe they were waiting for a Diwali or Holi release for Hum? Probably Holi[1]) which would still give Bappida some wiggle room for first "inspiration". Subroto goes on to say:

I also remember reading in a film magazine that it was thanks to Mukul Anand himself that Bappida became aware of the Mory Kanté song and the fact that LP were in the process of nicking it. Anand and Bappida were apparently reasonably friendly up to that point and had even collaborated on Aitbaar (the movie that was a rip-off of Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder and had Suresh Oberoi singing Kisi Nazar Ko Tera). One day Anand apparently got drunk at a party that Bappida was also attending, and bragged about this new tune that he and LP had heard and were thinking of using in a movie. To Raging Bull Bappi, that was like waving a red gaan[2] ready to be maaroed.

In the hopes of getting an answer from one of the people at least peripherally involved in this dispute, Subroto found this YouTube clip of an interview with Amitabh Bachchan:

AB is being such a diplomatic choot about it, and the first 3m20s provide us with no new information. In fact, Subroto goes on to say that AB's response may have been inspired by Om Shiv Puri's reaction to AB's character asking him a question in Namak Haraam (the response is also the name of this blog). In the last 25 seconds, AB hurries through muddled logic to postulate that Bappida may be the culprit, but his argument is a weak attempt to use the old adage, "He [LP] who smelt it [made the accusation first] dealt it [was first inspired by Mory Kanté]", and I don't think we should take it seriously. Therefore, it is still an unsolved mystery. Footnotes: [1] I just thought of something funny (not ha-ha funny, you idiot): In Jan/Feb 1991, all my friends ditched our school's sports day celebrations to go watch Hum in the theater while I, like a dweeb, stood at attention, wondering where everyone I knew was. Exactly one year later, in Spring 1992, I joined these friends in ditching our sports day celebratons to go watch Thanedaar. A one-year release date difference, even though there definitely WAS a controversy about songs being simultaneously released -- the songs were being talked about even before I left Bombay (before Summer 1990). [2] Subroto is alluding here to an infamous interview during which Bappida, in an attempt to explain the method of musical arrangement for his songs (gaan in Bengali), is supposed to have said: "Public bolti hai, 'Bappida gaan mein guitar dalo, gaan mein sitar dalo...'", probably without realizing that gaan sounds very much like the gaand, Hindi slang word for butt.

The art of tactfully changing the subject: A lesson in diplomacy

Tired of people asking you uncomfortable questions? Worried that answering these questions will affect your relationship with them? Well, here's some advice that might help: switch subjects. If done tactfully, it actually works. Either that, or you can tell them on their face that you are uncomfortable about answering the question. I guess that works sometimes....
But if you are still interested, let's go into the first piece of advice. Changing the topic. Let me give you the best example I know of.
The movie: Namak Haraam, a classic film from the '70s just before (or maybe during) the era of Unemployment Films. Why "classic"? Thanks to two magaan yinsaans. No, not Amitabh. Not Rekha. Rajesh Khanna? Oh hell no.
Story in brief: Class war comes between two close friends (jigri dost), one an industrialist's son and the other a son of the streets (if you can ever imagine Kakaji in a convincing role as the son of the streets, without that toothbrush moustache he had in Aaj Ka MLA Raam Avtar!). The motto of these movies was "the good guy is the dead guy", so the good guy was always Rajesh Khanna, developing Lymphosarcoma of the taint. Side effects may include perpetual 4 o'clock shadow, shawl overgrowth and the tendency to stay annoyingly cheery. I'm talking about movies like Anand, Amar Prem (well he didn't die in it, but he was in love with Sharmila Tagore, which is just as bad), Aaradhana, Safar (as Subroto quoted Javed Jaffrey, ``Kakaji Safared so much in that movie...''). But Namak Haraam is different because (like Anand) it had Amitabh Bachchan, and (unlike Anand) he didn't have anything to do with Bengalis. And it also had this great scene that I'm gonna talk about.
The industrialist father orders his men to beat up Somu (Kakaji's character), because the latter has been screaming Union/Strike from the tallest tree. The deed is done, but the son (Amitabh Kya-Yeh-Aapka-Final-Answer-Hai Bachchan) finds out. He's mad at the dad, and if you are a dad, you don't want your son (especially if he's the Big B) to be mad at his dad. The father is played by a magaaaaaaaan yinsaan (literally, I guess, it would translate to great human, but that's not it at all!) - Om Shiv Puri. My brother and I refer to him as Genda Murgi (Genda - Rhino, Murgi - Chicken), and if you have seen him, you will know why. Anyway, so he's in the old office, which is dominated by this huge model ship (jahaaz) protected by a glass case.
Amitabh (aptly named Vicky, since he's the stereotypical Hindi movie rich kid) walks in, angry (yeah weren't those the days he was called the - suppress laughter - Angry Young Man?) at what his dad has done, and demands to know why his friend Somu was beaten up.... What would you do in such a situation? Well, here's what OSP does: calmly and very thoughtfully strokes the glass case, and says in a very intimate voice, ``Dekho yeh jahaaaaaaaaaz'' (See this ship)... and in that soft voice, continues to inform AB that the ship is a gift from Indonesia, constructed entirely of cloves.
Amitabh repeats his question.
OSP asks his son to look at the ship (dekho bete, yeh jahaaz) again, this time including the fact that the ship, the clove-sailors, the ropes, the oars involve delicate craftsmanship.
At this point, it would have been apt if, without waiting to ask Om Shiv Puri, ``Is that your final answer?'', Amitabh had bashed the glass case and the ship into tiny bite-sized pieces of clove, ready for inclusion in garam masala. We are, however, denied the spice-raising pleasure.
As I said, a lot of tact is required if you are trying to change the topic. OSP seemed not to have it in him, but don't let that tiny detail bother you. Your son ain't gonna be another Amitabh, right. So, go ahead, anytime you are in a situation where anyone asks you an uncomfortable question, reply with ``Dekho, bete, yeh jahaaaaaaz..'' We do. That was our mantra in the late '90s. It's also the name of this blog, in case you haven't noticed.
Not convinced it will work? Oh well. Can't say I didn't try. In that case, you can always go for the second technique. This method was employed quite efficiently by Naseeruddin Shah's character in Maalamaal, the Bollywood version of Brewster's Millions. What would you do if you were given thirty days to spend Rs. 30 crore, but were required to keep the reason for the expenditure (viz., you inherit ten times as much which you will immediately use to build a whole housing colony for your jhopadpatti friends) a secret from your best friends - and, cleverly including, any girl that might at the end of the film become your girlfriend? Here's what Naseeruddin Shah does. He spends the money as best as he can. Satish Shah and Poonam Dhillon (his friend and his soon to be girlfriend, in that order) keep asking him why the hell he's bent upon wasting his new-found wealth away.
Our friend Naseeruddin (who, in a movie two years prior to Maalamaal, immortalized his irritation over his crippled hand with the words - yeh haath!) doesn't use the dekho bete, yeh jahaaaaz routine. Instead, he simply and frankly tells the questioning friend and soon to be girlfriend that he will not feel comfortable discussing it with them, and all this with just one word: ``Pardaaaaaaa!'' (curtain)...
So go ahead, knock yourself out. Now you know how to deal with people (this from a person who feels really comfortable listening to robotic voices telling him what button to press, and visits online stores instead of having to deal with people and smiles and Hellos and Have A Good Days).
Our next lesson will be on how to build a cheap android.