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.

Khaled and Everything After

With no MTV at home until June 1993, the only way I found out about something new was if I heard about it at school. It was always in passing (Or maybe, since I wasn't directly involved, I just MADE it part of the background) that I heard these things. In early 1993, Std. XI, I started hearing comments with the word "Didi" in passing. Although I didn't really understand what the hell everyone was talking about, everyone knows that, unless your head is really buried in the sand, you can't escape fads. As part of our school's team at some interschool culturals, I started hearing fifteen-second snatches of some song that was driving all the kids crazy. It was during the Fashion Show that I heard more of this song. My friend SMK was to my left, clapping with everyone else, and he explained over the noise: "It's a song called Didi, by this guy named Khaled". SMK was also the guy who made me a copy of his Heart In Motion cassette, and even xeroxed the album cover, with some sketch pen colouring on it. At this point, I would like to address two kinds of people: those who are cringing at the mention of Heart In Motion - you are two-faced douchebags, don't tell me you didn't listen to the second song on side A at all after the 1992 pre-Grammies. Those of you who don't even know what song was track 2, side A on Heart In Motion - Yemandi, yerumaikundi?? Hint: It wasn't Galileo.

From this link:




"Hey, remember the time when...." sounds like the cue for some Family Guy cutaway, but do you? Remember the time when Didi took India by storm? It is not often in Indian entertainment history that a song makes it big when no one even understands what the song is about. Oh wait, I take that back. Who the fuck knows what Oye Oye was all about?! Or, for that matter, Eena Meena Deeka?! I should say, for what may have been the first time, the hit song was NOT in an Indian language (And I'm including English as an Indian language here, as I ALWAYS do!) and no one cared. I faked the lyrics, my brother tried to transcribe them. I'm sure a bunch of you tried the same thing. It's not like it came with the lyrics in the cassette, it wasn't Twelve Inches of Snow. If you don't know what song from Twelve Inches... I am talking about, who are you, and what have you done with my readers??

Before school was over for the year, I had already requested my major source of music at the time, Vinay, to put that song on a compilation for me. He went above and beyond the call of duty, and added a couple of recommendations to that casette: Khaled's El Arbi and Wahrane. If you haven't already, please check out El Arbi. If you have heard enough Bollywood music during 1992-1994, you might even recognize the tune!

Sidenote: The compilation casette was originally recorded over by Jeeshu in Std. X, and consisted of the following Pre-Grammy and Grammy songs from 1991:

Side A:
Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby
MC Hammer - You Can't Touch This
Whitney Houston - I'm Your Baby Tonight
Mariah Carey - Vision of Love
C + C Music Factory - Groove of Love (What's This Word Called Love?)
Rod Stewart - Downtown Train
Phil Collins - Another Day in Paradise
Jon Bon Jovi - Blaze of Glory

Side B:
Wilson Phillips - Hold On
Lisa Stansfield - Around The World

Vinay continued on this palimpsest by adding:
Khaled - Didi
Khaled - El Arbi
Khaled - Wahrane

followed by:
George Benson - Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You (Oh yeah, that was brought along by the then-popular ad for wool sweaters)
Khuda Gawah - Tu Na Jaa Mere Badshah (We watched this movie at Jeeshu's behest, the day we went textbook shopping in the summer of '92)
Khuda Gawah - Tu Mujhe Kabool
(End Sidenote)

Khaled's self-titled album came out in 1992. Track 1 side A was Didi. Once a song becomes popular, the only thing to do is to try and make it immortal. While we're at it, why not try and make some money for ourselves, too?! That's what Bollywood (and, I'm sure, a lot of other South Asian "woods") did. There was the blatant ripoff, Didi Didi. There were a couple of other ripoffs I don't really remember. The most memorable (at least for me) is the Bhappi Lahiri version, picturized on Anupam Kher and Rishi Kapoor, named "Ladki ladki". Very recently, I saw a video by a Pakistani group. The song was called Bibi Bibi, and I'll be damned if it wasn't lifted from the Khaled tune!

The story at the time was that Khaled was very happy when he toured India, and he sold Bhappi Lahiri the rights to the song for a Rupee. This is almost
unprecedented!!!!! Not the fact that he sold it for a Rupee, the fact that Bhappi Lahiri actually BOUGHT the rights to something before he ripped it off!

By summer of 1993, No Reservations was out, and we had something else to mimic and learn the lyrics to. (By the way, if you don't know what famous song was track 1, side A of this debut album by Kayview's dad, then please use Wikipedia for something useful!) so it seemed like the public had lost interest in Khaled. But that didn't stop Bollywood from making more versions of any leftovers they could scrape out of the Khaled akshayapaatra. That's when someone came along, and, just like Krishna in the akshayapaatra story, in late 1993 or maybe even 1994, and consumed the last morsel of food from the akshayapaatra and hoped that it would satisfy ALL of Bollywood's hunger. This person, whoever it was, copied El Arbi into a song that goes, "Tumse milna, milkar chalna achcha lagta hai". Looks like Bollywood's hunger was satisfied, or maybe they were just disgusted at the last rotten leftovers that resulted in such a song. They gave up on making more cover versions of Didi.

Khaled went on in 1993 to release N'ssi N'ssi, and a bunch of other albums we didn't give a crap about. He's still considered the king of rai by some, and I'm glad he is, because that means that Google searches for Khaled actually result in some links that are not nonsensical. Like, for example, this one I found. That's the reason for this article. They have the Didi video there, too. In case that link stops working at some point, here's an alternate link (this one has just the audio).

That is the brief history of Didi. Now go home. Wait till it's dark, turn off all the lights in your room, and turn El Arbi way the fuck up. Close your eyes and think of the desert. If you do these things and are somehow magically transported back to 1992-93, let me know. I haven't succeeded so far.

Another sidenote:
Just in case you're wondering why Khaled is sometimes credited as Cheb Khaled, here's what I found on this message board. Thanks to the user, Rooster-Blues:

And I thought I was the only Rai fan around here … Khalid’s didi is more of a modern day pop version of Rai music .. most of current Rai music has been Popized and been blended with guitar, strings and trumpets with traditional Rai music .. Rai Arabic word for opinion originated from the days of French colonial rule in North Africa, particularly from Algeria .. Rai was born to express political frustrations .. a from of decent and defiance to the oppressive French rule .. the lyrics were rebellious and political and paid tribute to freedom fighters … during late eighties and early nineties it made a comeback due to Pop music revolution around the world and the depressing political fall out in Algeria …Khalid and Mami were the big stars .. Kahlid blended acoustic guitars and electronica with the soft popy lyrics … the young generation of Rai sought to distinct it self from the older Rai singers .. Cheb (meaning young in Arabic) was added to the new generation Rai singers .. older generation is distinguished by Cheikh (old or sir a respect title for older generation in Arabic)… during the current bloody civil war almost all of the Rai stars migrated to France .. how ironic! … in terms of production and instruments (music) the quality has shot up … Kahild was the Rai intro to Pakistan and Asia in general .. Mami’s collaboration with Sting gave modern Rai even bigger audience … Rai singers have very aggressive style of singing very grungy and from the top of the throat yet very melodious to the traditional rhythmic Arabic percussion … My favorite is Maim and Rachid Taha … Taha , Mami, Khaled, Faudel are the Rai heavy weights … There is a women generation of Rai singers known by surname Cheba (young lady)…. Sorry cant recall all the names .. the Rai transcended over to Morocco and Tunisia as well … I will list some albums and names if any one is interested …

Asha Sachdev and Life Processes II: What A Connection!

My birds and bees article is where this stuff really belongs, but I forgot the Asha Sachdev incident while it was being written. This also gives me a chance to prattle on and on about the Age of Discovery. MY Age of Discovery.

Life Processes II was Chapter 8 (or 9) in our Biology textbook (Central Board of Secondary Education, 1990) while I was in Std. IX in Madras. LP I dealt with respiration and that sort of shit. Oh wait, did I say shit? No. They saved that for the sequel - LP II was dedicated to reproduction and excretion. We always used to joke about how we never got to do practicals on "certain topics" from LP II. (For all you dirty minds out there - we were referring to the reproduction part, we weren't into scheiße videos... yet) High school in Madras in the early 90s was very different from Bombay for me. All of a sudden, girls were off-limits - a taboo, so much so that an especially embarrassing punishment for the guys in class was to be forced to sit next to a girl on her bench because the guys were caught talking in class or something. Our superegos were developing, and this sort of stuff really affected us. To add insult to injury, our class teacher, who was also our Biology/Health Education teacher, (We basically ended up learning the same shit in both courses, and we would have to be tested twice on the same topics every time exams came around. Not that I'm complaining, it was always good to get good marks on Health Education without having to study much for it.) LOVED to take advantage of the awkwardness that had suddenly cropped up between the gals and guys. In retrospect, I think it had to do more with embarrassing us BEFORE we had a chance to embarrass her.

For example, I'm sure a lot of teachers have to deal with giggling and lewd comments when they have to teach sex education. Our class teacher had no such thing going on, because she would call us out and embarrass us before we could even think of commenting on anything she was saying. One trick was calling on male students to draw diagrams of the female reproductive system and vice versa. Another effective one was to misspell terms on purpose - scortral sacs instead of scrotal sacs and mensuration instead of menstruation (Damn, she was good! We were studying mensuration in Mathematics that same year, and that only added to our confusion and the mystery of sexual reproduction!) - but heaven help whoever called her on her spelling mistakes. If guy X stands up to inform her that there are two t's in menstruation, she would raise one eyebrow, give him an evil smile, and say, "Soooo! Looks like you are doing a lot of research on these things, ah? If you spent only as much time chasing studies instead of chasing girls and getting distracted, you would improve your marks by a lot..." Hey, better him than us, and we would be laughing at him, too. Poor bastard. But one warning was enough. She could do anything she wanted in class, write and say anything she pleased, no one would correct her about sexual reproduction EVER. That was the kind of psychological conditioning we went through. No wonder some of us had to resort to certain reference materials purchased on Mount Road sidewalks later on.

During one of these enigmatic classes on the human body's more private functions, she started talking about the female reproductive system and said something about how the walls bleed once approximately every month to get rid of unused stuff, and that don't happen when the egg be fertilized. She explained what happens, and then started a sentence with, "During these days of the menstrual cycle, or periods, women..."

And all of a sudden, the classroom, usually moderately-lit during the hot Madras afternoons, became dazzling bright. I heard choral music and saw a group of Mallu Christian women and men dressed in white robes start singing, Allelujah! Allelujah! Allelujah! I saw the Mallu history teacher from my school in Bombay with his guitar, singing his favourite soft song that had the nonsensical lyrics, "Para roo rah, para roo rah" And a portal opened at the top of the blackboard (right where the apple-polishing kids usually scrawl in the day's date and some stupid proverb or moral or thought-of-the-day). We zoom into this portal to a younger me, about two years younger, watching some 70s Hindi movie (Swarag Aur Narak?) at home with some grown-ups and my brothers. This movie stars Jeetendra, Sulakshana Pandit (I think) as Swarag, apparently, and Asha Sachdev as... well. Jeetendra dumps Sulaksha Pandit for the "classier" (read modern, westernized, and therefore, according to Bollywood, UNCULTURED and BAD. No wonder she is the Narak in the movie.) Asha Sachdev. Jeetu and Asha Sachdev are a live-in couple and are shown enjoying life as Sulakshana Pandit eats the blows of every door. (Dar-dar ki thokrein khaati hai) After a few songs and maybe even a scene at a disco, Jeetu comes back home one day to find Asha Sachdev disturbed. He asks her what the problem is.

Jeetu: Arrey, hua kya?
Asha Sachdev: I... I... I miss my periods. [sic]
Jeetu (starts smiling): Kya! Iska matlab... iska matlab... ke main baap banne wala hoon!?

...And my 12 year-old, VII or VIII Std. mind tries to process this information:
What the hell does that mean? I miss my periods? I guess that happens when you are pregnant? But what does it mean?

Zoom out of the portal and come back to the IX Std. classroom and the teacher is now talking about menopause and I'm not paying any attention because I have independently made the connection - things click into place. I achieve true nirvana, knowledge. I beam with inner peace for a femtosecond. Then, I realize that Asha Sachdev's character screwed up. There's a difference between saying "I missed my period" and "I miss my periods", and I think Asha Sachdev either said she's going through menopause, or she just plan hates those days when she's not a blood-belching vagina. I shake my head. How can you portray a westernized character if you can't even get your grammar straight? I smile to myself, imagining Asha Sachdev really feel bad about not having her period every day. Wait, am I smiling on the outside, too?

Too late, the teacher finds out I'm displaying a grin, and goes, "What are you laughing about? Maybe you want to come sit with the girls on the first bench and share it with them?"

D-Oh!

Go back to Timepass

Mummy, Papa, Where Do Babies Come From?

I was born in a house with the television always on, as the Talking Heads song Love For Sale claims. So most of what I learnt about life, I learnt it from the television. And this is why, most of my preteen years were spent in confusion. Papa, where do babies come from? an innocent child asks its parent. It's confusing when you use the same word (sex) for the act itself and also for gender. I remember this one time that I was reading about Razia Sultana and some historian talking about how she was a great warrior but was unfortunately of the wrong sex, and was confused.... hmm, wasn't sex supposed to be something else? (of course, at that time I didn't really know what it was supposed to be, and maybe don't really know yet, heh heh) So in all my innocence, I turn around from the book to my mom, who at that point was arguing with the newspaper guy about the bill for that month, and go, ``Amma, sex matlab kya hai?''... and my mom of course turns around and says ``Yehich time mila na tereko poochne ke liye!?''

Hmm.. well I needed answers, and based on what I saw in the movies, and based on my scientific temperament, this is the theory I came up with:

1) Observations show that people in movies have kids only after marriage mostly. This means that the actual act of marriage somehow triggers childbirth. One way I guessed this could happen was that the tying of a mangalsutra around the woman's neck would send some sort of biological signal to the body to start giving birth to kids, one after the other, so that one could have twins that get lost in a mela, or produce three children that are separated from their parents and each other in a train accident and are raised by three different families of three different religions.

2) Sometimes, in the movies, women had babies without getting married. This sort of goes against explanation (1) for childbirth, and my explanation for this phenomenon involved the ``winter break'' films of the sixties and early seventies, right until the Unemployment Movie era came along. This is what happens. The hero and heroine are in Kashmir, usually because the heroine is on a ``picnic'' with her friends, and the hero just follows her to Kashmir so that he can flirt with her and sing the most famous song of that movie (be it Chahe Koi Mujhe Junglee Kahe, Yaaaaaahoooo! or Tera Mujhse Hai Pehle Ka Nata Koi).
Eventually, though, the heroine gets trapped in the snow in an avalanche or something, and ends up with hypothermia. The hero rescues her and they reach an abandoned cottage in the snow, and the hero realizes that she will die within hours if he doesn't give her ``bodily warmth'' (badan ki garmi), so he gets into bed with her after stripping them both, wrapping a blanket around them.
Next scene: It's the morning after, and the heroine (usually someone like Rakhee, as irritating as she is), naked except for a blanket around her, clutching it close to herself, crying into her hands, and from time to time saying naheeeinn, uh huh uh huh! or some shit like that, while the hero says stuff like ``main majboor tha, agar tumhein badan ki garmi nahin milti to tum mar jaati'' (I couldn't help it, if I hadn't given you bodily warmth, you woulda died by now)...

So, I concluded that kids are born whenever people out of wedlock end up freezing their butts off and need bodily warmth.....

Bridging the language gap between the North and the South: A lesson from a Kannada movie

For those of you who don't know, India is a land of many languages (no, they don't speak ``Hindu''), so not everyone speaks Hindi (of course, if you ARE someone who doesn't know about India, I don't think this page will help you much). Those of you that DO know will know that sometimes it is difficult for two Indians to have a conversation. Especially if one of them is Hindi intolerant, meaning they stubbornly refuse to learn Hindi or they were taught in a school where they could opt out easily and then bully their juniors if they talked in Hindi (alright I'm bitter, so SHOOT me!). What do you do if you are in the following situation:

You recently moved to Bombay with your parents and your sister, after a while are falsely accused of bombing a supercop's car (said supercop stays next door), and are framed, and are jailed and are tortured in your underwear (complete with ketchup on your nuts). You escape, determined to prove your innocence, and after a while, manage somehow to kidnap the Chief Minister of Maharashtra. You think that if you are able to explain your situation to him, and also explain that there is a huge conspiracy against the law by a very well-known bad dude, you will be able to convince everyone else. The main problem: you don't speak Hindi, and he doesn't understand your mother tongue (which happens to be Kannada).

In the immortal words of Dennis Hopper from Speed, What do you do?

What do you do?

Like I always say, I don't really care what YOU do, I'm gonna talk about what Shivraj Kumar does in the movie AK47. A little about this movie before all that. AK47 (1999) was advertised as ``50th movie of [sic] hat trick hero'', said hat-trick hero being Shivraj Kumar, of course. Maybe someday we can also talk about this movie when we talk about stealing producers logos from other people. So, anyway, in this movie, Shivraj's family (including a really irritating Srividya as his mom and the magaaan Girish `Kitply' Karnad as his dad - someday we will also talk about how he revolutionizes the concept of Oota cut in the movie) moves to Bombay, and Shivraj starts college (YAY!!! It was ***MY*** college! The Guru Nanak Khalsa College of Arts and Sciences, motto: The Essence of Wisdom Is Service To Mankind, sidemotto being The Essence of Getting Rich Is Renting The Campus Out To Cheap TV Series Crews, And If We Get Lucky, Some Vernacular Films, If We Are Luckier, B-Grade (College Girl was shot in my college! Amita Nangia gets raped in the classroom I used to learn chemistry in!) Hindi Films, And MAYBE SOME DAY SOME A-Grade Hindi Movie (``Gupt was shot in my college'' was my Int.Ph.D. introduction!)), and walks in during a lecture about the many phases of water :

Prof: Water when heated turns to steam.
Steam when cooled turns to water...
SK: Excuse me, Sir?
Prof: Yes, come in?.... (looks at the note) Oh, new student? Oh! You are from Karnataka?!
(immediately some piano happy-music, as some student in the class - who later frames our man - smiles at him)
Prof: (continuing in monotonous droning voice) Water when cooled turns to ice.
Ice when heated turns to water.
(Brrrrrrringgg....saved by the bell...)
Prof: OK, students, next class.

The students start going down the stairs (and at this point, I remember getting up from my seat in the theater and screaming, ``Hey!! Bhavtosh! Yeh to Khalsa hai yaar! Yeh to mera college hai yaar!'' and applauding as soon as I saw the too-familiar chandeliar on the ground floor) and all that.
Anyway, so Shivraj is eventually framed (for the assassination of aforementioned supercop, who goes by the name of Yeshwant Sinha in the movie, and who in reality is the ultra-cool entity Om Puri - you might remember him from the Jack Nicholson starrer Wolf, where one of his lines is, ``There must be something vild vi-thin!'') and captured and tortured by the Bombay Police (in some weird abandoned warehouse, for some bizzare reason) in his white underwear (white sans a few ketchup stains which are supposed to be blood). One cop kicks him in the balls, and immediately there is an aerial shot of his face, and as he screams, the female chorus goes....``Ammmmaaaaaaaaa.....'''
I don't know how you would do it, but Shivraj escapes from prison (after adorning the statue of the Mahatma with some much-needed clothing, said clothing comprising of the Indian tricolour, which Shivraj originally uses to dodge bullets - according to this movie, *NO* true Indian Police Force officer will fire at anyone who has wrapped the tricolour around themselves), and eventually kidnaps the CM of Maharashtra (who is called Ram Manohar Joshi instead of Manohar Joshi - they didn't want to make it too obvious!!), played by the magaaan (you might remember him as husband of Seema Dev - Kakaji's mooh-boli behen - in Anand) Ramesh Dev. So, we are back to the question: how do you communicate? Here's the dialogue, at least as much as I understood and can show without switching into Kannada mode:

RD: (very poliltely) Are you a terrorist?
SK: (very controlled) No...
RD: Naxalite?
SK: (controlling, but losing it slowly) No!
RD: ISI (for those of you who don't know, that's the Pakistani Intellegence, or so they tell me)?
SK: (loses it completely!) NOOOO!!!!!! (RD is taken aback, and SK repents and starts to cry and starts to speak in a heavily accented Southie, in English followed by one sentence in Hindi)
I yam an aardinary man. Yake mamooli yinsaan! (blah blah in Kannada, explaining in metaphors how he was framed... this is a long dialogue)

RD: (after SK's outburst, still very polite, smiling now) Bete, mujhe tumhari bhasha to samajh mein nahin aayi, lekin tumhari bhasha mein jo aasha hai woh samajh mein aayi. Chalo, main tumhari madad zaroor karoonga! (which basically means: I didn't understand your language, but I understood the hope in your language - which is bullshit he just used hope because it rhymes in Hindi with language; being a politician gives you some talent at bullshit speeches, I suppose - I will definitely help you)...

See how it works? Next time YOU are in such a situation, don't forget to be calm first, then totally lose control, start crying, speak one sentence each of English and Hindi (heavily laced with a Diga accent), and then switch to your life story but in Kannada... don't forget to explain it all to someone who doesn't understand Kannada at all, preferably Ramesh Dev, or better the Chief Minister of Maharashtra.

How to build your own cheap android

So, let's say for the sake of argument that you have to build your own android (not the OS, but any humaniform robot), how would you go about such a seemingly mammoth undertaking? Well, this is how the costume designers and ``tech'' (sic) people associated with Space City Sigma (a cheesy 80s TV show on Doordarshan, many of whose episodes were ripoffs of old Star Trek episodes) went about it:

Recipe: Android
Name: Shakti

Materials required:

Human (whole, no inner or outer body parts need to be removed) - 1.
``Futuristic'' costume (viz., coloured clothes possibly resembling Indian Army uniform -- in Spandex?) - 1 set.
Oblong sticky plastic thingie - 1, about as big as human's ear.
Pencil - One (HB).
Paint - At least one shade, preferable three (primary colours preferred), small quantities of each.
Brush - At least one.
Makeup - small to large amounts, depending on episode.

Method:

Use the pencil to trace the semblance of wiring and circuitry onto the the oblong sticky plastic thingie. Paint over some of the lines using the brush and any combination of the paints. Stick sticky side of oblong sticky plastic thingie onto human's cheek, just below the right eye. Make sure thingie fits well and gives semblace of actual circuitry seen inside human's skin (I guess this rule is not so hard and fast, otherwise these people would have followed it).
After the sticky thingie seems to have dried, add some makeup on the human face. Serve lukewarm, garnished with synthesizer music.

One thing necessary for this recipe to work is that the human in question show some signs of having a half-robot body, which may or may not include what is thought of as robot behaviour - rigid body movements, an emotionless face and voice and some serious deadpan dialogue delivery. But the big shots at Doordarshan had the perfect men for the job (Shakti Singh, playing Shakti the android), and they picked the best. In fact they didn't have to work much on him to make him convincing. He already had a deadpan (what Subroto would call plywood, hence Kitply, but that is a Trademark name reserved for Girish Karnad's acting. What is the secret of V.I.Ply? The secret is Bond. Phenol Bond.) dialogue delivery, and underplayed the role majorly. His body movements were naturally rigid and unhuman, resulting in an excellent portrayal of a rudimentary android. What was the problem with Space City Sigma then, you ask? All the actors and actresses in the show shared his acting ``talents''. Speaking in robotic voices, they underplayed and sometimes included violent bursts of ham acting, the captain (Captain Tara, played by Krishnakant Sinha) had a plywood face and dialogue delivery that would force even sharks to sleep, their alien nemesis Zakhaku (engineered by the technicians by coating some human's face with a lot of shit) was more good looking than some of the men and women in the show (including the aforementioned ship captain). All this made for some very entertaining and hilarious viewing.

That concludes our cooking class for today. Before we say goodbye and go for a commercial break, LET US NOT FORGET ANOTHER MAGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN YINSAAN (who starred in many Delhi-produced TV shows and some TV movies, and now can be found floating somewhere in the backwaters of satellite TV soaps, denied his shot at the throne of Arbitdom) who was on this show: he went by the name of Earth Command, and he is the GREAT Lalit Parimoo (credited as "Lalit Parimu" on the show). You might have seen him in Himalay Darshan, another 80s TV show, and we will soon refer to one of the episodes of this show when we talk about taking care of your livestock in the 21st century. Right now, let's take a break from Hindi stuff (don't want people to complain that I *only played Hindi and English music on the excursion*, you know what I mean? Or DO you?), and visit the South. Our next lesson is about bridging the gap between the North and the South.

Update, 12/09/2011: Found this link. Thank you very much for the screenshots! For one thing, Shakti doesn't look as terrible as he did in my imagination! ZakhaKoo still looks like a piece of shit, though.

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.