A completely unauthoritative roundup of songs that became anthems - contd.

As, unfortunately, we never got around to discussing the actual item numbers I shall dive right into that topic without fanfare.

My earliest favorite was undoubtedly the epic "Chaiyya Chaiyya" (or "Thaiyya Thaiyya", depending on your language preference). Malaika, glimpses of a seductively hot woman during furtive flipping of channels to catch late night love-advice shows, was the best thing that could have happened to the top of the Nilgiri railways. That was the kind of woman you'd want to meet of top of the Nilgiri railways if they let you on top of it. It got my heart racing and brain was flooded with every neurotransmitter than ever was, and I suspect will be. I positively prayed while watching or listening to music channel for that song. On the radio, I would just close my eyes are picture it in my head. The dance was, no doubt, a raw seductive passion that you read about in words - that was probably what the author was imagining while writing. The only reason I was adamant on taking a trip on that train - in the fond memory of that song - much later in life when I visited Ooty a different person from that teenaged boy that, along with most of the nation, fell for Malika. It is a pitty that Sharukh got so much of his face in that video - a completely unnecessary presence. If I had to pick a moment it would have to be when the train enters the tunnel and Malaika is briefly lit by flashes of red-light with the distraction of SRK in the lower right corner. And then continues on to a windmill-head-bang-meets-forceful bust thrusts.

But, then a moment's reflection and my previous post tells me that Khalnayak and "Choli ke peche" is what started the Rajasthani costume trend. I am, also, in no small measure reminded of this fact by Jammy. Colored sequined elaborate dresses, arms in white bangles, the head covered and black dots on the face - beauty preserving evil-eye warding marks. Considered explicit lyrics in its time, it was a song that was played by people to publicly demonstrate their marginal progressive thinking. It was an acknowledgement of the sexual overtones that a song and the associated dance could convey. It created images in the head of the mass populace - a mental programming technique that was extracted by both Mani Ratnam and Rajkumar Santoshi in the same year.

Ratnam's Chaiyya Chaiyya (also Sukhwinder Singh's big break with AR Rahaman and a source of a controversy in itself) was one, the other was "Chamma Chamma" from Santoshi's China Gate. Yet another Kurosawa-Shinchino-Samurai-inspired offering with a dash of Sholay added for good measure, it saw Urmila Matondkar in the Rajasthani siren avatar. While it did not have the heady appeal of the mountains and a train, it probably was a portent of the setting of the item-numbers that would follow. It was the same Urmila who was generally ignored at the start of her career as the girl next-door with no future, who had shocked filmdom with her antics in RGV Rangeela. Tanha Tanha was a treat on the visual and auditory senses. There was the out-of-bed clothes, flowing satin and flowery skirts and blouses that made the midriff even more desirable that other geography close-by and summer dresses and sarongs and what not. It was an explosion in a apparel shop that kept landing on Urmila and she carried each one of them to perfection. Jackie Shroff's contribution being that of a constipation of a mannequin's face and roughly about the same amount of movement expected of a mannequin. But, I still don't hold it against him - because he gave the world "Amma dekh a dekh" - fair deal. She was the girlfriend that I dreamed at age 10 I would have at age 16-17. My first love and so on. Watching that song after years and the pouted painted lips still reminds of the rains in Mumbai (I lived there at that point of time).

After that, there is a period of confusion that I cannot quite clear up. Flashes of songs come to the mind but nothing sticks as a writable memory. Partially because I moved to Bangalore and life was fairly complicated as such. The buildup to class 10 board exams, and then the harried JEE prep through first and second PUC culminating in Surathkal and my first failed attempt at love. In retrospect, right now, if I'd only raised my eyes in Jain college from in the context of altitude my life would have possibly been simpler and happier. Sigh...makes me wish I'd attended college more than chasing the flimsy JEE dream.

The only reasonably clearly memory that sticks is of Sonali Bendre in "Jo haal dil ka" from Sarfarosh. An excellent movie in itself with stellar performances from Aamir and Nasseruddin Shah with the classis Jagit Singh (RIP) "Hosh walon ko kya". That pinched the deal again with the homely simple girl who turned into a work of art draped in wet sarees in primary color. The same girl who pranced around in chic summer dresses in the Nirma sabun advert. Even after her fall from grace with reality TV shows (which I watched just to see her) I am still in love with her. I think I saw a little bit of Sonali in the first girl I fell for - which is why I probably did. Sonali, Goldie Behl? Seriously? I can understand the money, but my first name is not what you'd call your doll and my second name isn't roadside India-snack. I'll still buy that diamond ring and go down on one knee for you.

Surathkal happened. And, yeah, Yana. And "Babuji Zara Dheere Chalo". A Eastern-European model married to an Indian painter - this was love and quizzing trivia in one neat awesome package. Quizzes had to have one question to which the answer was Yana Gupta and fests had to have one something set to that tune. DDFC made it the norm and the first item-anthem of my university life was born. The rustic aura that Chaiyya Chaiyya transplanted from the north to the south, was being played out much stronger in its most potent form - Bihari. And complete with, what has to be, the world's most luckiest buffalo. It was forays into lurid steamy depiction of a dance who very purpose was that - lurid steamy scenes. A feeling that toed the line at a more Western flavor of pole-dancing and strip-teasing - it was that but with clothes on. Or excuses and handkerchiefs that passed off as clothes. It was what started the leather-latex trend. The first half in "traditional nautch" (with amazingly corny steps - one of which incorporates the Egyptian-hieroglyphic motif for the lesser skilled) and the second in black. Oh, did that baby come back in black or what. Here bang and legal was the first three minutes of a blue-film (yes, ironically or not, that part of the song is blue lit) with some severely nasty foot-fixations. Dum and Vivek Oberoi stopped mattering - you were quite willing to do all that was humanly possible to make sure Yana got into NITK - your year, your branch, your class and on the bench next to you. You promised not to touch - just watch from behind that glass partition. Yana, later in life, did many other things including losing the painter-husband and her panties. And, she tweeted about it. No, not the husband.

In between several flashes in the pan happened. None of which I choose to remember besides the rare moment when the jingling song plays in the background or word triggers associations. I can't even bother to check my time frame for these creatures - Meghna Naidu (an unfortunate attendance of a live performance because Parikrama was playing right after that - the sensation of a beer barrel on stage moving) in "Kaliyon ka chaman" which was cheesily nice number, Rakhee Sawant and Mallika Sherawat (both of which hung around more for their controversy generating skills and silicone rather than for any oomph). That was a hazy year for me - I discovered Floyd, and Zero, and Steve Vai and their dimensions. I fell under the spell of "The Blood and Tears" by Vai at a fashion-show at a college fest. I attended my first rock concert by Parikrama and was somewhere in between the failed second attempt.

When that haze lifted and the monsoons still made the South Canara coast look like heaven despite the dump we lived in came two songs that went head-on against each other. They tore my dreams apart with "double the action, double the excitement" ala Pablo Franceso. My off-and-on crush Aishwarya took the Bangali by the horns - when "Kajra re" faced-off with "Beedi jalile". While "Beedi" came from the more polished and appreciated Omkara and had had a massive fan-following - both of the discerning taste and of the taste of, well, beedis, "Kajra re" came via Bunty and Bubbly. B&B was a canned offering of "Bonnie and Clyde" slathered in overly sweet cream-frosting, frozen and served as desert. The only interesting part was the song - like the flambe sauce the restaurant used to prop the waning interest of the diner by desert time.

Oh, I'd light a beedi/cigaretter/my stove from Bips' heart any day, and every day, Ash shattered all the chains of plasticity with that one song. But, Bips must be given her due in my fantasies before my affair with Ash.

Bips was sultry and she was dusky and had eyes to die for. They could be happy, smoky, inviting, seductive, coy - set in that face that I wanted to be stuck on every available surface. I just googled her name to see her face again - it's the kind that you know you love, but just slips out of your head sometime and you need a glimpse again. Having lived for a fair amount of time in Calcutta and being able to speak (currently degrading quality) Bengali, anything that came out of West Bengal held my attention. Just as Dada did on the pitch and how I cringed when he took his shirt off. Bipasha in the traditional white Bengali saree with red borders, kumkum and kajal was the Bengali bride that everyone in that marriageable age in Bhest Bhengaal and elsewhere across India wanted to wake up to every morning. Her voice was another thing in itself. How I wanted (maybe want to still) bring her home in that dress and tell my dad - "Baba, bou esheche". But, then again, what can I do when Little Johnny want to play...

Ash was on-and-off. I was smitten by her in "Jeans", wondered what the hell was happening in "Josh" and dreamed about her falling in "Mohabatein". But now, I wanted to be there - right there, with a red-towel and with enough rum inside me - up against her husband and father in law. Lucknow - the nawabs and the questionable mujra - and when mushaira met mujra; when sharyari met thumka. Lurid lighting and the raucous pieces of the dehath glossed over in beauty by that one single woman on screen. God made her on a Sunday - he had all time and patience (though, some would say the cosmetologist, but I pass). Hips that were poetry in motion. The innocence girl that was there one moment only to be replaced by that trained tawaif - I cannot find the words to describe that. The song reminds me vaguely of express bus ride between Mangalore and Surthkal - the interiors of these buses were lit like the song. And when, it played once in a thus-lit bus on a return trip back from Liquid Lounge, I could almost imagine and smell the perfume that wafted from that hair when she flipped it around for that signature move - jasmine and attar. The wind played that night strange sensations of soft silk hair blowing into my face. "Dilli mein agar, shayad, hum hote."

Somewhere then Kareena did her thing with a remake of Don. She was and is not among my favorites and could not hold against Helen Jairag Richardson. And, I will leave it at that. Not a big fan - period.

Around that time, I graduated with a Bachelor's degree, torn-and-taped cardiac muscles and four years of training in life at a time in a person's most impressionable period. And, then I entered the real world - and failed miserably.