Jungle Book

There is no chance on earth that you must have missed listening to this song in your chaddi and banyan days. At one point of time, this song seemed more popular than the national anthem. I remember that once someone started singing the first line on stage and the whole school turned out to be a chorus as every kid knew the lyrics by-heart.



Even the kids down south could recite it, even though they could not make head or tail of what the hell "Chaddi pehen ke phool khila hai" made. I think the Jungle book was telecast on Sunday mornings at 10 AM and all we neighbourhood kids would start our morning cricket match after this cartoon. Some characters I remember were Bageera, Ka and Sher Khan.

I dont know how many of you know, but Sher Khan was voiced by the amazing Nana Patekar. This was in my humble opinion one of the best dubbed shows to ever appear on DoorDarshan.

Quite pessimistically, life seemed much content and better when we didnt have much choice to make and we were happy with whatever we had. :-)

Mile Sur - Part 2

It happened when Amitabh Bachchan was the Angry Young man, Mithunda was acting in decent movies with Disco and Khisko. Mile Tur Mera Tumhaara which featured possibly all the company's best and predominant artists was a musical and visual delight.

I was in my 3rd standard when suddenly my teacher declared that our class would have to perform the song on stage. Being the lone tamilian in my class, I was entrusted with the responsibility to teach the tamil part "isaindaal" by Dr. BalaMurali Krishna to one group of students. Since my mom was famous with the teachers for her multilingual ability (and partly for being mother of a brat :-)), she was asked to help the kids with their tamil diction.

Now there was a part which was "Mazhayaay pozhivadu pol isai". Even Local tamilians belonging to southern part of Tamilnadu have to twist and turn their tongue and still cant get "zh" pronounciation correct. You can imagine what an amazing metamorphosis it must have gone when mouthed by hapless Gujjus and Sindhis. They had no bloody clue of the meaning of the words and sung it just as blindly as we study our lessons. Additional problems arose when they would miss the sur and taal and the tune would go haywire.

After lot of practice and torture we did manage to make them mug up the whole tamil part. On the DDay, I was dressed in a veshti with a kurta on top and vibudi on my forehead. From that day till today I have never been comfortable wearing a Veshti. Even in my sacred thread ceremony, I had worn my veshti so clumsily that I almost looked like some Juvenile convict who had been imprisoned for theft and robbery.

My knees trembled as I was on the stage for the second time since my morning prayer woes in 2nd standard. We managed to sing it as soon as possible and rush back to the stage. I was happy for a different reason though. I could now get back to my pants and forget the veshti. :-)

Yeah yeah...I know you guessed the occasion. It was Independence Day. It is possibly the only day when people remember that we are independent to sing, eat chocolates, do march parade, hoist flags, return home early and then watch Gandhi or Roja for the umpteenth time on DD. I think this Independence day featured some amazingly patriotic movies of Vijay or Ajith. Worse some channels play interviews of Namitha who can possibly relate it to only her independence with clothes.

The only one that came somewhat close to the magnificence of this video in recent times was the Jana Gana Mana by ARR and an ensemble group of singers. But truly....this video remains one of its kind :-)