Disco Dance and Bollywood

As mentioned in the article about Ramsays, the post-liberal generation of the 90s missed out on a whole plethora of Bollywood in the 80s and Bappi Da was one such hysteria. Looked down upon with disdain by culturally elite and misunderstood by the common man, Disco Dance was the kind of stuff that caught up instantly with the crowd but was always going to find it hard to match the boring antics of the early 80s and so the movies based upon D.I.S.C.O found instant place in 'so trashy that its good' genre

India me 'Paap' kaun laya? me laya!!!

Biddu might have something to add to what Bappi Da believes as introduction of Pop music to India. In India, Pop music was interchangeably used with Disco and its roots go ages back to times when Bhagwan Dada was laying down seeds by slowly shaking his bum in 'Shola jo bhadke'. But the real kick was given when Presley inspired Shammi Kapoor started doing violent movements in his songs, inspiring a whole generation of Indian males who never knew that they were supposed to dance except for 'shaadi-baarat' and Bhangra. And enter the 80s, Usha Utthup, Nazia Hasan, Bappi Da, Biddu, Mithun and poor economy. All collaborated to form an explosive solution - Disco Dance - and the first of this pack was this song from movie Armaan - Rambha Ho Rambha ho (For DD1 lovers, in the legendary serial Aankhein by Ramanad Sagar, this is the song that always plays in Carlos and Kangaroo's hideout)

                            Seedhe utha hua hai 'Que Sera Mi Vida (If You Should Go)" by The Gibson Brothers' se

So this era of Disco Dance was so pure and direct that it made people believe that the Disco of the west was somehow inspired by us (In one of the possible explanations, the westerners use time machine to go into the future, check Bollywood music and then again go back and replicate it in their own age, saves shit loads of plagiarism issues you see). The era also featured some gems before the real onslaught was started by Prabhuji, born Mithun Chakraborty. And Nazia Hasan and Usha Utthup were the ones to hit the deck off and running.

It was an awesomeness personified song while we were kids and we had our own version of the song addressing our old school principal - Hari om hari, budhiya mari!!

In all certainty, 1982 was the year of Disco in Bollywood. And its not just because Mithun Da took birth that year in the industry but also because outside India ABBA and Buggles had starting creating music that made people shake their hips. Even Paul Stanely and co. couldn't resist that and became disco-disco. That year in India will be remembered for some of the best musical tracks ever created. We always talk about how influential 1949, 1952 and 1991 were for Bollywood music but we overlook the fact that 1982 had all the ingredients that the music industry was missing. The year was iconic in bringing out 5 legendary disco songs. All of them are listed below

P.S. stop staring at Reena Roy's outfit in Disco Station - Its cool somehow

Disco Deewane by Nazia Hasan

Disco 82 from Khuddar

Disco Station from Hathkadi

Jaan-e-jaan ... Nisha from Sanam Teri Kasam

                                                              and of course the legendary

Koi yahan naache naache, koi wahan naache naache, aaoowa aaoowa!!! Shakti Kapoor got his inspiration of saying aaaoooo from this song

A lot of people will be amazed by the inclusion of 'koi yahan naache naache' and exclusion of 'I am a disco dancer' and I blame you not, because 'I am a Disco Dancer' was an epic, is an epic and is way beyond inclusion in stupid lists, no matter who has made the list (including myself). So it was the genius of Bappi Da coupled with an immoderate brilliance of mister Babbar Subhash (Kareebi log unhe Bee Subhash bulate hain because his movie songs were so much like Bee Gees  - Stayin' Alive) that came up with the epic 'Disco Dancer'. So Mr. Subhash with his first name being B, introduced a whole new generation of tricks in his movies starting from pronouncing dance, commonly pronounced by Indians as ‘daaance’. He introduced a suitably western, ‘dance’, said, ‘daence. And the name of the lead character suitably chosen as Jimmy (who knew that almost 25 years later, Mimoh will make his dad prouder than ever, using the same name)

So the movie has everything, an electric guitar producing electric current and killing Jimmy's maa but 'poori picture ka saar bas is ek gaane me hai'

The more you talk about this song, its lyrics, the video, the choreography, the costumes, everything is perfect. It has multi layered meaning that can send Alan Moore on a stroll. The song starts with girls shouting Jimmy's name and fainting. Side characters using guitars as gun (Hello Johnny B. Goode), prabhiju walking the stage in a costume that can blind you,(Bruce Springsteen, Gene Simmons, Presley, all combined in one) and then the real game begins

Say D. D  (Chorus)!!!
Say I. I (Chorus)!!!
Say S. S (Chorus)!!!
C, O, DISCO, DISCO, DISCO!!!

I am a disco dancer. Just dissolve into the ride and enjoy the trip. This is the song for the stoners, the philosophers and the intellectuals of the society

And lightning did strike twice when 4 years later, the same trio of Prabhuji, BappiDa and Subhash came up with Dance Dance in 1987. And it indeed was a resurrection, a divine experience. Copied frame by frame from its Disco Dancer itself, the movies merge into a single wholesomeness.

The movie had one cult song which is played without fail in all the marriages in India

Another gem in the movie was the song 'aa gaya aa gaya, halwa wala aa gaya'. I am still bedazzled by the intricacies of the the song. No matter how much be written about Disco Dancer and Dance Dance, it will always fall short of the praise they deserve in establishing Disco Dance as a selling genre in Bollywood. Although people tried different variations of Disco in India but all of them had to fall back as they were not good enough. Some such mistakes include 'Disco Bhangra' by Amitabh Bachhan and 'Disco Dandia' by Govinda, but non of them matched the originality of Prabhuji.

The impact of Disco Dancer was immense, so much so that it has inspired a book. Anuvab Pal, who has authored four plays and two films – Loins Of Punjab Presents and The President Is Coming – has written a book titled ‘Disco Dancer'. The author explain how the movie became a global phenomenon and the influence it had across the planet. ‘In Russia, there are statues for Jimmy and some acquaintances in Kazakhstan told me that when Mithun Chakraborty went to Almaty, the capital, the president’s address to the nation was cancelled because a million-strong crowd was busy welcoming Mithun at the airport'

Still Disco had more to offer and not everything was a phenomenon, there were disasters and the below mentioned song from Inquilab was one such instance

Amitabh Bachhan, OMG, Shakti Kapoor ZOMG, the song 'Disco 84' ZOMGWTF

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5 Iconic 'Foreigners' in Hindi Films

We live in an Era where Most Back-Up dancers in mainstream hindi films are 'white chicks', and then of course every other week we are bombarded with 'item songs' featuring Firangi Items.

That's exactly the type of foreigners in Indian films that I an NOT going to talk about. Indian films have had a long and illustrious history of people from across the borders working here, some made this their home, others stayed for a short while. The list of such fine, talented people is long. And I am going to talk about a motley group of just 5 of them who are Iconic by their legacy, their stature or just by being who they were/are.

5. Biddu


I know I would be getting a lot of brick-bats (in general) for including Biddu in this list, because

a) He isn't exactly a Foreigner
b) He hasn't exactly produced a zillion Filmy music albums in India

c) He looks kind of creepy

LEKIN! Calling Biddu an Indian would be the same as calling Freddie Mercury an Indian. They were born here and did grow up for sometime within our beautiful country, but like Freddie, Biddu found work/fame/money outside India. In his case, in Britain.

He first became internationally known when he produced this

It's a song which you have heard in a LOT of movies (including Kung-Fu Panda), and in hundreds of commercials. It is kind of a one-hit wonder, but then, it's instant recognizability (sic) makes its renown legit.
Biddu has in fact being instrumental indirectly in India's filmistani world, he did produce a track in Feroz Khan's Qurbani which is still very popular, not in part because of his 'discovery', another foreigner singing sensation

The Pretty Nazia, who sadly died very young

Biddu's influence was rampant throughout the 80s in India (more about that in a different article), but in the 90's he came back and took charge of the Indi-Pop scene in his hand, producing famous tracks like 'Johnny Joker'

A song that is still better than any of the flurry of remixes that were inflicted upon us. I would consider his main contribution to be the promotion of singers like Alisha Chenai (who has successfully overcome her 'awkward' voice face and sings excellently in films these days) and Shaan and Sonu Nigam (who are staple singers in ANY Hindi Film).

These days Biddu has become a successful writer, and I do not see any hope of him coming back out of the blue to his birthplace from Jolly Good London, but even his Techno-friendly Disco beats would be better than what the Copy Paste Machines of our Film Industry produce nowadays.

4. Bob Christo


Even before he became the Gora-version of Shetty, Bob Christo was already awesome (as we have already mentioned in our Facebook Page), but then for those of you are yet to join us there, here's an interesting factoid about 'Handsome' Bob

He worked as the set designer for the Epic film Apocalypse Now, but before that he had auditioned and  got a small role in the film. Bob later rejected that role because he was making more money as a set designer, it went to a minor actor called 'Harrison Ford'.

He was a civil Engineer, thus a direct inspiration for 'Bob The Builder'

Not much was known about his previous life before he came to India, until he published his autobiography sometime before his death. Having read his book, if all that he claims in it is true, he was indeed as bad-ass as he looked in films (In a bar fight, he claims to have laid to waste some ten men who attacked him), so I guess our filmy heroes can thank their stars that what they do on screen is pretty much play acting.

He started acting in hindi films almost by accident, he was in India while he was waiting for a work permit to get a job in Muscat, and also hoping to meet Parveen Babi, and films...just happened. You might remember him for getting punched by Amitabh Bachchan in Mard or being thrashed by Hanuman Ji (no less)

He WAS committing sacrilege

But he has appeared in way more movies than you can imagine. Mostly as a mysterious white man who would for some reason buy arms from India (because we aren't exactly the pioneers of AK 47) or as a hefty Henchman, mostly the penultimate level Boss, kind of like what Chuck Norris was in Enter The Dragon, but with a shinier pate (in his autobiography he says that he was taught martial arts by Bruce Lee's teacher, and that he saved his teacher's life from The Triads, no less).

Bob flourished at a time when Videshi Haath was still a big unseen enemy in Indian films, sadly when fewer films had place for villains, his time too faded. Although he did not pack-up and leave, he stayed put in India till the very end.

Bob Christo died in 2011, in an year that claimed many many famous lives.

3. Franz Osten


Who? You ask. Well, this man...

NOT an ancestor of Shikari Shambhu

The pic doesn't help ring a bell? Truth be told, he is a man who should need no introduction. He is one of the pioneers of Indian cinema. He was a director who worked with Bombay Talkies, perhaps India's first organized movie studio which employed craftsmen on retainers.

Essentially a photographer who wanted to become a filmmaker, he came to India in the 1920s, a time when the world was silent and black'n'white. He found both work and friendship with Himanshu Rai, who produced and acted in films which his German friend Herr Franz directed. The fact that those days films were silent and thus devoid of language must have made it easy for him. And like Bob, once he came to India he decided that it was a place rich with stories, and stayed until his death.

Consider the breadth of his work - One of his earlier films 'Prem Sanyas/The Light of Asia' dealt with the life of Gautam Buddha. And he made this film in 1925, employing a scale that is often repeated in other 'epic' films.

And way before anyone else could think of doing it, he made a film using a scene from Mahabharat ('A Throw of Dice') and directed films about sensitive issues like Untouchability (Achhoot Kanya) and the plight of Notch Girls (Jeevan Naiya). If directors are complemented by saying that they were ahead of their times, then Franz here was way way ahead of his times.

PS : I found mention in some places that he was a Nazi sympathizer, but have not got any detailed proof/article regarding the same. It IS documented though that he stayed in India till his death in 1956.


2. Helen


As I shield myself from brickbats, let me quickly justify that Helen can be considered as a Foreigner (although she has spent most of her life in India) because

a) Her initial work was mainly due to her Foreigner Looks
b) Her father was an Anglo-Indian and her mother Burmese

She came to India in the early 1940s post her father's untimely death, and had to start work very early, when she was 16 years old, as a dancer in the film Howrah Bridge. Initially type-cast as a dancer in movies who was not afraid to wear 'modern' clothes, she was later type-cast as a Vamp/bit-actor who would also have a Dance number as a Fair skinned girl who was not afraid to wear modern clothes.

In retrospect, Mera Naam Chin Chin Choo seems kind of racist considering her Burmese origins.

Although Helen is vastly different from the bevy of 'item' girls that you see today, for one - she never had to rely on 'vulgarity', instead, she used her dancing skills and expressions to infuse sensuality in her dance. And voiced frequently by Asha Bhosle, In fact, make a list of ten all time great hindi songs, and you would definitely have at least one Helen song in it, (and if you make a list of dance songs then they would be nine out of ten). The sheer volume of movies in which she has appeared also ensures that she has a role in ALL your favourite movies (even if you fall in the Yash/Aditya Chopra Fan category, she had a role in Mohabbatein.



1. Mary Ann Evans


She was India's first Action Hero. She was in fact India's first On-screen Super-heroine. She starred in a string of serialized films, who did all her stunts in her full of dhoom-dhadaaka movie. You might know her better with her Screen Name - Fearless Nadia a.k.a Hunterwali.

She was Hot AND she literally Kicked Ass. Damn!

When she came to India she changed her name to Nadia, and a certain Mr Wadia took her under his wing (he had his production company called Wadia Movietone which excelled in producing Action films in the 1930s), being an ex-circus artiste she was able to perform her own stunts. She starred in a string of Wadia Movietone action films, often with the variations of the name 'Hunterwali' or with films which had the names of Trains (much of the action took place on the railways)

Around the same time as Zorro was getting famous across the pacific and a few years before the whip wielding Wonder Woman made her appearance in comics, Indian films already had a Tight Cloth Wearing, Hot and often Masqued woman fighting for the cause of the common man, it was kind of ironical since she herself was a white woman and often fought the 'Raj' or the Symbols of british rule as a champion of the Indian people (the fact that the movies were being bankrolled by a patriotic Parsi gentleman had something to do with it)

Introducing this mustached gentleman to many kinds of pain

She continued starring in what would be known today as B-movies till the very end of a film career. All her movies focused on her, she always got top billing and the crowds loved her. Later in her life she married the son of Mr Wadia, and came to be Nadia Wadia.

Without a doubt she was the most iconic of all 'Foreigners' who came to work in Hindi films.

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