I love the unpredictability of the songs thrown up by my iPod on any given day. One day I jog to Soni Di Nakaren (love the beats of the song - kudukku...kudukku) and on another, I work on my laptop to the soulful rendition of Lag ja gale.
When I gym, I tend to go for peppy songs that coax my lazy muscles to move and keep my mood upbeat. And oh how much I need that boost. So this morning, while I was on my way down to the gym, I clumsily started off a playlist that pulled off all the songs from the iPod - Hindi, Old Hindi, English - all of it. In addition to the randomness of one playlist, I was offered songs from other playlists too.
So one moment I was running away on the treadmill to Frankie Vallie's Can't take my eyes off you, and at another I was crunching the weights (well, I would like to think that) to Tom Jones's Delilah. Yep, what a song to work with weights. The initial high note which reminded me of the background score from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho movie, enthused me to concentrate on shoulder press for a few minutes before I got lost in the lyrics of the song. How could I not, when the lyrics is as interesting as this -
I saw the flickering shadows of love on her blind
She was my woman
As she deceived me, I watched and went out of my mind
And then:
But I was lost like a slave that no man could free
Speculating about cruel Delilah who broke his heart, I lost count of the number of repetitions. Ah well, when faced with such important matters of the heart, what is one count more or less? When the song got over, I started on the elliptical cross trainer. This is by far the most difficult apparatus, in our gym. A setting of '1' , which is the least, has me panting and puffing like a woman about to have a cardiac arrest. My calf muscles scream at me for being so uncaring and when presented with that kind of argument, my kindly heart gives in and I slide off the apparatus in 2 mins.
Confident that today was going to be no different from the other days, I stepped on it. And precisely at that moment this song started on the iPod -
Pardesiya yeh sach hai piya - from Natwarlal (1979).
Now people who are familiar with this song, might understand how this beat sounds:
Oh Pardesiya...
Tumka tumka tumka (hip shake, hip shake, hip shake)
Pardesiya yeh sach hai piya...
For others, here's the song:
Mr. Natwarlal - Pardesiya
The song has plenty of these 'tumka' beats that just begs for a random shoulder shake (like what Amitabh in his horrendous boots and green pants does) or a hip shake like that of svelte Rekha's or better still a combination of the two. I love dancing. Especially to our Hindi songs. But my dance style (I'm using a loose term here) somehow seems to be influenced by Tamil 'dabban kuthu' songs. If you were to strip the beats and the steps, you'll find that Tamil actors dance to almost every beat in a peppy song, but in Hindi it is mostly to important beats. A case in point here is when Prabhu Deva choreographed songs like "Hey Que Sera Sera" and "Main Aisa Kyun Hoon, and the more recent "Go Go Go Govinda." Prabhu Deva, as we all know, is a South Indian actor, choreographer and director who entered Bollywood and introduced this 'hair splitting' style of dancing. Check the superb video below and you'll understand what I mean. After seeing this, watch any random peppy song choreographed by any other Indian choreographer and you'll see the difference.
This must-watch video is from Lakshya movie, the Main Aisa Kyun Hoon song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeWBKvd7QHs
Even the "oye yeeah oye oho" part has steps for every beat. Of course, this does not mean that Hindi songs choreographed by others don't have their share of superb steps and beats. They do. And that's why so many of us love dancing to them. But I am digressing.
How did this song from Mr. Natwarlal work out for me? I was like an octopus twitching after coming in contact with an electric eel. A part of me wants to jump down from the Elliptical cross trainer and do the jig, but my hands are glued to the bars which are swinging because I am running. And so I do what I could do. Shoulder shake at "tumka tumka tumka" and swing my head like a demented lady during the stanzas. All in all, I finished 5 minutes of running on the Elliptical and was raring to go some more. Whew!
So there, one can make a song and dance of everything. And it has its benefits. Exercising becomes more tolerable, relationships get strengthened (ahem...unproved theory) and in general, life becomes one robust Bollywood movie.
When I gym, I tend to go for peppy songs that coax my lazy muscles to move and keep my mood upbeat. And oh how much I need that boost. So this morning, while I was on my way down to the gym, I clumsily started off a playlist that pulled off all the songs from the iPod - Hindi, Old Hindi, English - all of it. In addition to the randomness of one playlist, I was offered songs from other playlists too.
So one moment I was running away on the treadmill to Frankie Vallie's Can't take my eyes off you, and at another I was crunching the weights (well, I would like to think that) to Tom Jones's Delilah. Yep, what a song to work with weights. The initial high note which reminded me of the background score from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho movie, enthused me to concentrate on shoulder press for a few minutes before I got lost in the lyrics of the song. How could I not, when the lyrics is as interesting as this -
I saw the flickering shadows of love on her blind
She was my woman
As she deceived me, I watched and went out of my mind
And then:
But I was lost like a slave that no man could free
Speculating about cruel Delilah who broke his heart, I lost count of the number of repetitions. Ah well, when faced with such important matters of the heart, what is one count more or less? When the song got over, I started on the elliptical cross trainer. This is by far the most difficult apparatus, in our gym. A setting of '1' , which is the least, has me panting and puffing like a woman about to have a cardiac arrest. My calf muscles scream at me for being so uncaring and when presented with that kind of argument, my kindly heart gives in and I slide off the apparatus in 2 mins.
Confident that today was going to be no different from the other days, I stepped on it. And precisely at that moment this song started on the iPod -
Pardesiya yeh sach hai piya - from Natwarlal (1979).
Now people who are familiar with this song, might understand how this beat sounds:
Oh Pardesiya...
Tumka tumka tumka (hip shake, hip shake, hip shake)
Pardesiya yeh sach hai piya...
For others, here's the song:
Mr. Natwarlal - Pardesiya
The song has plenty of these 'tumka' beats that just begs for a random shoulder shake (like what Amitabh in his horrendous boots and green pants does) or a hip shake like that of svelte Rekha's or better still a combination of the two. I love dancing. Especially to our Hindi songs. But my dance style (I'm using a loose term here) somehow seems to be influenced by Tamil 'dabban kuthu' songs. If you were to strip the beats and the steps, you'll find that Tamil actors dance to almost every beat in a peppy song, but in Hindi it is mostly to important beats. A case in point here is when Prabhu Deva choreographed songs like "Hey Que Sera Sera" and "Main Aisa Kyun Hoon, and the more recent "Go Go Go Govinda." Prabhu Deva, as we all know, is a South Indian actor, choreographer and director who entered Bollywood and introduced this 'hair splitting' style of dancing. Check the superb video below and you'll understand what I mean. After seeing this, watch any random peppy song choreographed by any other Indian choreographer and you'll see the difference.
This must-watch video is from Lakshya movie, the Main Aisa Kyun Hoon song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeWBKvd7QHs
Even the "oye yeeah oye oho" part has steps for every beat. Of course, this does not mean that Hindi songs choreographed by others don't have their share of superb steps and beats. They do. And that's why so many of us love dancing to them. But I am digressing.
How did this song from Mr. Natwarlal work out for me? I was like an octopus twitching after coming in contact with an electric eel. A part of me wants to jump down from the Elliptical cross trainer and do the jig, but my hands are glued to the bars which are swinging because I am running. And so I do what I could do. Shoulder shake at "tumka tumka tumka" and swing my head like a demented lady during the stanzas. All in all, I finished 5 minutes of running on the Elliptical and was raring to go some more. Whew!
So there, one can make a song and dance of everything. And it has its benefits. Exercising becomes more tolerable, relationships get strengthened (ahem...unproved theory) and in general, life becomes one robust Bollywood movie.
Comments
I can picture you doing that ;-)