Chikni Chameli sizzling
Thursday, 9 February 2012
Maswood Alam Khan in Maryland, USA
The first dance in a movie that was first registered in my mind was in 1967-Urdu film Chakori, where Shabana and Nadeem danced a duet. Nadeem perhaps made his debut in Chakori. Shabana was from Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) and Nadeem was from Pakistan (then West Pakistan). Shabana and Nadeem, as I remember, so effortlessly danced with an aura of grace and a touch of elegance in tune with a number of songs. I can still visualise the scene of Shabana dancing, while singing "Kahan ho tum ko dhoondrahihayn." Their performance was never peppy or sloppy and had an air of gravity which is nowadays terribly missing in the modern movies now being produced in our subcontinent. Or, maybe, we who belong to the baby boom generation are too old to understand the latest techniques and languages of modern dancing.
In line with the tradition of the film industry in India-Pakistan-Bangladesh subcontinent, our movies are basically musicals. A movie's success in our country depends on how the film is woven with ingredients of improbable and unrealistic melodrama and romance interspersed by songs and dances, in solo or duet, culminating into a refreshing marriage between the hero and the heroine, after a three-hour extravaganza of the hero fighting off the villains, love triangles, tantalisations, magical reversal of fortunes, convenient flukes, and a lot of comedies and thrills.
The other day, after viewing a 2-minute video clip in YouTube showing Katrina Kaif dancing in Agneepath-an Indian Hindi film due to be released-as Chikni Chameli I thought she was dancing like a lunatic and I have had a realisation that our days have totally changed. It would be foolish though if we expect a minimum semblance of elegance of our version in modern film dances that, for commercial survival, are produced for a man's heart to flutter incessantly and his tongue to salivate insatiably for more and more sizzling of a female star.
Katrina Kaif as Chikni Chameli has shown a unique style as she portrayed herself as an exotic dancer; she was lip-singing the song mostly in Marathi and wearing a 'kaashti sari.' Katrina perhaps broke the stereotype. The glamorous actress got really raw and rustic in the hot song. With a bottle of 'alcohol' hanging from her waist, she showed her dancing (rather acrobatic) skills that combines all the imaginable moves of a young girl's limbs: her belly, her hips, her legs, and her every private part. In her 'figure eight' movements, her belly rolled, her hips and her rib cage moved forward and backward in unimaginable jerks and thrusts. Her shoulder shimmied. Her eyes spoke a language that must intoxicate any viewer, young or old.
Katrina Kaif, a Kashmiri girl from her father's side and a British from her mother's, was born in Hong Kong on July 16, 1984. She is a British Indian actress doing her roles mainly in the Hindi-language films. She was voted the sexiest Asian woman in the world by "Eastern Eye" in the years 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011. She made her acting debut in the film "Boom" and tasted success in "Namastey London", "New York" and "Rajneeti" in recent years.
Produced by Karan Johar and directed by Karan Malhotra, the Hindi film Agneepath (Path of Fire) is an upcoming action thriller film, a remake of the 1990 Hindi film of the same name. The film stars Hrithik Roshan, Priyanka Chopra, Sanjay Dutt and Rishi Kapoor. The story is about the same tale of a young boy's quest for revenge that leads him to become a gangster as an adult.
Karan Johar, the producer, had revealed the first look of Katrina's Chikni Chameli item song on Twitter with his twitting remarks: "Katrina Kaif is doing a full on item song in Agneepath, it's a total swinging number called Chikni Chameli....we shoot it in a week!"
Last Sunday evening, as I was viewing the annual 'Super Bowl' football tournament, I was amazed and also puzzled to see Madonna performing in the halftime show where she sang "Give Me All Your Luvin," her new single, and the snippets of "Open Your Heart" and "Express Yourself." She, like Katrina Kaif, also showed her acrobatic skills while singing. But, what made my eyes roll was a scene when Madonna had a kind of pony ride over a man, hooking her feet on his neck, reminding me about Katrina whose dance seemed quite innocuous, comparatively.
The writer can be reached at email: maswood@hotmail.com
The first dance in a movie that was first registered in my mind was in 1967-Urdu film Chakori, where Shabana and Nadeem danced a duet. Nadeem perhaps made his debut in Chakori. Shabana was from Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) and Nadeem was from Pakistan (then West Pakistan). Shabana and Nadeem, as I remember, so effortlessly danced with an aura of grace and a touch of elegance in tune with a number of songs. I can still visualise the scene of Shabana dancing, while singing "Kahan ho tum ko dhoondrahihayn." Their performance was never peppy or sloppy and had an air of gravity which is nowadays terribly missing in the modern movies now being produced in our subcontinent. Or, maybe, we who belong to the baby boom generation are too old to understand the latest techniques and languages of modern dancing.
In line with the tradition of the film industry in India-Pakistan-Bangladesh subcontinent, our movies are basically musicals. A movie's success in our country depends on how the film is woven with ingredients of improbable and unrealistic melodrama and romance interspersed by songs and dances, in solo or duet, culminating into a refreshing marriage between the hero and the heroine, after a three-hour extravaganza of the hero fighting off the villains, love triangles, tantalisations, magical reversal of fortunes, convenient flukes, and a lot of comedies and thrills.
The other day, after viewing a 2-minute video clip in YouTube showing Katrina Kaif dancing in Agneepath-an Indian Hindi film due to be released-as Chikni Chameli I thought she was dancing like a lunatic and I have had a realisation that our days have totally changed. It would be foolish though if we expect a minimum semblance of elegance of our version in modern film dances that, for commercial survival, are produced for a man's heart to flutter incessantly and his tongue to salivate insatiably for more and more sizzling of a female star.
Katrina Kaif as Chikni Chameli has shown a unique style as she portrayed herself as an exotic dancer; she was lip-singing the song mostly in Marathi and wearing a 'kaashti sari.' Katrina perhaps broke the stereotype. The glamorous actress got really raw and rustic in the hot song. With a bottle of 'alcohol' hanging from her waist, she showed her dancing (rather acrobatic) skills that combines all the imaginable moves of a young girl's limbs: her belly, her hips, her legs, and her every private part. In her 'figure eight' movements, her belly rolled, her hips and her rib cage moved forward and backward in unimaginable jerks and thrusts. Her shoulder shimmied. Her eyes spoke a language that must intoxicate any viewer, young or old.
Katrina Kaif, a Kashmiri girl from her father's side and a British from her mother's, was born in Hong Kong on July 16, 1984. She is a British Indian actress doing her roles mainly in the Hindi-language films. She was voted the sexiest Asian woman in the world by "Eastern Eye" in the years 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011. She made her acting debut in the film "Boom" and tasted success in "Namastey London", "New York" and "Rajneeti" in recent years.
Produced by Karan Johar and directed by Karan Malhotra, the Hindi film Agneepath (Path of Fire) is an upcoming action thriller film, a remake of the 1990 Hindi film of the same name. The film stars Hrithik Roshan, Priyanka Chopra, Sanjay Dutt and Rishi Kapoor. The story is about the same tale of a young boy's quest for revenge that leads him to become a gangster as an adult.
Karan Johar, the producer, had revealed the first look of Katrina's Chikni Chameli item song on Twitter with his twitting remarks: "Katrina Kaif is doing a full on item song in Agneepath, it's a total swinging number called Chikni Chameli....we shoot it in a week!"
Last Sunday evening, as I was viewing the annual 'Super Bowl' football tournament, I was amazed and also puzzled to see Madonna performing in the halftime show where she sang "Give Me All Your Luvin," her new single, and the snippets of "Open Your Heart" and "Express Yourself." She, like Katrina Kaif, also showed her acrobatic skills while singing. But, what made my eyes roll was a scene when Madonna had a kind of pony ride over a man, hooking her feet on his neck, reminding me about Katrina whose dance seemed quite innocuous, comparatively.
The writer can be reached at email: maswood@hotmail.com