Aaja Nachle

I saw this video on YouTube quite recently. I had heard the song everywhere, from marriages (most of which were in India), to almost every second room in the hostels at DCE. I even had this on my computer for a bit. I had never seen the video. Not until recently.

I neither speak Punjabi nor understand it, except for a very select category of words, which I usually hear when the speaker is particularly angry at someone. All I understand in this song is the title, which means, "Come, dance".

As you all must have seen, the video starts with an ostensibly upset Neha, who looks disapprovingly at a note she just wrote for her father. She is leaving home, plausibly because of irreconciliable differences. She boards a bus, to somewhere, which also has the hero and Bally Sagoo. This is the first of many times we see him here. He sees them.. and smiles a wise smile. Or, is he merely ogling at Neha?

Then Neha gets off, at.. err.. quite simply, the middle of nowhere. The hero gets off too, because he's the hero, and so does BS, because we're going to see him many times. The middle of nowhere is apparently a lush green field, so lush that it could give the Sydney Cricket Ground a run for its money.

Then we see colorful Bhangra dancers. And of course, BS. He instructs one of the more enthusiastic dancers to accost and pull the hero away and then dance with him. Does BS want the girl for himself? Or, did you guys just see a parody?

They dance, as was instructed by BS. BS's innocence is proven when all the dancers advance towards Neha, and then make a neat circle around the two central characters, while BS is shown enjoying the happenings.

Then, something very unexpected happens. She rejects his advances and she walks away in disgust, much like how one walks away from auto drivers when they ask a very high fare. In retrospect, it was kind of expected, as there were still over two minutes left in the video. BS is evidently unhappy with some of his dancers, so he demands that they make amends. The hero is accosted by the same dude who pulled him away. He doles out inspirational advice, and urges him to go and get her. Then they promptly revert to their dance. It now becomes clear that the hero and Neha didn't know each other from before.

She goes to a bar with some of her guy friends. BS reaches there before the hero does, which once again makes me a bit suspicious. The hero watches intently as one of her more persuasive friends offers her a drink and then makes her have it. They dance. The genre's no longer Bhangra, but more of disco. This is where our men make their moves. The hero has had enough, and wants to set some things straight and BS takes up a vantage position by a wall to catch all the action.

The action consists of him walking up, and then removing a cigarette from some girl's mouth and then disparagingly dropping it, his head disapprovingly shaking at the young woman's intentions. If that was fun, what he does next is outrageous. He spills the drink on the floor, and sets a good precedent for kids and other aspiring Nehas.

Neha's persuasive friend has the hero cornered by his gang, and makes off with Neha. Once again, BS observes. Then the persuasive friend tries to misbehave with Neha on a nice black leather sofa. Then, just when we all thought the hero had been thrown around the bar, had his head smashed by tables and liquor bottles, he makes a comeback. He catches the persuasive friend by the scruff of his neck, takes off his jacket (why?), and easily dispenses with him by powerfully pushing him onto the aforementioned sofa. He then wraps his jacket around her, and leaves the place with her. We see the omnipresent BS, smiling a vindicated smile. This is where I absolve BS. He wasn't trying to get Neha for himself.

Then we come back to the Sydney Cricket Ground, where we once again see BS's bhangra troupe. She walks along the Darling river, telling our hero about her acrimonious yesterday with her father, because he rebuked her for how she dresses. He is all ears. He puts his jacket over her head, and she smiles and says no. He remembers the enthusiastic bhangra dancer's advice and tries again and convinces her to make up with her dad. I think he realises how rich her dad is. He is successful, they get married and live happily ever after.

I am in love with the video. I love Bally Sagoo's omnipresence. The dude manages to make it everywhere, and smile vindicating smiles, even though he never helps the hero get the girl.

Does it really matter, which side?

"Where you going?", he turned around and asked me. He was fair, clean shaven, with black hair, and was wearing dark shades. He was particularly interested in the update on the Italy - Ukraine match on the radio. From his accent and look, it was easy to guess that he was either Italian or Punjabi, and that he hadn't stayed that long here. Ten minutes into the ride, his phone started ringing, and he answered, "Abhi customer ke saath hoon, aadhe ghante ke baad milana."

Now, there are very few people of Italian descent who might have said that in a Punjabi accent (Sonia Gandhi's accent is not Punjabi). So, after concluding he was from the Punjab region, the only question was which side of the border was he from. I asked him where he was from.

"Lahore, Pakistan", came the reply. "Aap kahaan ke hai, sir?"
"Dilli."
"Lahore - Dilli to sirf teen ghante ki drive hai."

Well, not exactly three hours, except if both were in America, where 'a mile, a minute' is the norm. But I chose not to tell him, lest he thought I intended to ridicule his seemingly inept knowledge of Indo-Pak geography.

"Raat mein Amritsar ki lightein dikhti hai." He seemed to want to correct his faux pas. His phone rang again. This one was just about a minute long, but long enough for him to change the topic.

"Derh saal se yahaan reh raha hoon. Par dil nahin lagta yahaan. Do dafaa vaapas bhi jaa chuka hoon."

"Cricket ko follow karte ho?" He asked me. Ensue twenty minutes of discussion on next year's World Cup, and India's and Pakistan's chances in it. England sucks, we both concluded, and that they'll be whipped in the Ashes later this year. He was quite a well-informed guy, I must concede.

The conversation set me thinking when I got back home. I could tell he was a Pakistani only when he told me he was from there. He could well have been from Delhi, or any place in North India.

I'm sure Indians and Pakistanis don't hate each other. It's just these politicians that aggravate things, and incite feelings of hatred to stay in power. And both sides have made mistakes in the past, so don't go by your NCERT history textbooks. Even Bollywood movies which involve Pakistan show war. Can't filmmakers also show movies that make us realise how alike we are? We're essentially the same people. At the end of it all, does it really matter which Punjab he was from?

Now, I'm not saying India and Pakistan should unite and become one right away. Maybe the damage has been done and it's too late. But East and West Germany reunited, and so did North and South Vietnam. But those reunions were different. Their people were separated only because they happened to live in a particular part of their country. This is a little more complicated. Maybe there is still a way. So many problems (like Kashmir, and PoWs) might be solved or be made progress on. But some new problems could also arise.

I'm not requesting you to start making up lyrics for some "Badalaav ki hawa" song. (India's and Pakistan's answer to East and West Germany's Wind of Change) But what you can do, however, is insert the following line suitably in John Lennon's Imagine.

Imagine the cricket team that we'll make.