Footloose Blues - I

I am still sore in a lot of places from all the hip rolling, leg lifting, foot stomping, no to mention the pelvic thrusts and thumb licking from Saturday night. Ya, I did say thumb licking and I should have added "self tilak lagao-fying" immediately after. Aaah, stop rolling your eyes. As if you'd care if I transplanted a few moves from Oh..Podu! on to the latest offering from Panjabi MC!

Aaah, Oh.. Podu! Why don't we ever get to dance to the song? I don't know! The djs just don't play this song. Nor do they play Kasu Mele Kasu Vandhu, Manmadha Raasa, Aal Thotta Bhoopathi and Appadi Podu. These, for all you people who think Bhangra is the only kinda party music ever invented by people from the Indian subcontinent, are utterly dance-able Tamil tracks of recent years. And if you think that is all. Listen to Kodithe Kottali and Aatakavala, both Telugu tracks of equally recent vintage. These tracks literally beg me to get up and dance it's a darn new chance and if they don't do it to you, you either have two left feet (which is a shame) or are completely cluless as to what I am talking about (which is worser!).

CM ranted sometime ago (1) that some of her friends argued that that "ppl with class do not like this song" (2) and that "it is understandable that (CM) likes only dandanakka songs" since she comes from a smaller city (and not from a metro). Coming as I do from Chennai (like some of CM's friends), I think that her friends could not be any more wrong. I love such songs and while I am not averse to hitting the dance floors to the music of Panjabi MC or Daler Mehendi, I think that DJs both in India and here in the US have this aversion for Tamil and Telugu (not to mention the occasional Mallu) tracks more or less for a similar reason.

Yeah, it seems a malaise that is prevelant even in India. In fact, you would be surprised if I told you that DJs in Chennai and Bangalore are guilty in this regard too. Girish, one of The Suderman's readers, says that he is not a "Tamil patriot", but is definitely incensed at what his cousins experienced in a disco (which I shall not name here because it is all hear say) in Chennai. They apparently requested for a tamil song. Imagine their surprise and anger when they were snubbed and informed it was "against rules to play a Tamil song"! He emailed me to say that he was once in a, ahem.., club here in the US where Tamil songs were played on occasion.

Before all you guys who visit this blog from your homes and workplaces here in the US, head to the local "Gentlemen's Club" and request Naan Salt Cotaurs, Nee Saidapettai as background music for your whole-some entertainment, you should understand that I definitely can't vouch for the authencity of Girish's last line. In fact, I think he was joking it might just have been an isolated case. But don't you see his point?

[1] CM, I did go back and read your older posts, just as I told you I would !

[2] The song referred to, is Lajjavathiye (sung by Jassie Gift) whose Malayalam and Tamil versions hit the top of their respective charts early last year !

(To be concluded....)