I recently noticed that whenever I visit my workplace here in Melbourne (yes, I am still WFH mostly), the infamous “Jumma Chumma” song from the 90s ends up running in my head all day.
It did not take me long to realise that the culprit here was the arrival chime of the lift (elevator) of the building. That chime sounds very similar to the very opening, the first 1 second of “Jumma Chumma”.
Here’s the chime I recorded from the lift:
Here’s the 1st second of the song:
When I think of it, it sounds amazing how a sound of an elevator chime, lasting merely a second, could evoke memories of a song from 35 years ago (“HUM”, the movie of the song, was released in 1991). But if you knew what a rage this song, and with that, this movie was back then, you’d probably understand.
With Amitabh Bachchan’s powers on the wane (he was 49 in 1991), it must have been brave of Mukul Anand to imagine him playing the character of a dockyard worker in Bombay, assertively asking the lady for a kiss, with mugs of beers being banged in joyous chorus, by hundreds of men. The song begins with a close-up of Kimi Katkar lips, as she is applying lipstick (that’s when a series of dings happen, followed by the synthesiser)
To put in context, the title of the song, translated, is unashamedly, “Jumma, give me a kiss”.
Bachchan had never tried anything like this, in his entire career. In fact, the story goes, that the choreographer’s assistants refused to show the moves he was supposed to rehearse, for the fear that he’d be offended by the vulgarity in it. And they were right – Bachchan refused to do it; he had to be eventually convinced by his wife (and actress) Jaya to do it.
But the song had Bachchan ingrained in it – it was sung by Sudesh Bhosle, who was (is) the closest ever voice artist to mimic Bachchan’s iconic voice.
Eventually, this song became the quintessential anthem of the early 90s Bollywood. It was everywhere. And for a long time.
It should be mentioned that the tune wasn’t an original. But it was the lyrics that broke through a threshold of assertiveness unknown at that time.
The ensemble cast of Govinda, Rajinikanth, Deepa Sahi, Danny Denzongpa, Anupam Kher and Kader Khan, all stalwarts of Indian Cinema, added to the euphoria that was built up. My uncle who was studying in IIT Bombay then, once told me a story about how, when this movie released, there was a ruckus in one of the cinema halls where the tickets were sold out. They had to eventually allow everyone in and people sat squatting on the floor to watch this movie.
It wasn’t that such a thing in Bollywood was not seen before – there had been many examples of such insanity – but it should be seen in the context of Bachchan’s sunset of super-stardom that was happening then. Bachchan had had a string of flops between 1989-1990. The late Mukul Anand, the director of the movie, must have held a very strong conviction to make it work despite those failures.
The song ends on the same note on which it starts – and then you realise that the opening scene of the gleaming lips was actually an intended seed that was planted – because in the ending, it is all over Bachchan’s exclaimed face of happiness.
Later, when we purchased a video player, we bought a video tape of “HUM”, simply because of the rewatchability of the movie.
But with the office visits and the lift dings, I can assure you that rewatchability has extended some more..