Bollywood has been churning out remixes by the truckload. It’s been happening for decades, except now they’ve started remixing 90s songs and adding them to the OST of some movie or other. Arijit Singh, Armaan Malik, Jubin Nautiyal, Neeti Mohan have all been riding the waves of the glory that comes with a hit remixed number.
After the ‘Humma Humma’ debacle, the latest song to jump on the remix bandwagon is Alia Bhatt and Varun Dhawan’s ‘Tamma Tamma’ for their latest, ‘Badrinath Ki Dulhania’.
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While Bappi Da is pretty pleased with the remix, and Madhuri has been consulted, and danced with (as many videos will show you), the one person who seems to have been forgotten in all of this, is the woman who choreographed the original ‘Tamma Tamma’.
Those of us who have seen Sanjay Dutt attempt to dance in the original, know just how hard Saroj Khan worked. For it is no mean feat, making the likes of Sanjay Dutt dance!
Bollywood is hardly famous for treating its veterans well. It isn’t for nothing that B-town has-beens have been found impoverished and homeless, and in one instance, even locked in an insane asylum. Bollywood is a very “Out of sight, out of mind” kinda place. It’s like everyone in B-town suffers from a chronic case of selective amnesia.
Saroj Khan was recently asked about the new ‘Tamma Tamma’ version. The usually pleasant Saroj Khan sounded disappointed at not having been consulted in the making of a song that so shamelessly uses her choreography. She said,
Why should they call me? They don’t owe me anything?
Maybe they felt since my assistant Madhuri Dixit was there, they didn’t need me around.
Maybe, they think that Masterji [referring to herself] has become old and Madhuri Dixit hasn’t. That’s why they have called her.
It’s a sad state of affairs, this. If only Bollywood had the humility, and the courage, to acknowledge the people whose work it so brazenly plagiarizes.
Saroj Khan gave Bollywood her best years. She gave Hindi cinema some of its greatest hits. The least one can expect is that her contribution be acknowledged. That isn’t asking for too much, is it?!!