Nothing perks up a drowsy Sunday afternoon more than watching a buxom beauty belt out a song while suspended a thousand feet above the ground, holding onto a bunch of multi-coloured helium balloons, and simultaneously gyrating her waist. What adds to the pleasure is seeing her lover, dressed in a glaring white polka-dotted suit, shoot the balloons one by one, causing her to sway back to terra firma.
This is preceded by him driving through the countryside in a vintage car with beer bottle and Dennis the Menace stickers, while she runs (mind it) alongside and does all sorts of acrobatics without the slightest quiver of her lips at the threat of a potential RTA (road traffic accident). The song starts with him noisily whispering “I love you”, and before she could recover from her nervous giggles, he follows it up with a query, “ewwh love me?” Such feats can’t occur on open roads without an audience, and sure enough a few bell-bottomed youths run after them to witness the awesome spectacle that unravelled before them. A caravan of bullock-carts feature too.
She laments how tough it is to make him understand the matters of the heart, while he throws modesty out of the window, and announces how he, and no one but he, is her true love. It was an era before the advent of the internet and speed-dating, and the best chance at finding their perfect match was at college or through the neighbourhood pandit and his horoscope collection. The song ends happily and they ride into the distant and expectantly happy horizon in the charming little car.
I had always loved the song, catching it on the radio or one of the old cassettes from my father’s music collection; but it was only today that I had stumbled upon the video accompanying the lovely Asha Bhosle song “Yeh Ladka Hai Allah Kaisa Hai Deewana”.
The best humour is always unintentional, and this endearing video is definitely a prime example of that maxim. And now I can’t stop humming the catchy tune ever since.
Dialect of Heart 