Dancing like a Hero

Admit it. Sometimes in your younger days you had this dream of dancing like a hero, a film hero I mean. In case you lived your younger days in the 70s and 80s, it was actually easy dancing like a hero than it is now.

These were the thoughts that passed through my mind when I watched a lovely song from the Telugu film 'Rajkumar'. Wonderful Suddha Saveri based tune of Illayaraja and nice lyrics by Atreya. Do see this song now and then you will understand what I meant by dancing like a hero was easy in those days. Don't worry if you don't understand the language. Just watch the dance 'steps'.




(Did you complete watching the song? You need to do that so that what I am going to say now makes some sense to you.)

Let us take this hypothetical situation. You are out with your spouse in a hill station like Ooty or Kodai and you find yourself in an isolated place with lot of greenery around, mountains at a distance and a milky white stream flowing next to you. It is indeed time to break into a song and dance routine. Imagine that you are now about to dance with your spouse at this location. (Well, I know it is difficult for you to imagine it and don't probably want to take that risk. But imagine it anyway). As a hero how would you dance? It would probably be exactly like how Shoban Babu dances here!!! (Ofcourse, the female of the species have the advantage of learning some dance form in their early years and can generally be better dancers than the heroes like us).

Check out how the dance progresses. First, you strike a pose and look loving at your beloved. She takes a fraction of second to realize that you are giving her the 'loving look' and then turns away shyly. Then you start dancing. First you rotate your hand above your head as if you are using a catapult to drive away those pesky birds. You end the sequence by extending your hand to ask for alms. Once someone has put some change in your palm, pick up the coins and throw it to people behind you. That completes the first sequence or what is famously called 'stepsu'. Then you turn into a tailor and perform some measurements. The other 'stepsu' sequence which happens in the second part of the song asks you to clap your hands, as if calling a fellow who is in the front section of the bus and then snapping your fingers, as if saying, 'ticket ticket'. Thus the sequence repeats, clap clap, 'you in the front', snap, snap, 'ticket ticket'. Yes, now you have successfully completed the step. All you have to do is to imagine yourself to a conductor and this sequence is a piece of cake. Then you turn into an expert archer, pickup an arrow, and then using the bow, shoot the arrow. Additionally, you need to hold the leading lady at her waist and lead her ahead or hold your hands behind your back and walk 'stylishly' either forward or sideways. Then there are the mandatory 'exercise' steps in all songs. Thats all you were expected to do and I am sure even with our non-existing dancing skills we will be able to perform these tasks to the satisfaction of everyone involved.

In those days all you needed was some mannerism which defined you. You just saw Shoban Babu how he danced. If you turned your body by 90 degrees, put one hand on your waist and extend the other hand hold it as if you are cupping a fully opened lotus , you were NTR. If you were buttoning your collar with one hand and pointing skywards with another hand, as if to say, "If I tighten my collar any further, it is heavens for me", then you were ANR (Akkineni Nageshwar Rao), if you held your hands stiffly by your side and ensured you didn't demonstrate even an ounce of flexibility and show the same expression on your face whether song is about your first night experience or the death of a beloved one, you were Krishna. (In case you were a second rung hero like Muralimohan or Ranganath, you were not asked to do even these small things. You just need to show up for the shooting. )

How drastically things have changed!! Nowadays heros not only need to be good looking but they also need to have the perfect body. I mean, the only talk nowadays is about six pack abs and washboard abs. People like NTR had only one pack and a large one at that. That was advantageous to many people. If you had a small paunch, your girlfriend was quite happy since you resembled NTR is some way and that probably made her friends jealous!! But now, oh boy, you are dead. Bulge is a strict no-no in personal life (though all IT companies talk about bulge mix all the time). Hair styling was easy then for a hero. You applied some Brylcream on your head and combed the hair back or you put on some wig and your are done. Now you must comb you hair carefully and then with even more care disburb it so that it has the aesthetic 'I didn't comb my hair and I don't give a damn what you think' look. You got some help from your leading ladies in those days. When the dance step demanded that you hold your leading lady at her waist, it was quite easy given that most of them had enormous waists. Nowadays it is size zero and no waist is the norm. I will ofcourse concede to one difficulty that the heros faced while dancing during those time. They were always asked to lift the leading lady and then rotate. Sometimes I think we would have got more gold medals in Olympics had these heros participated in the weight lifting events.

Dancing in modern movies is hell. They expect the hero to have a body made of rubber. Blame it on the original rubber man Prabhu Deva. Till the time Michael Jackson did it, it was OK for us. Afterall it was foreigner. When Prabhu Deva did it, you could no longer use that argument and every hero now has to learn all these new 'stepsu'. Other dance directors like Lawrence followed suit. Now instead of a simple 'ticket ticket' step which was quite harmless, you now have 'stepsu' in which each part of the body moves in a different direction independently!! I am sure if you try hard, you may get the first part right. That is, moving your body parts independently. What I am not sure is if you can put them all together at the same place later. Not only should your body be made of rubber, you also need to be a high jumper, a gymnast, long jumper all in one. (Though I have given examples of Telugu heros whatever I have said is applicable to Tamil movies as well)

Needless to say, the expectation of the girlfriends of the current generation has gone up tremendously regarding how their boyfriends should be and how they should dance. No wonder most of the youngsters nowadays look so morose even though they earn high salaries. For unlike us, they can't dance like a hero!!!

If you still not conviced check out these vidoes.

First one is that of NTR's dance from Telugu Don, 'Yugandhar' (Uploaded in youtube by 10000loops)



Now watch this song from the same film which was remade now. I rest my case!! (youtube video uploaded by ARUNPRASADVIT)