Rabindra Jayanti:Rabindranath's Birthday - Page 3

SRK, ever the gentleman and, coming from Mumbai, aware of the mischief-making abilities of the culture police, has stepped back. The lead-up to the match between the Knight Riders and Rahul Dravid's Royal Challengers will now be a solemn occasion with local artistes belting out, sorry, rendering — Tagore songs are always rendered, never just sung — Gurudev's music. Expect some dancing too but foot-tapping will be punished with six months in Santiniketan.

Anyway, how we would have loved Shah Rukh on stage! Calcutta has been waiting for him to do the twirl before the T20 for weeks now, after the darkness-damned first Eden match-day's perfunctory attempt.

We love our Tagore too. And how nice it would have been to bring the twain together — King Khan dancing to Aamra shabai raja (we are all kings).

Here's a list of eight songs SRK and/or his Bollywood buds and babes could have danced to — in appropriate clothing — on Panchishe Baisakh. The list has been prepared after much debate and discussion among the cognoscenti and the plebes.

Hey nutan, dekha dik aar-baar janmer- prathamo shubhokkhon

A Panchishe Baisakh programme is never complete without a tribute to the "new". This could have been a tribute to the IPL T20, the newest. Or Shah Rukh could have meant it for his team, KKR, which too is as new, and hope (given the performance) that its next birthday comes around — dekha dik aar-bar. It may have been better still to pray that janmer- prathamo shubhakkhon — the auspicious occasion of birth — revisits KKR so that it wins again, as it had done in the first match, the official moment of its birth.

Kareena Kapoor and Bipasha Basu — one a half-Tagore by the rub-off, ahem, from Saif Ali Khan and the other very much a dusky Banga-lalana (belle, for the uninitiated) — would have greeted the new in lal pere shada sari (white sari with red border) with a large red bindi and carrying a thali with lamps.

Baandh bhenge dao baandh bhenge dao, bha-a-a-a-ango

Obviously, the song to follow Hey nutan. After the slow — but joyful — beat of the opening song, the break-the-barriers vigour of Baandh bhenge dao. The action can swing from one end of the stage to another with lots of girls — de rigueur in Bollywood songs-and-dances — calling on Sourav Ganguly and his boys to break the sequence of four losses. Even Indrani Sen, the Rabindrasangeet singer who otherwise believes SRK should not perform on Panchishe Baisakh and who would be singing herself at the Eden, thinks Baandh bhenge dao will be suitable — well, if he has to.

Farah Khan would be glad to do the choreography for this one where she can hand Shah Rukh a hammer, if she wishes. It's just a suggestion, not a part of the Rabindra Jayanti claptrap.

Indrani Sen also recommends Aamra shabai raja.

Aamra shabai raja aamader ei rajar rajatte

How cute! That's our recommendation, too, and singer Srikanta Acharya's. He doesn't want SRK to dance during the match on Panchishe Baisakh and has declined an invitation to sing. We're not quite sure, though, if the song should follow "break the barriers".

Deep contemplation, however, convinces us that Aamra shabai raja couldn't have been slotted anywhere else. After all, it's only after breaking all the barriers that we all become kings, though possibly not King Khans, of whom there is only one. And this is not to be read as a call to tear down the fencing around the playing area at the Eden to surge forward to the stage and join the King.

Farah can let her kingly or queenly imagination run free here. The entire stage can be filled with SRK look-alikes wearing the golden — if not gold — helmets of the KKR. All kings — "aamra shabai raja".

Khelaghar bandhte legechhi aamar moner bhitare

Even Kings, we can assure you, have to work hard. That's why this song's up next because here Shah Rukh narrates how he spent sleepless nights as he built his "khelaghar", to be interpreted here as the Knight Riders' team. He tells how he constructed the playhouse in his mind as he lay awake — "kato raat tai to jegechhi bolbo ki tore". "How do I say how many nights" — or should it be early mornings since the great man has confessed he goes to sleep at four — "I have stayed awake".

What he wouldn't say is how many sleepless nights he's been spending since his dream team started playing — and losing everything in sight. We just hope the dark circles don't show on stage.

Shedin dujane dulechhinu bone, phulo dore bandha jhulona

It was the day we swayed in the forest, on a swing made of flowers. Makes you teary-eyed with romance. Although it's debatable whether this song fits the occasion, with 80,000-90,000 people looking on, still it's sooo Bollywoodish — "a swing made of flowers". He's already done it with Ash in Bhansali's Devdas, now Shah Rukh could swing with Sourav, symbolising the moment they solemnised the Knight Riders bond. If that sounds too corny — or naughty — Farah can always put Saif and Kareena up there and be boringly formula-driven.

Jodi tor dak shune keu na aashe tobe ekla chalo re

This is the song that fetched Juhi Chawla, running, with husband in tow. Shah Rukh was threatening to go it alone — "ekla chalo re" — when Juhi heard his lonesome yet determined tune. We don't know if she was at her window then, with the full moon ablaze outside. But she did become long-time friend Shah Rukh's partner in Knight Riders. Picturising the duo on stage should be a waltz in the park for Farah.

For singer Lopamudra Mitra Jodi tor dak shune is only the second choice; she prefers Mamo chitte, niti nritte. She has suggestions for the music director — who else can it be but Vishal-Shekhar who did the music for SRK's Om Shanti Om — and Farah. Mitra says: "Not the traditional style… with traditional instruments. We have to take Tagore to the level of world music. In keeping with that, the choreography also has to differ from traditional Rabindrik steps."

Now, we're talking.

hol daar khol, -re grihobasi

Not hard to guess why this one is weighing in, eh? "Throw open your doors, citizens" — it's a call to Calcutta to embrace Shah Rukh and his team. And see how Calcutta has obliged, filling the ground to capacity — blackout or no blackout. Shah Rukh has been overwhelmed by the numbers. It's good that he can't be at the ground and watch himself on TV at the same time. If he had, he would have seen how small he seems in the sea of humanity. We hope you will forgive the cliche…

Tora je ja bolish bhai aamar shonar harin chai

…and the awkwardly serious note in this celebration of T20 marries Tagore. "Whatever you say, I want that gold stag."

Of course, Shah Rukh, that's why we are all here — for the gold stag. "Aamar shonar harin chai sums it up, since the match is all about winning the cup," agrees singer Srabani Sen.

After four defeats in a row, the pay-cheque of Rs 4.8 crore — the gold stag stands in for it — looks just a wee bit hard to grasp but the Gangulys, now joined by that supreme predator, Shoaib Akhtar, can't give up the chase. "It has robbed me of my heart, it is fleet of foot (Shey je monoharan, chapal charan)." Money always does that, doesn't it? And fleet of foot — boy, there's nothing fleeter!

That brings us to the end of this unending programme. Let the match begin. Yes, there's the match too and a gold stag to be won.

Aamar shonar harin chai. If we could only get Shah Rukh to do it.