Kamina Mahina

For those of you whose Hindi is as deplorable as Sonia Gandhi’s, Kamina is Rascal and Mahina is Month, so the post title is – Rascal Month.

Now to understand what I am about to narrate, you absolutely have to see this song.

*Warning – Make sure there are no children around because they will start asking unnecessary questions like why Uncle and Aunty are not kissing each other instead of dancing like a bear and a baby elephant. Yes, that is exactly what they ask. Behold the Hashmi Generation!

Now, if you were able to endure the video till the end, let me congratulate you because you have the GQ (Gyration quotient) of 250. There is a high possibility that you are a product of the 90s when such bouncing breasts and swaying posterior exercises were the bread and butter of an army of choreographers.

The year was 1994. I was 15, high on Shilpa Shirodkar’s assets (yes, the actress in the video). She used to turn me on every time she jumped on that window and shillyshally-ed her tush. Akshay Kumar used to be hairy during those days. He was trying to take over Anil Kapoor but his growth was not even 10% of the minimum required KL (Kapoor Limit) because you could still see his body parts other than his head. To reach KL, it was mandatory to look like a head floating in air in a dark room. Back to Shilpa Shirodkar. There was something very seductive in her moves. Although now when I see the song, I wonder how the house was able to stand the earthquake she unleashed or how Akshay did not end up with multiple fractures.

The incident happened in the summer of 94. One of our neighbours left her three year old daughter, Kittu, in our house for a few hours. I played with Kittu. I really tried. I banged her balloon on her head, beheaded her doll, squeezed the doll to produce a sound from the whistle in her foot, asked Kittu to go on and eat her doll’s hair and stuff like that. Seeing me so lovingly take care of the little girl, mom went to take a bath after a while. I was dead bored playing with a girl 5 times younger to me and thus switched on the television. After flipping through a few channels, I came across Shilpa trampling Akshay and decided to enjoy the song. I had no idea that Kittu will be absorbing the spectacle like a sponge.

To my utter respite, Kittu’s mother arrived in the evening. As she plonked on the sofa, Kittu ran towards her. She suddenly stopped a foot away from her mother, took the corner of her skirt between her tiny fingers and to my horror, started singing the song she had so silently watched.

“Mast mahina bada kamina, rimzzzzim hai barrrrrrrrrsaat

Kamina kamina bada zzzza mahina”

My eyes popped out and bounced on the floor. I turned into water and splashed on the ground. The Earth cracked open and I was going in. Mom looked at me and narrowed her eyes to invisible slits. Kittu’s mother was speechless. I could hear her scream in her mind – Hai! Hai! What have the Sharmas done to my daughter? This is what they teach their children?

“Ye tu kya ga rahi hai?!?! (What the hell are you singing?),” she asked Kittu when she was able to get back her voice.

But Kittu was somewhere else. She was rotating holding her skirt and kept singing – “Kamina Kamina, bada zzzza mahina!” She was in a trance, stuck in the song and refused to come out of it. Aunty finally picked up a rotating Kittu and left.

Now when I think about it, it was such a different world back then. Now parents allow their children to dance to all sort of raunchy numbers and ‘Kamina Mahina’ sounds like a nursery rhyme. I also realized that children have an immense observation power. They might be sitting harmlessly in a corner but that brain of theirs is always working like an intrinsic clock. Parents who take their children to Adults only movies have no idea what they are subjecting their children to and you can find plenty of such brainless parents in India.

Unfortunately, my mother had a similar realisation that her son was being subjected to too much of Shilpas and Mamta Kulkarnis and she started keeping an eye on me. My dates with Shilpa were over.

Kittu, wherever you are right now, I forgive you with all my heart.

p.s. Akshay Kumar plays a very unique mutant in the movie. His body produces vests. Watch closely as Shilpa dances around him. He takes off his shirt, then the vest. Shilpa hangs on a semi-naked Akshay like a monkey on a branch of a tree. Then he wears his shirt again (no vest this time). After some time, he takes off his shirt again (!!!), and viola! He is wearing a vest beneath it. So there. Mutant theory hence proved.