Tu Tu Tu Tu Tara Times...

Do you remember the Juhi Chawla of ‘Gazab ka hai din dekho zara’ . a plaid half tied, hair frizzy and some strange funny sari she is wearing. Then there is Amir Khan the painfully stressed man who is not interested in singing the song in the song! I loved it. Men were always supposed to be like that, painfully not joining in the song that they starred in! Alas I never got stranded in a jungle with any Amir Khan but hey a crazy girl like me did!
Juhi Chawala the girl from Ambala who looked so foolish when she laughed that almost all of us Plain Janes looked embarrassedly at the screen. She bubbled and fizzled and sparkled and was so much fun! Rememeber that song ‘Mumbai se gayi delhi, delhi se gayi pune pune se gayi patnaaaaaaa...fir bhi na mila sajna’ {ditto for me baby ditto for me} She was no screen goddess here like Sridevi( who I loved but couldn’t have resembled) Or Madhuri Dixit( who I worshipped for her grace and femininity) Here is a girl who danced funny looked funny and was funny!
She could do comedy and also get to romance the heroes. It was never permissible before she came in. And yet she did the same matka dances, the Switzerland dances and the tut u tut u tara dances with a andropausal Rishi Kapoor (who says mens age doesn’t show on screen!)
Darr made a goddess out of her. The pretty woman who had a man crazy enough to kill for her. I lost her there. This wasn’t happening to me. Ever Ever. I wouldn’t let it. I wasn’t the vulnerable type. It wasn’t my story or no other girl I knew. Plain Janes have a way of controlling how much attention they want from any man. She became too pretty there to be the same inelegant sweetheart that we loved.
There she was flaming the fantasy of a crazy intense man and she didn’t want him later! Then why was she singing ‘Toot gayi toot ke main chooor ho gayi..teri zid se majboor ho gayi’ I was utterly confused! Was it about yielding after the man had proven himself again and again? Letters written in blood, beseeching phone calls, thrashing up all the other men in the neighbourhood! Was that where we were going? Not me!But who can deny that she looked prettiest in Darr. Remember that orange costume? ‘The Jadooo teri nazarrr, Khusboo teraaa badan!’ where the bubbling pearly white smile suddenly became demure where all these years it was reckless uncalculating! Did the smile change?I don’t know!
I hated the buddy exchanges between her and Sharukh Khan splashed in the media. They are best friends. They are such Buddies. It was all over the papers. More visually then her husband and her kids. The other routine life that she had chosen for herself was overshadowed by these vibrations of a high flying friendship between this hi chemistry couple! But they were both faithful to their spouses!!! Precisely my point! So why were we bombarded with this chemistry that never went anywhere?
The last few films after the fire went out were also quite nice. I loved the woman in ‘Teen Dewarien’ Here was a woman not dependent on her chemistry with another man to occupy the screen. At least not romantic chemistry for god’s sake. She looked so lovely in those handloom saris talking business to the rogue Naseeruddin Shaw the film. There was a comfort and grace that had come by now. It wasn’t the fizzling smiling in all scenes Juhi Chawala.
Then Offcourse there was Juhi of ‘My Brother Nikhil.’ The same wholesome real life girl. A lovely understated performance.
And yet I know when my grandchildren sit down to watch some retrospective on her I would only recall the crazy zingo bingo mad girl dancing those insane steps with a handknit sweater clad rishi kapoor paining to keep pace with her energy. She danced too fast and smiled too much! And was too uninhibited for those not of her generation. I remember the elder women of my family wistfully longing for the Madhubalas and Sharmila Tagore and Rekhas grace. Times had changed and the bridges of feminity like Sridevi were fading
Tu Tu Tu Tara was my impressionable girlhood time. I have henceforth internalised the rule that its okay for women to be gyrating madly to slapdash rhythms. She was the prototype that I had from Bolywood. I am amazed so soon and she looks like a far away yesterday amidst the Deepika Padukones and Katrinas of the world. I miss that clumsy heroine who left her heroes out of breath with her loud laughter. I know Tu Tu Tara times have gone away. But have you noticed how the screen sizzles everytime thet repeat that song on TV. It is just like it was back then. Do you remember?