The Gili Gilia of the Jumping Japang

Disclaimer: This may not be nor will be the worst I had or would blog! So read on...

I never imagined there ever would be a day when I would be headlong diving into discussing the extra, miscellaneous, all and sundry part of IPL. Leave alone that, I never ever fantasised playing an IPL Fantasy League or even discuss IPL circus in all its nitty gritties. Yet, here I am...

Ridiculous as it may sound and most irritably hated as it may come through, I guess the most imaginative and catchy thing about IPL 6 has been the Jumping Japang signature.

Someone asked me why do you endorse it. Do I endorse it? I don't know. I am not sure! But one thing, I have been culpable of humming it or even singing it and chiggy wiggying myself to the tune with some kids at the summer theatre workshop for no reason, except because it is silly absurd and pure fun with no sense! So why has it caught the imagination of people as never before did any other IPL signature song? Perhaps excluding the greatest IPL Franchise anthem of all times - I am biased, but with good reasons - THE CSK Whistle Podu tune!

C'mon, we've seen and heard anthems and anthems of franchise and franchises from NFL to EPL to AFL to what nots... and I do not think honestly there is anything remotely a patch on Whistle Podu. Why? Because it is so innate Chennai. It is not even Tamil, it is Chennai. The quintessential gaana of the Chennai slums that has been elevated into a ubiquitous Chennai anthem. Korbo Lorbo Jeetbo? We don't hear it anymore, do we? Even SRK has not been saying it,  leave alone singing it! How often do we hear HALLA BOL? Not as often. I don't mean on TV... am sure in Jaipur it is all over as obviously as any other city-based team's anthem is! But... what makes WHISTLE PODU click? Next to it perhaps Halla Bol? Because they are Indian... closer to culture than the Bollywood item numbers to which the fair-skinned pom-pom girls in the Extra Innings Studio cluelessly dance and pout lips in a smiling fashion! Closer to culture than anything a-cultural RCB can get to! I mean... RCB is quintessentially Bangalore as Bangalore can get cultureless in an Indian sense! Seriously... Bangalore can never call itself culturally a crucible of Karnataka as Mumbai to Maharashtra or Kolkata to West Bengal or Chennai to Tamilnadu is. It is such a poor pseudo-westernised melting pot that more westerners are comfy with the city than localites. The localites... well, they have to put up a brave face, don't they? On the other hand, Chennai or Kolkata or Mumbai never has to. Even Pune! Oh... oh... the PWI dance-girls have been sensational in a very Indian cutesy way. A brilliant and lovely testimony to the fact that cheer-girls need not be item-numberish in a sort of baring way! You really feel good as an Indian about the PWI cheer-dancers than the White Mischief RCB beer-dancers. Aesthetically attired and not copying or aping the west! That perhaps is the second best thing about Indianness as far as IPL 6 can get, next to Whistle Podu! So,  back to Whistle Podu.

It has the soul of Chennai enshrined in it and the image of that old lady in shades indelibly etched in the viewers mind with her whisle and dance. On the other hand... I saw the Sunrisers anthem! The second Chennai based outfit (technically it's Chennai, ain't it? With Sun TV as Franchise owners rather than Hyderabad!)... naaaw! Not ok! And for all the Indianness they try to reach out to, Mumbai must have something very Aamchi, but  no they haven't. Delhi anyway doesn't count and Sherry is more KXIP than KXIP are. What's their anthem  again? That is why... next to Whistle Podu, I consider Jumping Japang is worth the rage it has become. It is sooooo cheesily Indian, cheesily Bollywood, Kollywood and all other woods rolled into one for the cheesy dance and gestures and the expressions and the unimaginable GK and Samir and Sherry and Kapil jigging to that tune, howsoever ridiculous it might come through. But.... but... in its ridiculousness lies its rub as the Bard would accept!

So... let's jump and japang!