Unsung Studboys: Nana Patekar Special Part 1

Kyunki Nana Bhi Kabhi Studboy Tha. You don’t believe me? Read on.

So well, somebody says ‘Nana Patekar’ and you think of the angry man drumming his head in frustration and shooting people. But he was not always that way. He should have been the pin-up boy on your wall and you missed out! I have two goldmines to showcase in today’s show and tell that will finally reveal the truth!

Now both are from the 1990s Golden Collection and redefined the idea of being ‘cool’. This was when hiphop and rap made its first foray into Indian cinema.

SIDE A

So ‘Love Rap’ from Krantiveer, the chartbuster from 1994! Starring pretty boy Atul Agnihotri

and the 90s ki bombshell Mamta

But no one does it better than our very own Nana! He is the dapper, brooding hottie in the corner who gets hit on endlessly by hot babes!

Okay, not babes exactly. But he IS hit on okay? And she WAS a bombshell once upon a time okay? Okay?

So Atul and Mamta are burning the dance floor with their swag moves.

And keeping to Hindi cinema tradition, the electrical guitars of course are played with no jack/amp/chords.

The lyrics by Sameer were pathbreaking. So way ahead of its time. He brought in rap way before the Honey Singhs and the Raftaars came to the party. Anand-Milind bring the words alive with their foot-tapping music. The song is a profound comment on the malady of love. The effect it has on the human mind is like a fever: it grips it entirely and leaves it incapable of sensing, feeling, doing anything else. Beautifully rendered in these lines:

‘maine dekha jab
teri nazro ke through
kabhi hundred-one,
kabhi hundred-two
uss dinse hua
ye fever shuru
kabhi hundred-one,
kabhi hundred-two’

The young lovers are dancing and poor Nana sits getting drunk on Thums Up.

The pub is interestingly designed like a gladiator ring and all ze peepuls sit in ze galleries in front of booze bottles like a boss. Boy and babe. With one arm distance in between. Coz that’s how we roll, bitches!

And then pretty boy has a seizure on the dance floor and dies of the trauma caused by thinking of watching the footage of the song later.

Just kidding. He is writhing on the dance floor with kabhi hundred one, kabhi hundred two.

And then random dance break by unnamed bare-chested hotness:

Following which the old hag from 101 Dalmatians walks in:

and spots our man and goes ‘Wow’
She asks him to dance, gets rejected and then casts a spell on him. Witchy witch!
And Nana can dance saala!

Some classic lines soon follow:

‘you know my age ain’t thirty plus nine
oh that means you are old wine!’

‘na ishq mein ho generation gap
hum mil ke karenge
aaj love rap’

So folks, before Pyaar mein Twist, Cheeni Kum and Bade Achhe Lagte Hain, here was Nana screaming at the top of his voice that there is no age for love! Umar nahi dil dekho yaar.

Getting a glimpse of Bindu’s legs, Nana goes crazy, throws his jacket and transforms into Nataraj. Arre pencil nahi, stupid, bhagwan! Siva! Jeez!

Horny aunty is also on a roll.

Of course, despite all that awesomeness that Nana exuded, this lady in the orange jacket steals the show. Just see those moves. That is what epic looks like. Watch and learn.

Seeing which Nana runs away to practice. FIVE years he works on his swag. And then he comes back in 1999 with sheer epicness in Kohram – ‘Pagal Hua’ (which I will save for Part 2 of this post).