The Latino effect

Back in the 1960s, Shammi Kapoor was a rage. He is often hailed as the original “Jumping Jack of India” owing to his idiosyncratic dance moves. One of the movies that he starred in 1961 was ‘Junglee’, directed by Subodh Mukherjee. The film was a sleeper hit, a huge credit of which goes to the music created by the dynamic duo of the era Shankar-Jaikishan.

Shankar Singh Raghuvanshi and Jaikishan Dayabhai Panchal were undoubtedly a major force behind the Indian music experimental phase – the phase, where the mood shifted from just melody to the pre-rock genre. Such was the impact of the music that this duo gave to the nation that an important crossing at Churchgate, Mumbai was named after them.

Coming back to the movie ‘Junglee’, the film gave birth to a new term called “Suku Suku” through one of its songs. Shammi Kapoor screaming “Suku Suku” with his tilted head and wavy locks, it became a signature style of the era with young men taking to it instantly to woo their beloveds.

Even though the word itself did not make any sense, it caught on pretty quick. Meaningless catch phrases are something, which is pretty common in Bollywood even now, and quite obviously is not a new phenomenon. This catch phrase though, was not a useless brainchild of the lyricist, but of the original song writer. Yup, you deciphered it correctly. The song was a lift. Surprise, surprise!

The original song however, spelled it as “Sucu Sucu,” so I guess there was some bit of originality involved there. The song was a hit single from Tarateño Rojas, who recorded it first in 1960. Tarateño was a Bolivian singer and composer, whose songs are symbolic of the Argentine and Bolivian people. Owing to its immense popularity, the song was also chosen as the theme song of the British spy TV series called Top Secret in 1960.

This single was such a rage back then, that apart from the Indian version, there are over 40 more versions of it in more about 14 different languages apart from the instrumental versions. It is not entirely known that which one of these versions Shankar Jaikishan listened to, before recycling it and branding it as their own.

All that can be said with certainty is that while all the other versions gave Tarateño his due credit for original score, our desi duo did not believe in such sycophantic behaviour and decided to go with their own names on the label. To be fair, with already two names on the cover of the record, not much space would have been left for the original artiste’s name to be included. We understand.

By:Saharrsh