'Chaiyya Chaiyya' in 'Inside man'

The other day I watched 'Inside man'. I had already seen the promotional clips of the movie and had liked what I saw. It was about what is called a 'perfect bank robbery'. The promo was sleek, sharp and above all, the movie had Denzel Washington. I think that he is pretty good an actor.

So, I was in this cinema hall, with two of my friends, to watch ‘Inside man’. The movie started. The introductory credits started rolling on the screen. And then it happened. I should say that I was shocked and confused when I heard our own 'Chaiyya Chaiyya' on the background. I was like “How on earth am I hearing 'Chaiyya Chaiyya' in a cinema hall in the Netherlands and that when the movie that I was watching was of the name ‘Inside man’ and not ‘Dil Se’”. The opening credits were certainly for the movie 'Inside man'. But, the background score was our own 'Chaiyya Chaiyya'.

‘Inside man’ was really good. It was sleek, as its promo had promised. It was an intelligent movie - a movie that treats the viewers as intelligent beings. Probably the director believed that he does not have to explain the viewers about the minute details of the story, as the viewers are intelligent enough to understand what he wanted to convey. When a movie leaves a few things untold, it catches the imagination of the viewers. This movie leaves quite a few untold stories. It was about an incident – a bank robbery. A group robs a bank for a cause. The cause is scarcely explained. What happens to the characters of the story after the robbery is let to the imagination of the viewers.

The script was crisp. The performance of the actors was good. There was no scene, which was not important to the story line. The movie started smoothly (of course, with Chaiyya Chaiyya), a lot of knots were fastened as it progressed, after a stage the knots were rapidly untied one by one, and the movie ended by releasing the biggest knot of them all. A few loose knots were left for the viewers to undo. Brilliant.

The movie ended and the closing credits started rolling down the screen. Surprise!!! It was 'Chaiyya Chaiyya' again in the background. This time it was a remixed version - the original track mixed with a racy hip-hop track. We watched the closing credits eagerly to find some detail about 'Chaiyya Chaiyya’. Then came the credit for the song. A. R. Rahman, Gulzar, Sukwinder Singh and Sapna Awasti were all thanked for 'Chaiyya Chaiyya'. We let go a small cheer on seeing it. People around threw a quizzical look at us. They may never know the reason for the cheer. But it was a nice experience to hear a familiar song in a good movie in a foreign land and to see familiar people being credited for their good work.