Hawa Hawai [Mr. India] 🎶

All Bollywood superstars must have that one solo chartbuster that forever becomes synonymous with them. For Sridevi, it happened in Mr. India with ‘Hawa Hawai’. The song features a staple 1980s filmy situation where the heroine infiltrates the villain’s den under false pretences, but Sridevi turns this cliché into a cult. As the song explodes on-screen, the actress literally descends upon earth like a goddess in gold.

The prelude is vintage Sridevi as she starts to ad-lib nonsense such as King Jing, ping pong, Honolulu and Mombasa. You gape at her elastic face altering with every word, her gesture varying with every phrase. That Sridevi performs this gibberish with such affection again affirms that no matter what the material, she could do magic with it. But, according to Saroj Khan, what we see is just a fraction of the fun: "The full song has an extended prelude-a full one-minute intro music. Accordingly, I had choreographed a longer sequence where when Sri enters, there’s already a girl dancing and the boys giving her company. Sri has no idea how to join in and the boys gradually make her dance. She had done some super comedy there, but it got edited out."

Great comedy requires an actor to be brave enough to mock oneself and Sridevi does it wholeheartedly. She makes a fool of herself with aplomb and that makes ‘Hawa Hawai’ unique. Interestingly, a flustered Kavita Krishnamurthy had called up Pyarelal to inform him that she had mispronounced a word in the song. The composer assured her that so rambunctious was Sridevi’s performance that her goof-up only added to the fun.

While Saroj Khan was the song’s official choreographer, a tiny Ahmed Khan had also secretly chipped in. it was during the shooting of Tina’s hospital scene that Sridevi had called ‘Ahmu’ and two other kids to another room and asked them to teach her breakdance moves. Having noticed that they were trained in that dance form, the actress had no qualms in making these youngsters her guru! Ahmed proudly recounts his first choreography stint at age ten: "We showed Sri Ma’am some steps and kept telling her that they are difficult to learn but she picked them up fifteen minutes. She grinned and said, “Now I will tweak it with my comedy.” That version is what you see in “Hawa Hawai”. The fact that she added her own secret sauce to every song is what makes them so unique. I was zapped that day that despite being such a huge star, she had the humility to learn from even kids like us. She’s the only actress who could dance just with her face."