Shake Your Booty :A Retro Reverie

In a time when bell-bottoms were fashionable and vinyl was the pinnacle of audio fidelity, my father's Philips EL 3302 tape recorder reigned supreme. This venerable gadget, a masterpiece of pre-digital ingenuity, housed a collection of self-recorded tapes that were nothing short of aural gold. My father's eclectic assembly featured the luminaries of Indian classical music—Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Kumar Gandharva, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, and DV Paluskar, to name a few. His method of recording was delightfully quaint: he would place the recorder in front of another tape player, creating a charmingly lo-fi soundscape that transformed our living room into a concert hall.

Yet, amidst this pantheon of musical greats, one tape held a unique charm. It was a recording of the legendary movie *Sholay*, complete with its dialogue and soundtrack, and a bonus track that went something like "Shake, Shake, Shake…". At the innocent age of eight, my appreciation for Indian classical music was as developed as a caterpillar in a cocoon. However, this mysterious song piqued my curiosity. With my limited English vocabulary, I deciphered the lyrics to mean "Shake, Shake, Shake…shake your two legs."

In those days, devoid of television, my imagination painted a vivid picture of a white-suited man vigorously shaking his legs to the infectious rhythm. This whimsical misinterpretation became my personal anthem, one I would hum with nonchalant abandon, blissfully unaware of the song's true meaning.

Fast forward to a few days ago. My colleagues and I, braving the incessant Bengaluru rain, decided to take refuge in a quaint restaurant for a coffee break. As fate would have it, the restaurant's sound system began to play none other than the fabled "Shake, Shake, Shake…" tune. Nostalgia washed over me like a monsoon deluge, and I found myself singing along with the fervor of a long-lost reunion. However, my lyrical rendition seemed as harmonious as a cat in a dog kennel.

Curiosity, that relentless beast, led me to consult the omniscient oracle of our age—the internet. To my astonishment, I discovered the song was "Shake Your Booty" by KC and the Sunshine Band. The lyrics, far from the innocuous "Shake your two legs," were an exuberant exhortation to "Shake your booty." 

Reflecting on the myriad occasions I had unwittingly performed my erroneous version, I couldn't help but chuckle. Imagine the bemused expressions of my contemporaries who undoubtedly knew the correct lyrics. As the great philosopher Socrates once said, "I know that I know nothing," and boy, did I embody that sentiment. It was, in retrospect, a rather unflattering moment, highlighting the perils of clinging too fervently to childhood memories without subjecting them to scrutiny.

As I have often mused, memories are a cruel gift. They possess the dual power to delight and deceive, to comfort and confound. Perhaps there is wisdom in allowing some memories to remain untouched, preserving the innocence with which we first embraced them. As Mark Twain so aptly put it, "When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not." Indeed, in the end, it is not the accuracy of our recollections that matters, but the joy and wonder they inspire within our hearts.

In the spirit of humor and reflection, I leave you with this thought: "Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans" (Allen Saunders). So, here's to the innocence of our youth, the charm of our misconceptions, and the timeless joy of a good old-fashioned mix-up.