“Jumma Chumma De De” is one of the most iconic songs of megastar Amitabh Bachchan’s career. In a recent interaction, choreographer Chinni Prakash shared behind-the-scenes anecdotes from the shoot, revealing how the makers — including Amitabh himself — were initially worried that the song’s hook step might appear vulgar on screen.
Speaking on the YouTube channel Friday Talkies, Chinni recalled, “This song was played to me by Amitabh Bachchan in his vanity van. In those days, there used to be only two vanity vans — one belonged to Amitabh Bachchan and the other to Manmohan Desai. He had one disk and a speaker, and he made me hear the song. Even during those times, 1989–90, he kept high-tech speakers with him.”
Chinni Prakash revealed that the film’s director, Mukul Anand, was hesitant about the now-famous hook step, but he insisted on keeping it. “I got a call from my assistant at 12 in the night… both of my assistants refused to show the hook step to Amitabh Bachchan and told me to do it. ‘We can’t show him. We are scared,’ they told me.”
He then described the moment he performed the step for the megastar for the first time. “I danced on the whole song in front of him with my dancers. Amit Ji saw me and told the director that he needs three months to rehearse and asked them to postpone the shoot,” he recalled. Chinni added, “While doing the hook step, he told me, ‘You are a 5 feet man and it looks good on you, but I am 6 feet plus, and it won’t look good on me.’ But I begged him to do the hook step.”
Chinni Prakash further recalled how the song was later edited and shown in a theatre in the presence of Jaya Bachchan and a young Abhishek Bachchan. Describing the screening, he said, “Everyone was there, and during the six-minute song, there was pin-drop silence, but after the song got over, there was a big shout in the theatre. Never in the history of Amitabh Bachchan has there been a song shot like this. Jaya ji told me, ‘It is looking superb.’”
