Jimmy Aaja and His Silent Confession

In 1982 an Indian film directed by Babbar Subhash debuted, titled, Disco Dancer. In the years that followed, the movie became a cult classic, notably in countries as Russia and Turkey. Predominately because of the disco music featured in it, it is now an archetypal Bollywood film. The most famous song in the soundtrack was "Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Aaja," which can currently be viewed on the link below.

Disco Dancer - Jimmy Aaja

Isolated from the plot, the musical number becomes enigmatic and it is interesting to speculate about what is going on. At first, there are two forces at work in the video: the puzzlingly immobile male figure, wearing white robes, and the disco belle with spectacularly long hair. They are situated on an intensely lit stage. The lights blink schizophrenically, as though to the rhythms of their own, internal song. Occasionally the figures on stage are even engulfed in these lights, as though superimposed over their person, and the effect is overwhelming. It is almost as if the lights are part of an organism overjoyed by the music, and could be possibly considered a subcharacter to the principal plot. They jump out from every object on the stage, often as pointed spears propelled from the disco ball, the electric background and the sequins on the lovely disco dancer’s vest. Jimmy, only, in his drab white robes seems to emit no electric-lit fanfare; although often neon lights dance upon his face, the same way flames stick their devilish tongues from a fire.

The song’s lyrics feature mostly the male’s name—Jimmy Aaja—which the dancer repeats as a bird chirps to its lover. The name is repeated so many times one cannot help but think that perhaps she is attempting to remind Jimmy of his name, and on a deeper level his past and history.

This theory becomes increasingly appealing as the video progresses, mostly because of the saturnine look on Jimmy’s face. His expression cannot be described in one word: it is at once bewildered, distressed, glum, deeply depressed, confused, disoriented and ashamed. His pose is statuelike—the video occasionally cuts to Jimmy’s face to show his reaction to the female’s singing and seductive dancing, but, as though playing with our expectation (“surely he has changed positions or emotions by now?”), his expression never alters, unable to be persuaded or even reminded by his counterpart.

Our Jimmy seems lost, confused, not sure why he is on stage with this beautiful woman who attempts in vain to remind him where he is, who he is—it is as though her words mean nothing to him; they even send him into deeper confusion and despair. And to the viewer, this is mystifying and even uncanny, for, out of anyone that this gorgeous woman could have decided to seduce and spend her time bewitching, it is this sad fellow.

Suddenly, during a bridge in the music, a third force enters the scene: the audience. Of course, we were aware that an audience might be watching these two people since the setting is a stage. An audience is also shown in the beginning of the video and often the camera pans past silhouetted heads gazing toward the stage, but one might assume that is just more setting the scenario than character development. We assumed just as any play--or film of a play--is depicted on a stage, that we were meant to use our imaginations to dissolve both theater and audience and imagine the torn lovers in any scenario we might wish: in a field, a private room, a ballroom or even in a discotheque. Very rarely during this kind of theatrical moment is the eye turned upon the viewer.

The first figure we are directed to is a medium-set male figure who is dancing glibly in his seat. Behind him a few females are also bouncing to the music, enjoying themselves. Meanwhile, the female on stage jumps around, performing a hybrid of western and Indian dance moves. She seems unaware that of all the males in the frame, her beloved Jimmy is the only downcast one. Yet her gaze remains steadfastly fixed upon him alone.

The point that allows us to speculate deeper into this, at first glance, simple music video, is that Jimmy’s stone cold pose, his peculiar glances and furrowed brow contrast so starkly juxtaposed next to the carefree female figure. She smiles and curls her fingers seductively at him as though she has taken no note—as we have—that Jimmy is not amused by her blithe movements. It seems unfair, doesn’t it, that out of all the males in the theater, the most beautiful woman has chosen Jimmy to dance around? Why does she not give up after a few seconds? How can she dance and sing for the whole song before realizing that Jimmy is just dead weight? And meanwhile, the rest of the male figures are left to watch enviously this lover’s scene. They are perhaps all thinking what I would if I was in the audience: “If I were in Jimmy’s place, I wouldn’t react so forlornly as he does. I would show her what a man I was and I would love her as such beauty deserves.”

Love is like that, isn’t it? For reasons known only to those involved in the relationship, people fix themselves to one another. The outsiders can view these two in their vacuum, they can listen to the conversations they have, they can watch them walk through a park, arm in arm, and yet, just as the audience would never dare overstep the bounds of the stage, you are completely incapable to transcend the role of the viewer between two lovers. Sometimes, as is the case with the disco dancer and Jimmy, you think, “I really don’t see what she sees in him” and often “why is she wasting his time on him of all people?” and even “he does not deserve her.” And yet these thoughts are more often than not useless, for nothing can convince a woman who has so resolutely chosen a lover, no matter how foolish, cowardly or depressed he is.

What we have tapped into at this point is the mysterious force of love. It is perhaps all just chemistry, and some might say foolishness and primitive baseness—and it probably is just that. That our bodies and minds can fall for some person who, for all intents and purposes, does not deserve our caresses. You can trace this back to a mammalian reflex to procreate; or it might be some unhealthy product of society today whereby a woman must choose one man and love him wholeheartedly, even if he does not return her love. To the outsider this is frustrating: one might be so in love with everything about our voluptuous disco dancer and, as we have said already, think “I would treat her as she deserves to be treated” and yet you can do nothing to persuade her that your love would be more fulfilling. For love has, perhaps haphazardly, latched the two together and there is some invisible force at work that defies all logic.

The male/female dichotomy is pointedly at issue in the video in many ways. Of course there are the two main characters posed at separate sides of the stage. There is the malaise of the male figure, and there is the happy-go-lucky sentiment of the female character. One has perhaps seen too much of the world’s woes to go on dancing, no matter if he is on stage before a huge audience, no matter what they expect. The other fulfills the role she is expected to play: as a dancer, a beautiful, made-up, joyful diva; and above all she embodies a feminine naïveté that is more a product of nurture versus nature, in that as a girl she was perhaps sheltered and protected from the horrors that Jimmy was allowed to see at will.

There is also the men and women in the audience, which the camera fixes upon occasionally. It is not at random, as we begin to realize toward the end of the video, for by the seventh or eighth verse of “Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy/ Aaja Aaja Aaja,” Jimmy’s still confused and horrified look begins to influence his female lover. This affects no one more than the women in the audience, as they sing along with their heroine. You can see them mouthing “Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy” as though with their help, by a some sort of collective female force, they might wake Jimmy from his stupor.

This leads us to another male/female difference here: whereas the males looked on stage lasciviciously at the female, wishing they were in Jimmy’s place, the females feel a kind of bond in the struggle of the disco dancer. They care less about Jimmy than the sadness that the female eventually adopts by the end of the video. There is a sisterly connection here, where, in contrast, a brotherly one could be described as a familial competitiveness. Jimmy’s cold reaction toward his lover’s words and movements affects the women in the audience as much as the woman on stage.

As the climax and denouement of the video approach the joyful singing turns sour. Unable to avoid it any longer, the female is either suddenly aware of Jimmy’s horrified pose, or perhaps she is gradually dragged down into depression by his consistent glare, unable to sustain it any longer. We might imagine that now she has seen the horrors of the world second-hand through her male counterpart, and this is perhaps just as harrowing if not more—a man she loved and admired so much could not defeat evil after all, and in her love, she probably assumed him to be invincible. All of a sudden the singing is no longer singing, but desperate shouting as someone might shout desperately into a cavern that his friend has fallen into, as though shouting and crying would bring him back. The final few “Jimmy” verses decrescendo and the tempo slows. There is an increasing amount of alarm in the female’s voice, why does Jimmy not react to her?

She calls to him three last times, “Jimmy,” then the face of Jimmy who looks at her hoping that she can remind him of his past; another “Aaja” and he realizes that the whole song has been performed in vain, nothing can bring him out of this chasm he has been propelled into; he begins panting, fretting he is eternally lost; a final “Jimmy Aaja” and Jimmy has lost all hope, his head falls crestfallenly toward the floor as the disco dancer’s singing turns into weeping.

At this point, the disruption in the belle’s singing throws a cog into the scene. Jimmy’s depression has weighed upon everyone else and as his lover weeps into Jimmy’s robes, the crowd grows restless. The woman yells something in Hindi and finally switches to English, “I hate you! You’re a coward!” she tells him and she runs off stage. A male in the audience stands up and yells something in a mocking tone at Jimmy. When the audience laughs, jeers and pelts him with shoes, Jimmy’s only action is to shield himself from being hit. His uncanny moping is barely disturbed by the ruckus of the crowd, leaving us to continue wondering why he did not just leave the stage in the first place?

The puzzling nature of Jimmy’s place in the video is twofold. Clearly, he once was a performer and now has either forgotten who he is or what he does. His forgetfulness seems to cause him pain, and seeing his beautiful counterpart on stage with him does not soothe his woes but only causes him more suffering. It is difficult to understand and we cannot help but feel so removed from Jimmy’s plight as to feel disgust for him. We are at a loss to feel sorry for Jimmy because his pain and suffering are incomprehensible, irrational and absurd. And that which causes him to suffer—the stage, the female before him, the repetition of his name, the song even?—he cannot tear himself from. The cure to his suffering--the song, a reminder--becomes the cause of his suffering, and from neither can he tear himself away. Yet, perhaps, given his evident celebrity status, even if he were to leave the stage, he might still be on view. He is like a pair of lovers who are aware that they are constantly in the public’s eye, with never a moment of privacy.

Through his silence and obvious suffering, Jimmy in this vein is communicating a sad reality: that all our actions and thoughts seem to be part of a play, that we are just characters in some bizarre Bollywood film and all our joys, all of our thoughts and observations, all of our loves and relationships are but for the enjoyment of the audience who, once removed, can only enjoy them second hand, either with enviousness or solidarity. Jimmy’s steadfastness in the face of blithe persuasion shows he is caught in this cyclical vacuum, never able to enjoy life’s pleasures, nor left alone to ponder life’s horrors, for the public is constantly attempting to glean these for themselves, and even when they have them, they can never enjoy them as fully as Jimmy could have.

In Jimmy's silence, he confesses what his disco dancer lover could not have said in an entire song: that all of a life is an unescapable stage.