The Open Dosa

Consuming the Ordinary Differently

When Ketchup Was More Than Just Tomatoes

After going back home the other day, my sister, brother, and I began dancing to the Ketchup Song. My brother was listening to it for the very first time. We watched various covers of the song and danced along. We were having a blast uninterrupted by the surroundings, that we didn’t even realize that the carpenter uncle, who had come to fix our door, was calling out to us. The work went on with the carpenter uncle occasionally peeping inside to see what the commotion was all about.

Back when I was in school, the students from the kindergarten section, which included my friends and classmates, danced to this song at our annual day celebrations. The song back then was really famous and was performed at various cultural events. We students would gather at the auditorium every lunch break to practice for the annual day program. The dance performance would be the last one, so everyone else who had finished their practice would stay back to watch the dancers perform to this iconic song. We, singers, would all be dancing at the far end of the auditorium while they performed. It was all a part of the little joys we shared in school which will remain the happiest of the memories I’ve ever had.

As we moved on to higher grades, our exposure to the song reduced because of the emergence of other pop songs. But it was somewhere in the 5th standard that the song popped up from nowhere and brought us all joy. At every sport meet one class would perform a drill and this year it was our batch’s turn. The drill instructor was the mother of our classmate, so practices were all the more fun. The first few days we were taught the steps and then we practiced along with the music. As far as my memory holds true, my friends and I never followed the drill instructor but rather danced to the signature moves that we were familiar with and had fun our way.

In high school, The Ketchup song was long forgotten. Our Geography teacher gave us a group assignment and divided us into groups of four. After sitting together and working on it for two weeks our PPT was ready. The only thing that remained was the background music. I asked my teammates what they wanted and one of them sent me an audio file, but it sounded boring. After surfing through what I had on my PC I came across the Ketchup Song again. I thought for a while and decided to use it. My sister was against the idea, but I had already made up my mind and now nobody could change it. I kept it a secret from my teammates. When my teacher played our PPT in class there were various reactions that I wish I’d recorded. My teammates looked at me with disbelief; my friends began laughing their butts off and my teacher just smiled at me and towards the end asked me if I had done it on purpose.

The Ketchup Song performed by Las Ketchup, a Spanish girl group was one of the greatest hits of my childhood days. It was released in the year 2002, but didn’t fade away even after three years. The song was catchier for the signature dance moves that everyone had memorised. I hadn’t even realised that I was dancing along to a Spanish song; I just sang along to whatever lyrics came to mind irrespective of whether it made sense to others or not. As long as I got the tune and actions right, all was good.

GIF from giphy

The following two tabs change content below.

Priscilla Prakash

Latest posts by Priscilla Prakash (see all)

Next Post

Previous Post

2 Comments

  1. Jayne 31st October 2021

    It’s actually a great and helpful piece of info. I’m happy that you shared this useful info with us.
    Please keep us up to date like this. Thanks
    for sharing.

  2. Darryl 1st November 2021

    Thanks in support of sharing such a fastidious
    opinion, paragraph is pleasant, thats why i have read it
    entirely

Leave a Reply

© 2024 The Open Dosa

Theme by Anders Norén