Dum Maro Dum

The title translates roughly as an invitation to take a puff, and Bollywood had heard nothing like it. In Dev Anand's 1971 film Hare Rama Hare Krishna, shot in Kathmandu, Zeenat Aman plays Janice, a young woman in hippie dress who sways through a haze of cannabis smoke, singing with a look of ecstasy and urging everyone to take another toke. Rahul Dev Burman wrote the music, Anand Bakshi the words. It was meant to be a duet, with Lata Mangeshkar voicing the good girl and Usha Iyer, later Usha Uthup, the bad girl. Plans changed, and Asha Bhosle sang it alone, though Iyer can still be heard in the wordless cries at the end of each stanza and chanting with the chorus. Charanjit Singh played the droning transichord that opens the track and Bhupinder played guitar. The result was so strong that Anand reportedly left the full version out of the film, worried it would overshadow everything else; he even had his own character answer it with a song warning against dishonouring the name of Rama. Kishore Kumar once said it could bring a dead person back to life. It topped the Binaca Geetmala annual list for 1972 and won Bhosle the Filmfare award for best female playback. It shaped the careers of both Burman and Bakshi, and its psychedelic sound has travelled ever since, sampled by Method Man and Busta Rhymes, re-recorded with the Kronos Quartet, and heard in Grand Theft Auto and an iPhone launch.