A creative Oriental wave
A Bollywood dance number, an Oriental fantasy, and a dragon-sized legacy from the Marvel Universe. This is the story of ‘Mera Naam Chin Chin Chu’, the iconic song sung by Geeta Dutt in the 1958 film Howrah Bridge and immortalized by Helen as the iconic Chinese dancer.
Art historian, Neharika Dinkar, traces the song’s soul back to a London musical titled ‘Chin Chin Chow’, written and directed by Oscar Asche, and loosely based on ‘Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves’ from the Arabian Nights.
Asche’s 1911 hit Kismet, inspired by the Arabian Nights, kicked off a wave of Oriental stage plays based on Middle Eastern folk stories.
Riding the wave of Oriental popularity, Asche invested around £5000 on extravagant exotic sets, lighting, and costumes to stage a grand Oriental play, and introduced a wealthy Chinese merchant to the plot to honour those who came before him.
Before London, there was Lahore
In 1877, four decades before the global production of ‘Chin Chin Chow’, Bombay’s Victoria Theatrical Company had staged a desi musical, ‘Ali Baba aur Chalis Chor’ in Lahore. The play was flush with Oriental flavours depicted in its Chinese costumes and sets.
The reason for choosing the Oriental theme is unknown but it most likely served as inspiration for Oscar Asche’s production, ‘Chu Chin Chow’. It premiered at His Majesty’s Theatre in London on August 3, 1916, and ran for at least 5 years. The musical went on to inspire many movies of the same name.
‘Chu Chin Chow’, the 1934 film, inspired another artistic genius, Stan Lee, to create a Marvel character Fin Fang Foom, an extraterrestrial creature resembling a dragon that first appeared in Strange Tales #89 in October 1961.
What began as an Oriental fantasy in London, travelled the world and ended in a wink and a swirl in Calcutta with Helen’s ‘Mera naam Chin Chin Chu’.
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