Never must have Bappi Lahiri or producer-director B. Subhash dreamt that the super-hit Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy aaja aaja aaja song from their Disco Dancer (1982) become a rage over again 40 years later. Believe it or not but the chorus of the original song rendered by Parvati Khan, has become the protest song for Chinese citizens frustrated with COVID curbs. The word ‘Jimmy’, when transliterated into Mandarin, sounds something like ‘Give me rice’ (‘Jie mi’). The first few lines of the song are being transliterated to mean, ‘Give me some rice. Who can give me? I ran out of it. No need to give much rice, my family has only a few members.’ A video showing Chinese netizens grooving to the 1982 song, with empty vessels in their hands, is making the rounds of Chinese social media. Many of those dancing are wearing improvised saris. Actually, there are various versions of the song, and they have been seen by millions on social media, especially on Douyin, China’s version of Tik Tok.
The song has become a novel way for the citizens of China to protest against the government’s exasperating and strict COVID-19 restrictions. It can be interpreted as a plea from the people to the government to lift its harsh restrictions on them although there are only a handful of COVID-19 cases reported from a locality. At least 28 cities across China had implemented different degrees of lockdown measures as of last week. It is believed that around 207 million individuals were affected by the lockdown measures.