Dancing to Fours and Sixes

Cricket is all music when it rains fours and sixes.

Especially in the shortest version of the game which is more about fast scoring than grace and elegance.

And now the theme song of the ICC World Twenty20 hosted by Bangladesh captures the spirit of instant cricket and drives tens of thousands crazy.

Huge crowds are turning up to cheer the teams at the stadia, but flash mobs of young people are adding to the colour by dancing on busy streets and university campuses across the country to the tune composed by Fuad Al Muqtadir.

‘Char Chhokka Hoi Hoi’ (literally ‘Fours, Sixes and cheers’) is also making waves in the staggered diaspora, as young men and women from Bangladesh dance around in locations as far and famous as New York’s Times Square.

The vibrant performances are recorded on video and uploaded on social media, finally finding their way into the website of International Cricket Council.

The global media, too, is taking note.

Some reports say the lyric and rocking appear set to outdo the theme song of the forthcoming 2014 FIFA World Cup.

Reads a headline in Fox Cricket – Check out ‘Char Chokka Hoi Hoi’, official theme song for ICC World Twenty20.

“This year’s best World Cup song has already been released,” it says of a year that will also see the planet’s biggest sporting extravaganza – the soccer World Cup in Brazil.

Thanks to the young and bold of Bangladesh who gyrate to the song, the craze for cricket has touched a new high, global advertising giant Grey’s Dhaka Operations Executive Mahmudur Rahman Shakil says.

“We proposed the idea of Flash Mobs to the ICC to take the madness of cricket to the young.”

“Then we touched base with 12 universities in Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet after ICC agreed to the video-making competition,” he said.

The agency supervised the video making of the flash mobs by 11 universities.

The Dhaka University, North South University, East West University, United International University, Enam Medical College, Chittagong University (CU), Chittagong Medical College, Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology (CUET), Sylhet Agricultural University, Sylhet Engineering College and East Delta University danced to the ‘Char Chokka’ magic.

BUET agreed to the idea but finally stayed away, said Shakil.

“Our choreographers worked with them, taught them some basic steps but the university students did the rest all by themselves.”

“It created such a stir in just a few days!”

And it went viral after the ICC uploaded the videos on its website on Mar 6.

“Personal flash mob videos are being made by more and more groups. We actually don’t know what we should do with all these videos.”

The ICC plans to at least send a ‘thank you’ note to all who have done the ‘Hoi Hoi’ video.

A nation gone crazy

Who would agree to dance on the streets, one would think, but teachers too have fallen for the song, wild but hugely entertaining.

“I thought it was quite a good idea when Grey came and asked us,” said Mohiuddin Mahin, who teaches Social Science at CU.

“The other teachers helped me out so I contacted various departments and the students responded with great enthusiasm,” he said.

So how did it feel?

Says Chittagong University’s Sabrina Farah Oroni, who led and initiated the moves absolutely in the middle of a busy city street: “I didn’t feel uneasy at all. I have been learning to dance since I was a kid. So it was easy for me.

“But dancing in the streets was a different experience altogether!”

“I had some idea about flash mobs,” said another student. “So I joined in as soon as I heard, because I couldn’t let myself miss out on the experience.”

“We did this because it is out of the box, and it’s World Cup after all,” said Nasiruddin of Dhaka’s North South University, whose video was ranked second best on You Tube.

So, as the tall fast bowlers run to bowl dicey Yorkers and batsmen get ready to swing their bats, the young in Bangladesh swing and swirl to the cheers that follow Fours and Sixes in cricket fields, captured in the beats of the bilingual song.

After nearly year-long violence and mayhem on the streets until early 2014, this is probably what the nation needed so desperately.

Read The Bangla Report Here