IPL6 inauguration: Pitbull, Bollywood sweep the City of Joy

Team captains line up in Pepsi IPL Opening Ceremony in Kolkata (Image courtesy IANS)

‘Koi yahaan nache nache‘, Usha Uthup and Bappi Lahiri’s voices reverberated through the second largest stadium in the world, the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata. Truly, the near two hour inauguration ceremony of the sixth edition of the Indian Premier League had the perfect blend of Indian classical and western music which urged many a people to shake their legs.

The City of Joy hadn’t witnessed something like this in a long time. Kolkata Knight Riders co-owner and Bollywood ‘King’ Shah Rukh Khan had promised an unprecedented spectacle before the show. And he did manage to live up to his words to a certain extent. It had Rabindranath Tagore, it had Bollywood, it had rapper Pitbull and of course it had some of the world’s most loved and recognized cricketers – the perfect recipe to charm the 50,000 audience that came braving the sweltering conditions.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee lit the ceremonial lamp which was followed by hordes of dancers performing fusion dance to one of Tagore’s most celebrated songs – ‘Aguner Parashmani’. It was interesting to see West Bengal’s brand ambassador Shah Rukh Khan himself immersing in the Bengali culture by reciting Tagore’s poem, ‘Where the mind is without fear’. Perhaps this was his inimitable style of inspiring the Gautam Gambhir-led defending champions, Kolkata Knight Riders to take on the battle fearlessly in the world’s richest cricket league.

Gambhir receives the IPL trophy (Image courtesy IANS)

One of the most striking moments of the entire ceremony was a lady acrobat draped in white, flying high over the arena who would deliver the coveted IPL 2013 trophy to the defending captain, Gautam Gambhir. After the usual mind-boggling performances by stilt walkers, gymnasts, Chinese percussionists, the cricketers got an opportunity to be in the limelight as the nine skippers signed the pledge, “Play hard, play fair.”

If the first half hadn’t totally succeeded in perking up the mood of the audience, the second half was what they had been waiting with bated breath and it soared the Kolkata temperature even further. Bollywood made its grand entry through Deepika Padukone clad in black leather attire. After gyrating to a medley of her hits, she made way for the other glam queen Katrina Kaif.

Katrina’s entrance was reminiscent of Elizabeth Taylor’s famous entry to Rome scene in the 1963 movie, Cleopatra. Exuding her usual bewitching charisma, she held the spectators in rapture through some of her most loved songs. From ‘Sheila ki Jawani’ to ‘Chikni Chameli’, to ‘Zara zara touch me’, Katrina really made the audience dance to her tunes!

The best, as always, was reserved for the last. The cynosure of all eyes, Shah Rukh Khan arrived like the ‘Don’ to the theme music from the eponymous 2006 film. The Badshah enthralled the audience as he jived to a variety of hits from his career spanning more than two decades. From a young Khan’s ‘Yeh kali kali ankhen’, to the evergreen ‘Koi mil gaya’ to the mellifluous qawwali number, ‘Tumse milke’ to the very recent, ‘Chammak challo’ – SRK gratified everybody present and kept them craving for more.

Bengal’s very own veteran music director Bappi Lahiri and singer Usha Uthup turned back the clock and crooned to ‘Hari om hari’, ‘Ramba ho’ apart from the previously mentioned ‘Koi yahaan’, leaving the stage set for the Cuban-American rapper Pitbull. Armando Perez, better known as Pitbull was expected to be the showstopper and well, he turned out to be so, too. Dressed in his trademark black, Pitbull held sway with his ‘Sexy and I know it’ and ‘Don’t stop the Party’ among others which had half of the audience breaking into a jig.

IPL is the perfect conglomeration of sports and show business which is why it is referred to as ‘cricketainment’. The entertainment for now is over. Cricket begins in a few hours.