Blaze through our 4/20 Fun Facts | #201

+ The Simpsons predicted it 🔮

Friends, 

Today is April 20th or 4/20 as it’s written in one part of the world. 420 started out as a secret code among high school students in the 1970s. A group of friends in Marin County, California called themselves “The Waldos” and would meet at 4.20PM to get high. This was an ideal time as school was done, parents weren’t home yet and there were no TikToks to watch. This 4:20 time became a code for them to use in front of their parents and gradually spread across California and beyond. 

This week, we take the intellectual high route and bring out a pot of gold nuggets from Indian pop-culture where we weed out references to the magic dragon. 

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Things we learnt this week 🤓

• The 1978 Hindi film Don is considered one of Indian cinema classics. But the original film is remembered to this day for an iconic song - Khaike Paan Banaraswala. The song starts with Amitabh Bachchan, a man who doesn’t endorse “Foreign” soft drinks but has no qualms about endorsing “Indian” paan masala, forgets his little discomfort with the police by having ‘Shivji ka prasad’. And then proceeds to go ‘Bhang ka rang jama ho chakachak, phir lo paan chabaaye’. Interestingly this song was made for a Dev Anand film called Banarasi Babu, but Dev Anand rejected it. This song was a paan-India hit. 

Amitabh in the mood with a ‘pot’-bellied person with him

• Much before he became Sanskari and made Ramayan, Ramanand Sagar made Charas (the movie, not the substance). It was a film starring Dharmendra, Hema Malini and Amjad Khan. The convoluted plot involves Idi Amin expelling Indians from Uganda and has drugs, crime and international espionage in a way only a 70s movie can. In 2004, Uday Chopra and Jimmy Shergill starred in another film called Charas. It has probably the greatest tagline ever - “A Joint effort”. 
  (Don’t miss the dedication to The Sopranos in the title typography)

The tagline says it all

• In 2013, Prateik Babbar acted in a film called Issaq, which was an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. Any scene showing people smoking in an Indian movies or on TV, has to include the ‘Smoking is injurious to health’ disclaimer. This film had a very clever take on it - When a person is seen smoking pot in the background, the disclaimer says ‘Character is smoking herbs, not tobacco’.
  "O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo? And can he bringeth the rolling papers?" - Juliet (Act 2, Scene 2)

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From IWTK, with love 💌

• A temple in Morena, MP inspired which modern day, now obsolete building? Answer here. 

  iwtkquiz

  

  A post shared by @iwtkquiz

• It’s been 37 years since the first episode of ‘The Simpsons’. Here are some real life events that they predicted in their long run. 

  

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Only In India 🇮🇳

India is not for beginners edition #42012

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❤️ IWTK