Surangani

I first heard of this song during my NCC Trekking Camp in school days. As a part of the trekking camp, one of the night halts was in a church dormitory. We were all dead tired after a day long trek in the mountain and ready to crash. The church choir organized a small musical party and this was one of the songs sung by the Father (lyrics were totally different from the normal version. I guess it was about a fellow and his horse, don't remember the lyrics now). This was the only song which made me not to hate the musical party. Later, the senior fellows in the camp mentioned that this was a very popular song. Infact, when we returned by bus on the last day of the trek, this song was sung in the bus and thats when i heard the complete original set of lyrics. It was a very cool song when heard along with the clappings. Infact, the bus ended up with a real boisterous crowd. :)

Later, this became one of the default songs to be sung in all our college trips. Many non-tamilians weren't aware of this song, but they did pick it up very quickly. Almost always, "Roop Tere Mastana" was pitched as the next song...:)

Interestingly, no one ever knew the origin of the song. I used to think maybe it was a non-tamil tune with tamil version of lyrics.

The truth seems to be,it's a Sinhalese Baila song.
It was introduced as a remix in a Tamil movie by Illayaraja. Below is the movie clip. And it doesn't do justice to the real potent of this song when sung with clappings in a gang.



Here is a remix of this song titled,"America, America". Looks like the tune and the girl were meant to be slightly irritating. But it does convey the point :) I quite like the scene where Bush is looking at the dancing lady with an annoying smile! (1.50-1.54)