I have been wondering since my childhood the inspiration behind the most famous song in the history of Pakistan Film Industry “Mery Khiyalo Pe Chahi hei ik sorat matwali si…KOKO KOREENA KOKO KOREENA” from the film ARMAAN (1966).
Childhood turned into youthfulness and I got the opportunity to join an Art n Design School that made my professional path in the direction of Advertising. Time flew but the song kept bugging me…who is KOKO KORINA and why is it that the lyricist chose such absurd and catchy words… I mean why not RORO ROZINA or GOGO GORINA for that matter?
Incidentally I have been assigned a project that deals with the branded opportunities in media related programs. So for that I was just horsing around checking some links on Youtube and I came across the Korina song once again…the song which has been haunting me for more than 25 years has opened up again…But this time it was different…KOKO KORINA was to reveal herself… the video was streaming and buffering on a regular speed; it kept freezing at some frames and I was waiting for the Song to run in full swing… the frames that froze were displaying Waheed Murad dancing, Clapping, Drumming, Random soft drink bottles, Not-So-Beautiful Girls and Cheerfulness… but wait a minute did I just mention soft drinks in the song!
Yes that was the revelation I got! The Song was full of Coke bottles and its branding all over the place…. All of a sudden it made sense! The word KOKO sounds exactly like COKE-COKE!
It was indeed the first-ever branded song in the history of Pakistani Cinema and with a great tastefulness and nth level of entertainment value without even pushing the visibility of Coke bottles.
By any means I am not questioning that the lyricist was asked to embed the branding in his song, but somehow everything gelled so well verbally as well as visually that no matter what you can’t get the word Coke out of the Song and yet its not hard-selling the product!
But with such a discovery a question has started to bug me; for all these year, this Song-Vertisement has been soft-selling the Coke brand and Making its space in our sub-conscious, and we the loyal fans of Ahmed Rushdi, Sohail Rana, Waheed Murad and his KoKo Korina were innocently indulging in the soft, sweet melody of Commercialism.
Sharjeel Ahmad 