the appropriator of melodies strikes again

Years ago I caught a film called Bhavna on the good old DD one late night. The film was a Shabana Azmi vehicle about a woman going through almost everything that could go wrong. Several years later (aka today, dear patient reader), I fished out one of my many HamaraCD compilations -- a two-fer with Bappi helming the music console, Bhavna and Dil Se Mile Dil. Bhavna opened with Kavita Paudwal and Asha Bhosle trading lines on dekho din ye. The Rajesh Roshan-esque elements of the arrangement didn't do much to erode that strong familiar feeling of having heard this melody before. A few hours later, the proverbial a-ha moment arrived. Bappi was probably visiting one of Disney's numerous theme parks with his family when that infectious earworm by the Sherman Brothers called It's A Small World made its way into his tune banks, emerging, faster than you could say "Mickey Mouse," as a duet for Bollywood. Surely, he thought, this wouldn't hurt ol' Walter's feelings.

For your viewing pleasure, here's Richard Sherman and here's Bappi's (re)creation.