Tagged: ofnofame
Ranting on rice, and then some
Of all the stupid things that the Indian humans can do to showcase their ‘talent’, writing on rice grains sits right at the slimy, slushy bottom of the universe, not very far from creating gulab jamun vadapavs, or getting 8-year olds to do pelvic thrusts on national TV because dance India, dance.
Unless your brain has been designed to sexualise Ajay Devgn’s gutka-painted teeth, how can you even think that writing microscopic letters on food grains can be a good idea! I mean, why. You have all the time and patience in the world. You can crack the nuclear codes. You can write your own philosophy. Hell, you can start your own cult.
But. No.
You take a grain of rice. You scribble something on it. You then realise it cannot be read by the naked eye. This is when you must stop. Instead, you get inspired to doodle some more. And then some more. Till you write the entire Bhagavad Gita on grains of rice. Grains that could have been rightfully converted into biryanis, dosas, kheers or phirnis, and justified their presence on the planet. Only, you decide to convert them into freakshows for Uncle Barnum’s circus. Painted with the kind of precision and perfection that can make great serial killers on a good day.
And your fellow countrymen offer milk to your Ganesha statue seeing those tiny mutated pebbles. The lines between crafts, arts and gimmicks blur till they become a huge blob of nothingness. The middle class almirahs filled with middle class aesthetics go ballistic showcasing these granular inanities. Along with milk art, paper carvings, drawing on sesame seeds, and ugly large dolls in their original packaging, of course.
Gulab jamun vadapav and a grand salute to you! Kya baat. Kya baat. Kya baat.
The High Priest of the Lowbrow
Kader Khan wasn’t a writer or an actor.
Of course, IMDB credits him with some 110 titles as a writer, and 416 as an actor, and a career in Hindi films spanning four decades, starting from 1971. Op-ed pieces have reasons to sing paeans about his extremely prolific contribution to cinema, proudly propping up the impressive statistics of more than ten films a year on an average before or behind the cameras. His understanding of Hindi, Urdu, Hindustani and their apt everyday usage deservedly won him awards and accolades in equal measure. BUT. Kader Khan wasn’t a writer or an actor. Or just that.
Kader Khan was a concept. Kader Khan was a genre.
The 1980s were a decadent decade. Guess the sexy swag of the flower power was so very evolved and consuming and out-there, that it was kind of tough for the generation after to live up to its legacy. The existing icons were slipping, and the antithesis were getting deified. The spaces in Arts, Literature, Films and Fashion were being redefined, confusing the lows with the highs, and vice versa. Plastic defined the new aesthetics. Loud was the new doctrine. On the real world front, the bumbling buffoons of the Janata Party had mucked up the first non-Congress government and the bumbling buffoons of the country had decided to give Mrs. Gandhi a second chance. The angry young man was ceasing to be as angry. From the suave smugglers, the lalas and budmash bahus were making comebacks as the villains of peace. It was as if all the powers in the world had combined forces to put everything in the regressive mode. The pace had become slow. The bar had become low.
Enter Kader Khan. The high priest of the lowbrow.
Of his four professional decades, it was the 1980s that saw the Kader Khan phenomenon explode. He was involved in the story, screenplay and dialogues of more than seventy films between 1980 and 1989, and almost half of them were hits. From innumerous Jeetendra PT shows like Himmatwala, Justice Chaudhary, Haisiyat, Akalmand, Sarfarosh and Maqsad to the Anil Kapoor-Jackie Shroff bromances Andar Baahar and Karma, from Amitabh Bachchan megamovies like Lawaaris and Yaarana to family tearjerkers including Swarg Se Sundar and Bade Ghar Ki Beti featuring ungrateful sons and vicious daughters-in-law, to the exquisitely convoluted Khoon Bhari Maang featuring Rekha fighting a crocodile, Kader Khan helmed it all.
Here’s the thing, though. Kader Khan did not just create the 1980s cinema. He created the 1980s. He almost decided on the narrative for the decade. He established the world as he saw it. And the world became him. Where the hero could dance around matkas wearing atrocious wigs, sweaters and suits, taming the womenfolk who alternated between playing Thunder Thighs and Pyaar Ki Devi. Where Advocate Shobha and Meva Ram could co-exist with Naglingam Reddy, Desh Bahadur Gupta, Abdul Karim Kaliya and Pinto The Great Smuggler. It was a realm where he stuffed everything he could, and made it large.
The audiences lapped it up. They were indoctrinated already.
There was a method attached to the man’s mission, though. Kader Khan catered to the lowest common denominator without any apology. He was of the people, for the people, by the people, only, louder, shriller and definitely more piercing. The trick was to pick the right elements with the right connect from the world that surrounded him and enhance them manifold. That was the Kader Khan formula, if there was one.
His hero, therefore, was a potent and colorful mix of Chacha Chaudhary’s brains and Sabu’s brawn, complete with the native Amar Chitra Katha sanskaars, and a pair of dancing shoes. His character actors were garish, ear-splitting reflections of how he saw the real world. So the unscrupulous trader from Swarag Se Sundar (1986) isn’t just an unscrupulous trader. He is actually called Milavat Ram in case you miss his blatant beimaani, and his shop is called Do Aur Lo Karaane Waala, in case you still miss his blatant beimaani.
Kader Khan brought the lowbrow out of its cultural closet. Not only did he specialize in it, he basked in it. He genuinely loved the “ghun ki tarah gehun mein pisne waale gadhe” and did his darnedest to give them their place under the sun. His metaphors and similes were not to flaunt his linguistic wizardry. On the contrary, he browbeated them to such an extent that they ceased to be anything beyond this non-nuanced gimmickry of words. This democratization of upma and shlesh alankaars was poetic justice, so to say, for the masses. “Dosti ka thoda atta lete hain. Ussmein pyaar ka paani milaate hain. Phir goonth-te hain. Phir dil ke choolhe par rakh ke ussko pakaate hain.”, says Amitabh Bachchan in Yaarana (1981) while describing how he prepares rotis for his best friend Amjad Khan. Okay then.
He made moviemaking and movie-viewing a watered-down version of what they were, and he wasn’t sorry about it. Crass became mainstream, villains became comedians, comedians became circus clowns. When somebody points out to Mukri in Dharam Kanta (1982) how he is rather short to be a dacoit, he says, “Jab hum chhota daaka daalte hain toh hum chhote ho jaate hain, jab hum bada daaka daalte hain, hum bade ho jaate hain”. And then you sample this Kader Khan truism from Meri Aawaz Suno (1981): “Mera naam Topiwala hai. Maine bahut saare ghamandiyon ke sar kaat kar apne kadmon mein kuchle hain, aur unnki topiyon ko apne paas saja kar rakha hai.”, as you see Topiwala proudly displaying his prized scalps. You can’t get straighter than that now, can you?
The audience roared. Kader Khan worked. Full stop.
And Kader Khan continues to work. In Sambit Patra & Co. on news channels. In Bharat Mata Ki Jai Whatsapp forwards. In Tanishk Bagchi remixes. In The Kapil Sharma Show. In over the top characters and situations, dialogues laced with obtuse humor, vulgar misogyny, hahaha jokes and the dholak beats to highlight the punchlines. One may complain, get offended, feel repulsed, and rightly so. And then one may snigger when nobody’s watching. Because the lowbrow charm scores. Every single time.
“Mujhe swarg nahin jaana hai kyonki swarg jaane ke liye marna padta hai”, said Kader Khan in Ghar Sansar (1986) as Girdhari Lal.
Both Girdhari Lal and Kader Khan must be having a good laugh right now.
Chhatth Puja and the GulshanKumarisation of India
My Bihari cousin is getting married to a lovely Tamilian girl.
I am sure the dainty Miss Sridhar must be doing her homework already to know more about what she is getting into. We may not have life sized cut-outs of Ms. Cloaked Rotundity and Mr. Goggled Baldness, but we have enough loud fodder loud enough to make her feel at home. What we lack in flashy flamboyance, we make up with our brassy brashness. We are a raucous country, yes ma’am. When the alphabets were getting distributed, the Biharis decided to take everything with all the hard consonants. Marathis come a close second. Pethe, Kekade and Madke would agree.
But let’s stay on Bihar. Or in Bihar, if I were to take Raj T’s advice.
So we have Litti, Laktho, Thekua, Ghughni, Bhabhri, Makuni, Khaja, Pedakiya, Gaja, Dalpittha as a smattering of names randomly taken from the Bihari fridge. NONE of them sound appetizing. Not one. They taste phenomenal, but they don’t sound like something you may want to consume. And some of them look like what they sound like.
Blame it on the pastoral background of the Biharis, if we were to get all historical and sleuthy. While the neighbourhood Bengal was busy carving intricate creases on their Nolen Gurer Sandesh, singing their Baul and doing their Dhunuchi Naach, Biharis were too busy either tilling their lands or rearing Chanakyas, Buddhas and Mahaveers. So they did not really have the time to create artworks in the kitchen or outside of it. We developed as an ungainly and unsophisticated nation, without any apology and with a definite hint of pride. Take it, world!
And this gets reflected in everything we do. Or say. Or make. Or celebrate.
Which brings me to Chhatth, a festival that some theorists claim even predates the Vedas. At the concept level, it has perhaps the most modern outlook for a festival so ancient. There is no idol worship at all in Chhatth, unlike most Hindu festivals. It is not gender or caste specific. And there is no involvement of a presiding pandit. No random mumbo jumbo being babbled by some patronizing priest working on an hourly remuneration in front of a gaudy concoction of gods. It is a festival with rituals led by the devotee, dedicated to the deity. A hardcore one-on-one with the all-encompassing to acknowledge and achieve the common, combined greater good.
Spread over four days, the worship is dedicated to the Sun god and his wife Usha, greeting and thanking them for creating and controlling all the life forms on the planet earth. While Chhatth follows Diwali, it is no selfish agrarian festival stemming from the contribution of sun to the agricultural produce, coinciding with the cultivation. It is a very noble recognition of the influence of sun in our combined lives, way beyond its material beneficence, with pronounced philosophical undertones. Which explains why the worship of the rising sun is preceded by the veneration of the setting sun.
So far, so good.
Only, I don’t remember getting influenced or enamoured by any of this while celebrating Chhatth in the Patna of the late 1980s. Neither by the philosophy behind the festival, nor by its rather liberal stance. Outside of the exhilarating thrill of traveling at 4 in the AM for the morning arghya, moving past the colourfully lit-up roads to a crowded Pehelwaan Ghaat or Collectorate Ghaat, and then letting the feet play with the cold, moist sand, what actually has stayed with me is the harsh aesthetics of it all.
I am not referring to the festival, of course.
I remember the crowd. A sea of humanity amidst all the muck of the riverfronts. People rushing at the ghaats with their chaadars, fighting for and marking their territories to be as near the slushy expanse of the Holi Ganga. The rich and the powerful moving around with their gun-toting musclemen. The blaring loudspeakers, the long traffic jams, the arguments on the roads, the hawkers selling posters of Hindu gods, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the general wide-ranging cacophony of the people forming a buzzing backdrop. It all came together into something memorably lurid and raw.
This rasping rhapsody was amplified by the sindoors on the noses of the parbaitins, or the fasting worshipping ladies. Indeed. A shining, flaming, thick and radiant saffron vermillion marking starting from the tip of the nose meandering into the parting of the hair. Imagine multitudes of ladies with their brightly painted noses half immersed in the muddy waters, offering their obeisance to the rising sun. The effect was mesmerizing. The effect was daunting.
To be fair, though, it was not just these nose antennas that were browbeating me into meek submission to all things colourful and coarse. The GulshanKumarization of India had just about started to happen. The combined might of jhankaar beats recorded in cheap Darya Ganj studios on Super Cassettes was beginning to juice the entire pantheon of Hindu gods and goddesses. Johnny ka Dil Tujhpe Aaya Julie was being appropriated as Bhakton Ka Dil Tujhpe Aaya Devi, and then some. People not only seemed okay with these, they were, in fact, revelling in them. It was a crude, uncouth phase in the life of India, both culturally and otherwise. Patal Bhairavi and Bhavani Junction were legit Hindi cinema releases, Rajeev Kapoor was playing the Lover Boy, Rajesh Khanna was romancing Reena Roy, and people were really paying to see Raj Babbar on the large screen.
It was the attack of the lowbrow. And Chhatth was as impacted as any other festival.
So in the middle of the folk songs evoking the Sun god, the shrieking loudspeakers would play one of them Karolbagh ditties sung by Babla and Kanchan. Hum Na Jaibe Sasur Ghar Re Baba. Yeah. Soon enough, these tardy renditions were accepted as a part of the mainstream. The eighties never left the festival. The festival never left the eighties. Every subsequent Chhatth was more of the same. Exciting. Rousing. Breath-taking. And very bloody loud.
I moved on. Bombay became home. Then I shifted to Mumbai.
Patna, Bihar and Chhatth continued to be a part of my subconscious persona, but not being there meant not being there. My new native city gave me newer references to ponder over. I had graduated from Gai Ghaat to Lal Bagh. I had moved on. Or so did I think. Untill I suddenly discovered the luminous vermillion-nose brigade in a traffic jam at Juhu one fine evening. The parbaitins were back in my life, and how! And I was amazed to see that twenty-five years later, the unhinged aesthetics and revelry were unaffected, give or take a few Sanjay Nirupams trying to make Chhatth the North India Pride Parade. It was beautiful. To be in that jam. To be back there. To relive the scale and the noise. And to revisit the fantastic reasons behind the celebration of this wonderful festival.
Here’s to many such discoveries, Sanjana! And welcome to the family. Some of your new relatives may look like aliens once every year, and their vocabulary may be predominated by words with ट, ठ, ड and ढ in them, but we are good, warm god-fearing people, I promise you. Despite that fluorescent patch on our noses. Or because of it. :)
I’m leaving on a jet plane to Canada, and money is not an issue
I am a big fan of Justin Trudoeu Tredaeu Treduae Trudeau. I like Canada. I like Canadians. I also like Punjabi, the language most of the Canadians speak. So, naturally, I was intrigued when I got a mail with the subject “Canada Immigration” from one Suman Jha from Prime Track, an ISO 9001:2008 certified firm specialising in sending people to far out countries. Fairly articulate and persuasive, our man informed me that there was a shortage of skilled manpower in Canada, and the time was right for me to start the process of migrating to Canada without any delay. He also told me that he had profoundly reviewed my profile and that he was very pleased to inform me that my CV had successfully passed through what I am assuming must be their rather stringent first phase of screening process.
This was all fantastic. Only, there was one very minor technical issue. I had not sent him my CV.
So I did what any self respecting man secure with the belief that the best career opportunities were available in Canada with high earning job profiles for foreign skilled workers would do. I ignored his mail.
However, the eloquent Mr. Jha, with his dogged determination and stubborn seduction, would not have taken no for an answer. He sent a few more mails over the next four weeks, reminding me of the interest I had shown, asking me for the details of my documents, and promising me the completion of my documentation under the fast-track services. This was all too good to be true, this outpouring of concern and affection. Unfortunately, random unnecessary work took over my life, and I could not write back to him. Let’s just say the beloved was very much aware of the admirer’s strong overtures, but I had to consciously reject it.
Suman continued to have my best interests in his mind. The natural extension of his love was yet another mail from him.
“It;s a golden opportunity”, he said.
That one sentence did the trick. Guess I was hit somewhere deep inside – the semicolon hitting the colon, as they say – and that was enough to shake me out of my complacence. I was charmed and charged by the radiance of the golden opportunity, ready to immediately take on his offer. I was raring to go. And Canada was waiting.
I wrote a polite response explaining my silence and my readiness, in order. The mail also outlined some very regular practical issues I was facing. But I was sure it was nothing Mr. Jha or Prime Track, an ISO 9001:2008 certified firm, would not have been able to sort.
Surprisingly, my positivity was reciprocated by a very stoic silence. It was as if the fizz had gone from our relationship. It was my turn to follow up.
The professional Mr. Jha had a single-lined response for me. Apt. I deserved it.
He had not asked to me for write my biography. Obviously. I was blinded by the warmth that I had seen, and it had led to some weak moments. He was totally right in chiding me. This is exactly how businesses are conducted. I realised my mistake and apologised profusely to the man who stood between the Rocky Mountains and me.
Sassy Suman was back in the game. He sent me a quick reply asking me for my CV and other documents.
By now I had figured the curt Mr. Jha meant business. I sent my biodata to him almost immediately. I also had some basic queries for him to address. Felt stupid and sorry about sending those inane questions to him, thinking how smart guys like him have to go through such dumb Qs in their line of work. But then I thought Mr. Jha and Prime Track, an ISO 9001:2008 certified firm, must be used to such harmless naiveté of their clients.
He rejected my CV.
Crestfallen, I wrote a rather poignant mail to him. I was hurting. And it didn’t feel good. But despite the grief and the hurt, I maintained my poise and my positivity. I felt like a Himesh Reshammiya heroine. With a smile on my face and a song on my lips, I asked him to reconsider my application.
His response was the complete anti-thesis of the turmoil going in the atriums of my heart. He started using his silence to numb me, and comfortably so. I waited. Twenty-four hours later, I decided to graciously confront him while respecting his point of view.
I knew he would come around. I have lots of money. And come around he did.
THIS was the point where I figured a thing or two about the psychological make of Mr. Jha. He was a man of few words. That’s what he wanted in a man. He didn’t want long treatises. He wanted short jabs. I had to change my strategy to stay ahead in the game. I had to become as succinct as him.
The whole world stood in silence as the mano-a-mano struggle ensued between the two protagonists. And then he spoke. I had nothing but gratitude towards the big man.
Soon enough, I sent him all the documents that were needed. He had given me this extreme resolve to fight, live and survive. The underlying tension had led to this overarching tenacity. I was ready to take on the world!
I knew what I was talking.
(And here are the scans of my passport and the BA degree. All legit, of course.)
It worked. We were now willing to go to the next level. We were exchanging numbers. And I am not just talking account numbers here.
This was not just a mail exchange I was having with the man. This was a life lesson I was learning. We were talking the talk. Kind of.
Just after I hit “send”, I realised that I had ended up sharing some very critical information about myself. And I knew it instantly that it would come back to harm and haunt me.
I had inadvertently revealed that there was somebody else in my life.
Mr. Jha decided we were done. He knew he had to severe all ties with me at one go. Just like that. Or not.
:|
He closed my file, but he opened my life. I am upset, yes, but at the same time, I am content that this experience made me find answers to that one question that has always bothered the mankind.
“Had i asked to you for write your biography?”
(If Close Encounters with Suman Jha is your kind of a thing, you may want to know more about my original heartbreaker, Probaldwip Bakshi.)
It wasn’t liberalisation, it was liberation!
The summer months are always kind of muggy in Patna. In the early 1990s, they appeared sultrier than normal. The days would be hot and the nights would be dry. There was only so much one could do. And that ‘so much’ was never much, with those prolonged hours of nothingness blankly staring at us. Don’t know if the irregular load-shedding and the dark absence of electricity were the reason behind the dreariness. Or if one could point towards the abrupt kal shaam chhe baje phir mulakaat hogi endings of Doordarshan as the cause. Or whether the limited stock of antaakshari songs (despite the unending stock of holidaying cousins to play them with) was the prime suspect. OR perhaps it was just the mid-teen angst.
But the insipid monotony was real. And there was only so much one could do.
Those were also the days when Aamir Khan was doing snake movies, Rishi Kapoor was wearing his last set of sweaters around trees, Jackie Shroff was giving solo box office hits, and Vinod Khanna was cracking dudhu jokes looking at women in Farishtay.
Yes. There really was only so much one could do.
Or actually, there was. Buzz words like liberalisation and globalisation were just beginning to hover around, and private TV channels were soon to be an everyday fix as a positive fallout of the policy changes. Cable TV was slowly becoming the fashionable thing to do in small town India, a perfect middle class counter point to the safari-suit-and-pomeranian superiority practiced by the elite. My professor parents, of course, thanks to their world view and wisdom nurtured by Brahmanical leanings, had a strong point of view on cable TV or any other form of unsupervised entertainment. EXACTLY the reason why I readily agreed when Ramkailas ji, my trusted aide, and the family Man Friday, recommended that we steal the cable connection since the wires went through our garden.
Till then, our experience in thieving was restricted to pocketing raw mangoes of the awesomely juicy Maldah variety from the neighbours’ yard. So I was not too sure. Having said that, the lure of breaking the boredom and seeing content outside of the staid DD programming was too much of a temptation. The programming options were way too many, beyond the Krishi Darshans and Chitrahaars of the world. There was finesse and flair one wasn’t used to seeing on television. Plus, there was MTV. That thing that was meant to morally corrupt the youth of the nation.
I was ready to be corrupted.
All it took was a pair of garden cutters and some ingenuity, and we were a cable TV household between 10pm and 5am, every day. Opening gates to a world unseen. The firang accent, the cool graphics, the smart promos, the interesting shows… they were all from a distant land. There was Star Plus with its Crystal Maze, Donahue, Oprah and, oh, those kissing cousins in The Bold and The Beautiful. Or the cigarette smoking Tara in the eponymous series on Zee TV, and even the obnoxious Mohan Kapoor on the channel’s Saanp Seedhi, and also Rajat Sharma, giving birth to a different breed of journalism in Aap Ki Adalat. This was all different. New. And real.
And then there was, of course, MTV. All different. New. And surreal.
With its funky graphics, bizarre spots and fast pace. Smelling like teen spirit. With Michael Jackson and Madonna. With Guns N’ Roses, a paradoxical co-existence that could well define MTV. With Right Said Fred declaring his sexiness and Phil Collins his inability to dance. With Pearl Jam, Megadeth, Metallica and innumerous such bands that us small-towners had no knowledge or clue about. I saw images I never thought existed. I saw people I never could be. I saw love. I saw debauchery. I saw a display of colours, commotion and camaraderie. It was culturally alien, unfathomable at times. But it was all eerily eye opening. I could never be them, I knew. And yet, I wanted to know more about them. Every day.
I saw possibilities. And I am not just talking television. I am talking life.
For that Hindi medium boy from Bihar struggling with Itihaas, Bhugol and Nagrik Shastra in school, it was almost like him creating his own itihaas every night. By unshackling himself from all that was around him. By thinking beyond the books and the course material. By taking those fantastic flights to nowhere. I never did stop thinking in Hindi. I did not develop an accent. I never could appreciate Pearl Jam, Megadeth or Metallica. I did not try becoming a different person with brand new reference points. Only, my perspectives changed. I started seeing things differently. I did not know where did I want to go, but I knew what it would be like.
We were caught soon enough by Papa. He said all that we had to do was ask. He was, obviously, very upset. Major mud on our face. But I wasn’t complaining. It was worth the trip. It was not as if it suddenly changed my persona or that I could see doors opening for me. But this entire visual experience, day on day, made me realise that there were so many doors that existed.
It was not just economic liberalisation at work. Or just liberalisation. It was liberation!
It changed my outlook. It made me more confident. It made me more audacious. It allowed me to dream differently. That gawky teenager, son of academicians, started looking beyond Engineering and Medicine as a career. As did many of us from similar backgrounds. Everything in the world, hitherto unseen, was now around us. And everything was achievable. We did not have to travel to foreign lands to broaden our horizons. The world had come to us. Very soon, the world literally was around us in the supermarkets. In form of Camay soaps and Hershey’s chocolates. As brand new malls and multiplexes. In the queues at McDonald’s. Buzzing in pagers and mobile phones. Surprisingly, none of it made me feel poor and deprived at any point of time. It kept egging me to have a deeper resolve to become better off. Read rich.
In retrospect, that was the bawdiest, and yet the most important, contribution of liberalisation to the small town India, and not just me. We stopped feeling guilty about earning and spending monies, something that Papa would have so not approved. We were okay to let go of our middleclassery. Of course, that came with its own set of struggles. Mumbai, the city I had chosen to move to, gave me its perfumed indifference, showing me my place in the 8:11 local. I gave it my unadulterated confidence. Very soon, we reached a compromise, and the city was home.
Fate brought me to MTV in 2000. And MTV gave me the confidence to change MTV. It had made me embrace its globalness, I made it embrace my Indianness, being a part of the team that made it desicool. I worked with them for ten long years. Fancy designation, et al. Little did MTV know about the role it had played in my life. Even when it was on mute. :)
Meanwhile, we got Ramkailas ji a job as a peon in Delhi. His family continued to be in a remote village in Bihar. We sponsored the education of his son who is now sixteen. The boy uses a smart phone and knows how to Whatsapp. I suspect he also knows how to order mangoes online. Only, he aspires to follow the career path of his father. Become a peon.
Twenty-five years later, I wait for another round of liberalisation.
– first published in Indian Express Sunday edition Eye as a part of their special issue on 25 years of economic reforms –
Celebrating Queen Elizabeth, Cocaine Ke Parathe and Sajid Khan!
Sajid Khan is an intelligent man.
Not everybody will agree with the statement, I know, and you will throw Himmatwala and Hamshakals at me. And you will not miss. Having said that, while I am still not sermonising that he is more sinned against than sinning, I don’t think half the world has seen either of the two movies. I have, and I have suffered them. BUT I also have picked up gems from both that are quintessentially Sajid Khan. Quirky, funny and fun. Wonder how many of us are aware of the random tribute – in black & white, no less – he has given to Alfred Hitchcock in Himmatwala, with Mahesh Manjrekar duplicating Marion Crane from the famous shower scene of Psycho! Of course, I yearned for more, and, of course, I felt disappointed. However, my faith in the man stays. He is not an auteur, and I don’t think he aspires to become one either. But he certainly gets humor better than most of his contemporaries. (I’m looking at you, Rohit Shetty.) The problem, and I say it only from a regular viewer’s perspective, is that he doesn’t know where and when to stop.
The nostalgic eighties/ nineties cheese make the cinema of Sajid Khan, coupled with a micro-focus on the audiences who get his references. Getting Shabbir Kumar to sing I Don’t Know What To Do in Houseful 2 was a masterstroke. It may not have been even registered by half the world, but for legions of Shabbir Kumar fans, it was an emotional reunion with the hamming hummer. Way different from, say, an Altaf Raja being experimented with, and made a mess of, in Ghanchakkar or Hunterrr. This was unadulterated Shabbir Kumar for the unadulterated Shabbir Kumar fans. And getting Ranjeet to play Papa Ranjeet, again, in Housefull 2, was, well, a very Papa Ranjeet thing to do. Only Sajid could get Ranjeet to give a homage to Ranjeet! And I am still not talking about the random Jeevan, Shatrughan Sinha, Sanjeev Kumar, Rajesh Khanna moments that he inserts (I wouldn’t be surprised if some of it is done unknowingly!) in scenes and scenarios which also double up as his narratives.
But Sajid is not just about nostalgia or talking only to the hardcore fans of nostalgia. He also gives the identifiable Tom & Jerry cartoonish coloration to his characters and situations to appeal to the sensibilities of the newer, younger viewers. (Who, I suspect, are sometimes as young as five. Days, that is.) Crocodiles and pythons attack the crotches of his heroes, diapers fly, and cute slap-fests, including one with a monkey, are integral parts of his movie-making. Some people find these funny, others find these unfunny. But the theatres get the laughs, sometimes louder than normal. Purpose served. Then there are the cringeworthy prejudices, some subtle and some not-so-subtle. The bimbetteness of the womenfolk is glorified, the lecherousness of the mankind is glamorised. Oh, and an occasional repulsive appearance of a dwarf maid cavorting with Mithun Chakraborty also makes inroads. But I would still refrain from donning the judicial robes here. History will evaluate and appraise Sajid Khan – and David Dhawan plus a few more directors for that matter – for the kind of films that they have made and the kind of laughter their humor has elicited. But they sure will make it to History, even if as post-scripts. Purpose served.
Last, Sajid Khan knows how to get his audiences to have some random, mindless fun with confusions and conundrums galore in all his outings. Yes, these are random, and yes, they are mindless. But, hell, some of us enter that big dark room to let go! The climax of Housefull had Queen Elizabeth talking in Marathi and yelling the “Jai Maharashtra” war cry, arbit Russian folk dancers forming the backdrop in a strictly British set up, Boman Irani LOLing and saying “Tu toh homos hai” to Arjun Rampal and a roomfull of Brits laughing uproariously and behaving demented because of a Nitrous oxide leak. Do the math already.
The Sajid Khan formula – if there is one – doesn’t always work, of course. It did not, for sure, in the Saif Ali Khan-Riteish Deshmukh starrer Hamshakals. It was a universally panned film, and for all the right reasons. As his loyalist, I felt cheated when I saw the film. While I had not gone expecting any high art, my biggest grouse was that Sajid Khan failed his audiences as Sajid Khan, the director. The film was loud, alright, but not ludicrous. And THAT was its failing. It isn’t easy making his kind of movies, and I am sure Sajid figured it himself while making Hamshakals. I hope his next one, whenever it happens, gives him back to us. Meanwhile, Sajid-Farhad tried being him in Housefull 3, and, well, didn’t really succeed. “Sirf bhaunkne se koi kutta kameena nahin ho jaata“, Papa Ranjeet had predicted in Housefull 2. And rightly so, despite my disagreement with the kutta-kameena analogy.
Hamshakals had one redeeming thing, though. The Cocaine Ke Paraathe song. It is as moronic as it can get and it is not funny when seen in isolation. But it was the high point of the film. Vintage Sajid Khan. Ridiculous to the core, and giving you those laughter trips you know you would eventually feel extremely guilty about. You can switch directly to 2:08 if you do not want to see the set up.
And why am I remembering the man now? The entire #BREXIT noise took me to the climax scene of Housefull 2, obviously! (Stupid Brits, no, really.) And I actually came across an article on drug laced parathas being sold in Chandigarh. Like, for real.
Guess I am not the only one who gets enamored by the genius of Sajid Khan!
Why Gajendra Chauhan is the greatest FTII Chairman EVER!
“What we cannot speak about, we must pass over in silence”, said Ludwig Wittgenstein in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. I have NO clue what that means or who Ludwig Wittgenstein was, but this sure makes my discourse esoteric and academic right at the outset! Almost like all the Bombay Velvet reviews. The only difference is that I actually am here to discuss academics today. Specifically, the appointment of Gajendra Chahuan (or Chouhan or Chauan depending on which stage of his numerically challenged life you are talking about) as the Chairman of Film and Television Institute of India.
There have been protests galore against the selection of Mr. Chauhan, the erstwhile Dharmaraja Yudhishthir from BR Chopra’s eponymous TV series Mahabharata, and the entire world seems to have colluded to collide with the coronation of Gajendra. They say that the legacy of the hallowed premises of FTII has to be respected and that he doesn’t have the vision or knowledge of cinema. That he has no experience in the field of academics. That he is the Caesar of C-grade cinema, with the C standing for very many things. That he is a bad actor and a stooge of the ruling political party. That he is an obtuse idiot, a bumbling moron and a blockheaded dimwit. Okay, the last bit was me taking poetic liberty, but, yeah, similar sentiments.
Well. I come to praise Caesar, not to bury him!
According to IMDB, Gajendra Chauhan started his career way back in 1985 with Main Chup Nahin Rahoongi. So 2015 marks his 30th year in Hindi Cinema. That’s a really really long time for a nasal-twanged-single-expressioned-monotoned-jumna-paar-drawl to survive in this very competitive industry. And that, by itself, should be the reason enough for all of us to embrace him with open arms. But let this not be the only reason to be dazed and dazzled by our man. For somebody whose body of work includes watching bodies at work in Vasna, Khuli Khidki, Reshma, Samri and Rupa Rani Ramkali, Chauhan deserves our prostration, obedience and submission, in anywhich order. Find me another actor who can abduct, molest and defile with just his eyes and a lubed mass of thick hair. And the naysayers can die.
Chauhan says he has been in the field of art for 34 years. That is just him being his regular modest and humble self. On the contrary, it is art that has been in the field of Chauhan for 34 years. From Awara Zindagi to Janam Se Pehle, from Jawani Jaaneman to Pathreela Rasta and from Gumnam Hai Koi to A Sublime Love Story: Barsaat, he has taken the service of every single dead cell generated by him to construct and deconstruct his histrionics. Sample the scene from Bhayaanak Panjaa (1997) in which he is being exorcised. It is sublime pantomime. And I just wanted that to rhyme. The technique of conveying emotions and feelings by the mere physicality of the actions is not something every thespian can master. But one look at Gajendra’s frenzied movement can make you immediately realise the years of hamheadeness that must have gone in perfecting that fall. Legendary.
The swagger comes naturally to the Chairman sir. And it is not just because he played Inspector Patil in Himmatvar (1996) or Mukesh Mathur in Vishwavidhata (1997) or Virendra Chaudhary in Arjun Devaa (2001) or Naresh Chand in Issi Life Mein…! (2010). These were, of course, author backed roles where he got the opportunity to stretch his awesome campiness to the fullest for those ten minutes that he was on screen. But the style and the charisma of the man is inherent to his schmaltzy Tank-Road-Jeans-Market self.
To those questioning his acting abilities, I just have one answer two answers. Jungle Love (1986) and Rupa Rani Ramkali (2001). Ah, those consciously constipated expressions where death becomes him. That fierce fervour, those extreme emotions, the deadly deluge. And the arbitrary alliterations.
Haters gonna hate his religious baggage thanks to the Mahabharat connect, but Chauhan never actually has tried overtly exploiting his Pitashri-Matoshri affiliations. Apart from the yet to be released Barbareek aur Mahabharat and Jai Maa Vaishnodevi (1994), mouthing Ayushman bhavah at party meetings and selling some random concoction on teleshopping networks, that is. Of course, the performer in him has been more satisfied with challenging roles like playing Rahul’s father in International Khiladi (1999), Pinky’s dad in Billa no. 786 (2000) and the car salesman in Baghban (2003). And the Ganesh fest dancer in Parwana (2003). Of course.
And so what if he knows people in the reigning political party! Mr. Chairman has worked hard to be where he is right now. The tonsils are getting their due. And deservedly so.
Eventually, the annals of time would judge Gajendra Chauhan on his performance as the FTII Chairman, protesters and wiseguys be damned. If not him, they would find another extremely talented Chauhan, suited perfectly for the job. So yeah. I just hope the hammer is restricted only to his acting skills while I gloat over my punnery.
“What we cannot speak about, we must pass over in silence”, said Ludwig Wittgenstein in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. I still have NO clue what that means or who Ludwig Wittgenstein was, but he was right. Exactly why you must forget about them protests already. Think of this as a long movie, treat this as a willing suspension of disbelief, and all would be good. Also, please slip in the word ‘pedantic’ somewhere in here to close the intellectual loop. Thank you.
PS: And now, thank me. Here.
Pehle toh kabhi kabhi gham tha… And then came Altaf Raja
These are bad times.
The economy does not look all that great. The drought situation is getting worse. Politicians continue to stay aloof and unaffected. Cricketers are getting fixed. Fixers are running cricket. Business leaders are getting their CFOs pregnant. Jackie Bhagnani is still acting.
These are really bad times.
Now, I know there is this terrible terrible urge to hang our heads in despair and feel hopelessly bad about our existences. It does come naturally to most of us, especially after seeing those Rangrezz posters. But you know what, life is not that black, despite how bleak things appear. One can either feel utterly depressed. Or, one can invoke the name of Altaf Raja to make it all disappear. Seriously.
Altaf Raja who, do I hear? For those not in the know, Altaf Raja was the singular reason why the cassette players of the 1990s were mobbed, mauled and molested, day in and day out. Altaf Raja was the demi-god of the autodrivers, their secret man-crush, their muse. Altaf Raja was the snazzy sultan, the ritzy rajah that the entire B-grade population of India wanted to be. But to top it all, Altaf Raja was what kept the people across the country going, giving them hope and optimism, as they sung his songs in the trains, collecting monies for charity, in most cases their own charity.
The first half of the 90s was an exciting period in the life of India. The skies were opening up. The reforms were taking off. We were a bemused and overwhelmed nation, getting exposed to an MTV which played music and a Manmohan Singh who had a voice, amongst other things. The divide between the rich and the poor was beginning to get drastically wider. Rishi Kapoor was still wearing Woolmark-approved pure wool turtlenecks, dancing around trees, and Mithun Chakraborty was singing Gutar Gutar in Dalaal. Not that the last two statements had anything to do with each other.
It was during these times that Altaf Raja made an appearance in the Indian stratosphere. Tum toh thehre pardesi, saath kya nibhaoge, he said it on behalf of the country in his first album in 1996, mouthing the concern that the economic reforms were not to stay forever. Subah pehli gaadi se ghar ko laut jaaoge, that is.
But then again, lest you misunderstand him, it was just a healthy expression of anxiety, and not pessimism. Considering in that very album, Altaf presented the enthusiasm and exuberance of the nation, willing to take on the world: Woh bhi anjaan thi, main bhi anjaan tha. Uss se vaada na tha, kuch iraada na tha. Bas yun hi darr-ling keh diya. Yaaron maine panga le liya. Panga Le Liya summed it up brilliantly. Pokharan-II, the Indian nuclear tests happened soon thereafter.
And THIS – the eternal understanding of his environment and its impact – is what makes Altaf Raja relevant all over again in our lives. Yes, the times are tough. From pathetic rapes to pitiable rappers, from a silent PM to an over-zealous wannabe, from Kalmadi’s fistulas to Kejriwal’s frictions, we have issues and diversions. But we need to embrace our surroundings. And wait. Patiently. Because that is the right thing to do. Thoda intezaar ka mazaa leejiye, sang our man in Shapath. That’s the mantra to live by. Wait and watch, and enjoy the downtime. All material conditions, positive or negative, are temporary. This, too, shall pass. Btw, for the fans of geriatric gyrations, the song has Jackie Shroff and Mithun Chakraborty shaking it with the ladies at the bar. That, too, did pass.
His teachings, though, are not restricted to just helping people cope with the larger issues. Altaf Raja has created many a sparkling gem that are relevant to us in our everyday lives across audiences. Even more so in this day and age, when everything around us is getting redefined and restructured. Refer to the lucidity with which he discusses the complexities of the gender roles and the set of social and behavioral norms that are considered appropriate in the context of the modern times. Biwi hai cheez sajawat ki. Biwi se ghar ko sajaate hain. Sautan ka shauq purana hai. Sautan ko sar pe bithate hain. Bharti nahin niyat sautan se. Sautan ki sautan late hain. Balle balle, oh yaara balle balle. Wow Yeah. Wow Yeah. Brilliantly put. Sajawat. Aesthetics. This is why the purists love him.
The most pertinent message of Altaf Raja for his audiences, however, is in this timeless creation called Kar Lo Pyaar. There are discords and disputes all over. Conflicts have divided the globe. The world is fighting a furious war with itself. And I just used three sentences with exactly the same meaning. Precisely the reason why the world needs to hear these immortal lines in his mellifluous voice. Kar lo pyaar, kar lo pyaar, kar lo pyaar, kar lo pyaar. Pyaar gazab ki cheez hai padh lo aaj subah ka parcha. Pyaar karoge muft mein ho jaayega yaaron charcha. This is poetry at exceptionally sublime levels. No other song in the world has EVER tried rhyming charcha with parcha.
Wikipedia says Altaf Raja has had a mix of twenty-three film and non-film albums so far. But none of this matters eventually. Because it is not about his songs or the albums. It is about the man. Who goes far beyond the songs or the albums or the hits or the platinum discs. Altaf Raja is a concept. He is the victory of the mundane over the elite, of penury over pomp, of the coarse over cultivated, and of hopes over realities.
Thank you for taking the panga, sir!
(Originally published on firstpost.com)
Dear English in Bollywood… Zindagi bhar rahunga, yours faithfully!
I learnt my English from Hindi films.
Hailing from a middle class Hindi medium school belonging to a middle class Hindi medium town belonging to a middle class Hindi medium India, I always found English to be the alien language that it is. I grew up in an era where knowing English did not mean reading and flaunting a Chetan Bhagat book, but shaking the limbs in our stone-washed jeans to ‘Won’t you take me to Funky Town’, the lone English song that all the cassette players could recognize. We actually felt very cool humming along whatever we could decipher of the song, genuinely believing that we totally had it in us to win over the world, starting with our cousins from Delhi. Wontchu tekmetwo funkeeey taaaaown. Ah, bliss. I can feel equal to all my English medium counterparts all over again right now.
Hindi cinema was what gave fillip to our attempts to empower ourselves with this authority, expertise, knowledge and interest around English. Yes. Had it not been for our exposure to the Hindi film songs in various states of undress, showcasing their wonderful English interiors, we would have never been able to appreciate the nuances of the Queen’s lingo. Or Funky Town.
Bollywood was very quick to recognize the importance of the English language, and it took it upon itself to ensure that the minions had a fair share of the same. Sample Hello Hello Gentleman from the 1948 film Actress. Hello hello gentleman. Milaate kyun nahin humse nain. Tabeeyat kaisi hai, kaisi hai, kaisi hai. Hello Hello Hello Hello Hello. Shamshad Begum and Lata Mangeshkar kill it by exhorting the Indians to be and behave Indians post the British rule. No prizes for guessing the chosen language of communication. Hat to hamne phenk diya, tum phenko necktie. Chala gaya Angrez, keh do inn sab ko good bye. English cheezen kar do ban. Be an Indian if you can. Hello hello gentleman. That’s what I am talking about! Be an Indian if you can, preferably in English.
And we are not just talking pidgin English here. There are quite a few pure English songs which have featured in Hindi films, and some of them may just delight the listeners. Shanta Apte sang Longfellow’s A Psalm of Life in Duniya Na Maane way back in 1937. Iqbal Singh rocked it like Elvis with Beautiful Baby of Broadway in Ek Phool Char Kaante (1960). Usha Uthup became a mini industry singing English songs for the likes of Bindu, Padma Khanna and Aruna Irani. Of course, the vamps/ nightclub dancers sang in English because it underlined on their western and therefore wayward values. Further case in point: Sharon Prabhakar’s My Body Has A Surging Fire from the 1982 release Apmaan. Then there were the Goans, the Anglo Indians, the D’Costas and the D’Mellos with their Christian affiliations, who sang in chaste My Heart Is Beating English if one of them was called Julie (1975). There have also been random entries like I And You Just You And I from the 1985 film Unchi Uraan, and the 80s, for some inexplicable reasons, offered quite a bit of such randomosity. In recent times, long portions of English lyrics, including rap, have made smooth entries into the regular Hindi songs’ space. But rap, by itself, could not quite earn a place of its own in isolation, despite Amitabh Bachchan mouthing the BNB rap way back in the 2005 release Bunty Aur Babli.
Having said all of the above, for the purpose of this research, I have decided to demonstrate only the songs that have appropriated the English language as a home-grown product; as an almost parallel and natural counterpart to Hindi. Er, so I guess we ARE talking pidgin English here. PS: I feel good using the word “research” for my inanities. Just to prove a point, I may faux-quote Ananda Coomaraswamy in my delirious state.
So without further ado, ‘hello friends’!
The biggest contribution of the Britishers was not just the English language, but the niceties that came with the language. Thanking you. With warm regards. Yours Faithfully. Only, the last phrase happens to be an Asha Bhosle-Kishore Kumar song from the 1986 film Begaana. Picturised on Rati Agnihotri and Kumar Gaurav on a surreal set of an over-sized office, complete with a giant typewriter, gigantic envelopes and a gargantuan telephone, the song is an elegant celebration of culture and politeness. Dear Sir, aapko main bahut chaahti hoon. Zindagi bhar rahungi, yours faithfully. The benevolent boss replies with as polite an affirmation of his love. Dear Madam, aapko main bahut chahta hoon. Zindagi bhar rahunga, yours faithfully. Awww. Everybody loves a love story. Especially when it is about a boss sleeping with his secretary.
Ever wondered how they hire such people who agree to stay yours faithfully all their lives? Simple. They conduct a Love Interview as they did in the Suneil Shetty-Shilpa Shirodkar starrer Raghuveer (1995). Kal ka kya program hai? Kuch zaroori kaam hai. Phir miloge kab? Jab waqt milega tab. Kab aur kehan kitne baje milna hai kaho sanam? Love interview. Love interview. Poornima, Kumar Sanu and the divine chorus girls give this love interview all that they have. I would not be surprised if this song was the only sex Sanu got in a long time.
Contrary to popular beliefs, it is not just chemistry that gets two people together. A lot of it is also mathematics. Knowing the general lack of love in our lives, I am absolutely certain half of you would not know what Tum Into Main, Main Into Tum is equal to? If you don’t know the answer, ask Sridevi and Jeetendra, who croon this Asha-Kishore number from the 1987 film Majaal, teaching us a few key lessons of life. Tum into main. Main into tum. Equal to pyaar ke sau saal. Reh ke juda, hum kuch nahin. Mil jaayen toh bemisaal. Shehzada, khwabon ka tu shehzada.
What do you do when you fall in love? You fall in love with Love Letter. Or so would SP Balasubramaniam and Asha Bhosle have us believe in Dev Anand’s 1993 release Pyaar Ka Tarana. Love letter love letter love letter. Tujhko pyaara, mujhko pyaara love letter. Issko pyaara, ussko pyaara, humko pyaara, sabko pyaara love letter. Love letter love letter love letter. I can quite understand the excitement since I suspect that by the 90s when he got into his 90s, the only love letters Dev Saab was getting were the ones he was writing to himself. Jissko mil jaaye love letter, woh kehlata hai lucky lover. Tum issko daak se bhejoge ya karoge hand deliver? Zara kar lo intezaar. You keepaan guessing dear. For those not in the know, this film saw the debut of Mink Singh. There is a joke hidden in that somewhere, I promise you.
Look I have been waiting for you for a long time. Please tell me whether you love me or not. As far as I am concerned, I can tell you that I love you very much, yes my darling… I love you. If you are head over heels in love and totally smitten, this is how you should go about expressing your feelings. The only pre-condition is that you need to get Shabbir Kumar to sing Dil Dil Dil from the 1986 film Pyaar Ho Gaya for you. In theory, the song is in Hindi, with the regular samplings of dil, pyaar, neel gagan, takreeban, tanhai, pagla kahin ka and a count from dus, bees, tees, chalis to sau, but in its heart, the song is in pure-bred English. As far as I am concerned, I can tell you that the Hindi is just a façade.
Next time you hear Remo Fernandes ruing about the music scene in India, just utter seven golden words to him. Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni. He would be transmogrified into something else in no time. This is why. Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni. You are my sajni. I am your diwana. You are my diwani. Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni. I am your sajni. You are my diwana. I am your diwani. Let’s sing together. Let’s dance together. Let’s sing together. Let’s dance together. Impressed already? Well, Indeevar, the lyricist, does not just stop at this. He converts this Kamal Sadanah-Ritu Shivpuri song from the 1995 release Rock Dancer into high art with what follows. Yeh toh kaho darling love hua kab se? Dekha tumhen jab se. Yeh toh kaho darling, love karoge kab tak? Sooraj mein fire hai jab tak. Aa ha. Honth tere laal hai. Aa ha. Kaale tere baal hai. Aa ha. Teri kya chaal hai. Aa ha. Tera kya face hai. Aa ha. Tera kya grace hai. Is my future bright? Yes darling, alright! Waah, kya scene hai. I saw ‘grace’ somewhere in the lyrics. That’s the word I was looking for. Indeed.
Here’s a little tip for all you boys in love. Don’t refer to your girl as ‘baby’. Ever. Because if you do, Sapna Mukherjee is going to hunt you down and subject you to this loud appeal of hers from the 1989 film Kahan Hai Kanoon. Don’t Call Me Baby. No, sir. If you thought ‘baby’ was a term of endearment, you couldn’t have been any farther away from the truth. Don’t call me baby. Don’t call me baby. Jawaan ho gayi main, jawaan ho gayi. Baby ab main rahi kahan, ang ang ho gaya jawan. Mere labon par angaare, mere seene mein toofan. Don’t call me baby. Don’t call me baby. Smoldering embers on her lips. Violent tempests in her tits. Fair enough.
Roses are red. Violets are blue. You love me. I love you. This was the first exposure to real poetry that I had had, with all my notebooks littered with lines like these for girlfriends that did not exist. It was fun while it lasted. Which must have been all my school and college life. Guess the lyricist Madan Pal was my pal, because that’s how his song from the 1994 release Zaalim starts. But before you even begin castigating him or the Kimono-wearing extras prancing in this song with a “You shut up, Gutt lost!”, you would find Alisha Chenoy ready with an innocent apology on behalf of Pal. Aayi Yai Ya, Sorry Sorry. Koi jo maange dil, inkaar karti hoon jaanam. Meri kitaab mein tasveer teri rahti hai. Aayi yai ya, sorry sorry. This song succinctly teaches you that most relationship spats give an opportunity to resolve conflicts. And make slutty baby-girl sounds. I know you are khafa. Darling main kya karun. You know that I love you. Tum pe hi main marun. Main gar jo kho gayi. Phir na milungi main. You will then search for me. Phir na rahoongi main. Aaaaaah!
Alisha, of course, must be honored by the Linguistic Society of India for her contribution to the languages. Because nobody else could have done as much justice to the extreme lyrics of LML Baba LML from Hathkadi (1995). LML baba LML. LML baba LML. Hone de baba LML. Shaam subah LML. Saaton din LML. Sunday to Monday LML. Monday to Sunday LML. LML? LML? Kya hota hain LML? Let’s make love, baybee. Don’t be shy, baybee. It took the genius and talent of an Anu Malik to come up with the well thought-through and right retort to Alisha’s LML. GTH baba GTH. Hone de baba GTH. Shaam savare DTH. Saaton din GTH. Sunday to Monday GTH. Monday to Sunday GTH. GTH? GTH? Kya hota hai GTH? Go to hell, baybee. Go to hell, baybee. When Ananda Coomaraswamy said ‘the man incapable of contemplation cannot be an artist, but only a skillful workman’, Anu Malik sure was watching him.
If you found GTH offensive, trust me, it was all in jest. Boys do this to their girls. What is important to know is that whatever name-calling the boys may do, eventually, girls are john-um. Tina tin tinna tin. Tina tin tinna tin. Read on. You Are Paglam. You are chiklam. You are jhagram. You are lafdam. You are bigdam. You are chidiyam. You are budiyam. You are motiyam. You are bambam. You are chitkam. You are pampam. You are tikdam. You are chakram. You are nakhram. But you are johnam. Ha ha ha ha ha. Haaaaaan. Gali Gali mein paani hai. Tu ladki deewani hai. Tu hai four twenty. Tu hai khatre ki ghanti. Tu kab de jaaye dhokha. Nahin teri guarantee. Tina tin tinna tin. Tina tin tinna tin. This Bappi Lahiri-Vinod Rathod song from the 1994 movie Juaari gains even more significance when you realize that it was picturized on Armaan Kohli. The Arman Kohli. But let’s not be very loud about it, else his father would relaunch him as a hero all over again.
Enough sparring. Need some love back in our lives. In any case, Where Is The Time To Hate, especially when there is so little time to love. I have included this song from the 1992 film Saatwan Aasman only for the rather perverse pleasure that I get listening to Udit Narayan sing in English along with Preeti Uttam. Where is the time to hate, when there is so little time to love. Come on let’s sing sing sing. Come on let’s dance dance dance. Come on have fun fun fun. Meri jaan.
Since I am being allowed to indulge, here’s Kumar Sanu singing Oh Laila Hum Tumpe, Dil Jaan Se Marta Hai in the 1994 release Chhoti Bahoo. Oh laila hum tum pe dil jaan se marta hai. Ban ke aashiq hum peechhe peechhe phirta hai. So far, so natural. Nadeem-Shravan, Sameer and Sanu being their regular frustrating selves. And then, BAM, the angrez in Sanu takes over. Oh laila I want to marry you. Oh laila I want to marry you. I can so visualize Sanu contorting his face, raising his eyebrows, shutting his eyes, flaring his nostrils, dancing his fingers, moving his limbs, smiling into oblivion… uhm, I think I should shut up before I make this uncomfortable and weird for myself.
Not that there haven’t been any cute songs with a smattering of English in Hindi films. Anand Prayag and Jerry Adolfe do a sweet job in the Kalyanji-Ananji number Pretty Pretty Priya from the 1970 film Priya. She’s very pretty. She’s very pretty. She’s very very very very pretty. Pretty pretty Priya. Jalal Agha and friends sing this for Tanuja. And they are so totally correct. She really is very very very very pretty. :)
We Are Made For Each Other, Suno Ai Jaane Jigar from the 1991 release Love must be the most philanthropic love song ever. Because the love in this SP-Chitra song is not only restricted to the girl and the guy, but is distributed equally amongst Garden saris, Vimal suitings, Colgate toothpaste, Old Spice aftershaves and Nivea creams. Trust me, I am not making this up. We are made for each other. Suno ai jaane jigar. Ki pehen ke sajoongi main. Garden ki sari balam. Tere pyaar mein pehnoonga. Suiting Vimal ki sanam. Hamein ban ke deewana dekhega zamana jane jaana. We are made for each other. Suno ai jaane jigar. Dekh dekh ek dooje ko muskarayenge. Colgate se phir hamare daant chamchamayenge. Jab subah ko milegi, gul se bulbul chehek ke. Hum mehekte phirenge Old Spice ki mehek se. Nivea laga ke hum. Kya lagenge socho sanam. Hamein ban ke deewana dekhega zamana jaane jaana. We are made for each other. Suno ai jaane jigar. My faith in humanity just got restored.
PS: WHAT do you mean I am crying!? There is just something in my eyes.
Don’t get bogged down by the passion and the power of love that you have been witnessing so far. Falling in love is actually a Step By Step process. Really. Amit Kumar and Asha Bhosle sum it up in the 1989 film Dost. Ek hum hue jaaneman kis tarah. Ho tan mein jaan, jaan mein tan jis tarah. First step. Haath mile. Second step. Aankh mili. Third step. Dil mile. Fourth step. Pyaar hua. Step by step. If you miss any of the above mentioned steps, it is not love.
Technically speaking, this next song should not be in the list because it is from the dubbed 1977 film Meethi Meethi Baatein. But that cannot take away the learning that this song imparts to the listeners. Hello. Hellooo. Hello My Dear Wrong Number. Hai iswar sundar toh kya ho tum? Kisliye milte nahin phir hum? Tadpaaye kyun ai sanam? Tu mujhe mukh dikhla de. Hellooo. Hello my dear wrong number. Hai machal gaye tum sun ke sargam. Aayenge saamne tere na balam. Na mera mukh chand sa, na nazar matwaali hai. Hello. Hello my dear, wrong number. If you wanted to master telephone etiquette, this is the song for you.
Okay. Pop Quiz now. Guess the lines that come before and after these: Mehsoos karoon mehfooz teri baahon mein. Main naaz karoon chale saath tu jab raahon mein. Don’t let the mehsoos and mehfooz fool you. We are not talking Mughal-e-Azam here, though I would not blame you if you already are conjuring images of Hasrat Jaipuri. Try shifting focus to Kimi Katkar in a Spiderman costume and Govinda in Bridget Jones undies. The year is 1988. The film is Dariya Dil. And the song is Tu Mera Superman. Tu mera superman, main teri lady. Ho gaya hai apna pyaar already. Very intense, very Justice-League-meets-Avengers lyrics, if you get the drift. If you don’t, you aren’t missing much.
Talking of Superman, here’s another flying object which continues to be an inspiration. Love Bird Kehte Hain Mujhko. Said Shadaab Khan in the 1997 anti-hero film Raja Ki Ayegi Baraat. There were many reasons why the debut film of Rani Mukherji sank without a trace. But this Vijay Benedict song surely wasn’t one of them. Love bird kehte hain mujhko. Baga ding dong dig dung. Love bird kehte hain mujhko. Har ik ladki lovely lovely. Beautiful aur crazy crazy. Mujhse bole touch me touch me. Touch me touch me. Such has been the impact of this song that there are men all over the world who consider it the theme song of their lives. And this when they haven’t even heard the song.
Deewanon ka ghar hai romance road par. Parwanon ka daftar hai romance road par. Hoti hai aankh micholi romance road par. Hai sab ki tabiyat doli romance road par. Yeah, we get it, but I think we have been far too long on the Romance Road. Need to switch to other spaces now. Like national integration. Contemporary poet and philosopher Bali Brahmbhatt hits the nail totally on the head in this Dharmendra and Aditya Panscholi starrer, Mafia (1996). Money doesn’t matter on romance road. You gotta deal with the subject of humanity. Rule out insanity. This is reality. In all sincerity. To the Hindu, the Muslim, the Sikh, Isaai. Don’t say bye bye. Say bhai bhai. On ro ro ro ro romance road. On romance road. What intensity. And what a message.
Dil tujhe de chuke tujhpe jaan denge. Hum tere vaaste har imtehaan denge. I am sure most of you are thinking this to be another love ballad. And this is why Arnab Goswami yells at you every night at nine. Because the definition of My First Love can be different for a few people. Not all young men of the country are just your regular deewana-parwaana-mastaana variety, only concerned about the frivolous things in life like girls. Dil tujhe de chuke tujhpe jaan denge. Hum tere vaaste har imtehaan denge. My First Love. My nation. Nation nation. Great nation. The song from the 1995 film Param Vir Chakra has been picturized on three cadets dancing on the stage at some Army festival. Seriously. If General VK Singh grew up on songs like these, I would not judge him any more for being seen with Ramdev at public rallies.
From a pure sociological point of view, English has always had this elitism attached to it. It has been the first language of capitalism and authority, especially in the context of the third world countries. Expectedly, the working knowledge of English elevates you to a more powerful, smarter position. And then you practice the smarts at red light areas. Anjaan pens How Are You Munnibai for the 1983 film Laalach, and Mahendra Kapoor sings it for Pran. How are you, how are you, Munnibai, how are you? Don’t tell lie. Don’t feel shy. Tell me why. You like I. I like your kotha. I like your kotha. How are you, how are you, Munnibai how are you? Don’t know who I should feel sorrier for, Pran, Mahendra Kapoor or Munnibai. :|
Our acknowledgment and celebration of English language in Hindi cinema cannot be complete without talking about the mammoth contribution of Professor Bappi Lahiri. His definition of Rock Dancer (1995) can make the most sincere and the most severe rock aficionados leave rock forever to join the Bappi cult. Ladies and gentlemen. Rock dancer kya hota hai, zara dekhen. R se hota hai rhythm. O se orchestra. C se hota hai concert. K se keyboard. D se hota hai drummer. A se audience. N se number. C se chorus. E se intertainment. R se? Rock. Rock. Rock. Rock. Dil ka cheque advance kar. Pyaar ka fee-nance kar. Mere sang sang dance kar. Aaja tu romance kar. Rock is love. Love is rock. Oh my love. Rock Rock Rock. Aaja aaja come here. Dil ki rail line hai clear. Tu mujhe sabse dear. Rehna bas mere near. Rock is love. Love is rock. Oh my love. Rock Rock Rock. Sometimes I wonder why we remember Bappi da only for being this lard of gold. He is much more than that. B se hota hai…
However, Bappi da’s tribute to the Rock Dancer pales in front of his elegy for Bruce Lee in the 1980 film Morchha. Why Bruce Lee? Because he was a great guy. And that was reason enough for everybody to joyously go Let’s Dance For The Great Guy Bruce Lee. Our man even got a firang voice, Annette, to sing with him to make the song sound authentic and legitimate in English. It totally worked. For Bappi, that is. We all know Bruce Lee is no more with us. But he will be alive in our hearts for many years. He was a tough guy. He taught us a new wave. Let’s give a hand for the departed soul. Come onnnn! Morcha. Morcha. Morcha. Morchaaaaaaa. Morcha. Let’s dance for the great guy Bruce Lee. Let’s dance for the great guy Bruce Lee. Zulmo sitam ki, maane na dhamki. Aisa bane aadmi. Let’s dance for the great guy Bruce Lee. Let’s dance for the great guy Bruce Lee. I am sure even Bruce Lee smiles whenever he gets to watch this song on YouTube. And I am sure even Bruce Lee wishes for a better print.
If you thought these English-Hindi conglomerations were just about song and dance, you would be amazed to know their expanse. There are philosophical lessons, there are temporal encroachments affecting perceptions of time and there are spaces and times being combined into the same continuum, creating new spatial dimensions in the process. HA, fooled you! That was me being metaphysical by combining random lines from Wikipedia. But then again, I have reasons to get into this mode, considering the next few songs are going to challenge most of you with their takes on the space-time equilibria.
The first song is from the 1997 release Humko Ishq Ne Mara. That Was Yesterday. That was yesterday. Humse hum pyaar karte the, iqraar karte the. That was yesterday. That was yesterday. Iss dil ko behlaate the. Saare naaz uthate the. Humse milne aate the, jaate the. That was yesterday. That was yesterday. So we have a girl singing what she used do to herself ‘that was yesterday’, harmonized by a male voice. Whatever. Your turn now, Stephen Hawking!
The next one is from the 1980 release Aakhri Insaaf. The director of the film was one Kalidas. Enough said. Yaaroon-oo-oo-on. Who Has Seen Tomorrow? Kal kisne dekha hai. Kal ko goli tomorrow. Yaaroon-oo-oo-on. Who has seen tomorrow? Pertinent question. A logical postulation that evades resolution. So no answers. Yet. Kalidas, FTW!
Starting with the title of the film itself, Waqt Se Pehle (1984) combines the intricacies of Gulzar with the idiosyncrasies of Gulzar, although he isn’t even associated with the movie. Find it out for yourself by listening to Nitin Mukesh and Preeti Sagar sing in their mother tongue. Make Memories. Make memories. Make memories. Make memories. Let them make your heart throb. In pleasure and in pain. Then live and relive by them forever. In sunshine and in rain. Make memories. Make memories. Deepak Chopra™ would be proud of this™.
This is the last song. There is no descriptor to it. Oh my dear one, go now! Will you go just now?
If you liked what you read, you may also like Getting educated at Bollywood: Woh toh theek hai magar woh kab karenge! and Of fish fry, kala kutta and rasgulla. 10 Best Hindi Film Songs of All Time.
Select YouTube links: Longfellow’s A Psalm of Life, Beautiful Baby of Broadway, My Heart Is Beating, BNB Rap, Hello Hello Gentleman, Yours faithfully, Love Interview, Tum Into Main, Main Into Tum, Love Letter, Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni, Don’t Call Me Baby, Aayi Yai Ya, Sorry Sorry, LML Baba LML, You Are Paglam, Pretty Pretty Priya, Step By Step, Tu Mera Superman, Love Bird Kehte Hain Mujhko, My First Love, Let’s Dance For The Great Guy Bruce Lee
Also, for those interested: Funky Town :)
Getting educated at Bollywood: Woh toh theek hai magar woh kab karenge!?
Thankfully, this note is not a commentary on the state of education in our country. I am too lowly a guy to screw around with our education system. Arindam Chaudhuri does a great job of that already. In any case, if somebody like me can construct complete sentences which are comprehensible in nature, guess they have not done too bad a job of educating us.
(Also, I just casually slipped in the 14-lettered ‘comprehensible’ to come across as oh-so-nonchalantly-intelligent and ah-so-indifferently-elegant. I am good. Going forward, I intend to use the word ‘lollapalooza’ somewhere in this note. And a whole load of adverbs once I finally get to understand what they are. Hopefully. Honestly. Lovely.)
But this note is not about my education, or the lack of it. This is about the state of learning and training in Bollywood. And it is a very serious topic. So finger on your lips, class! Hindi Cinema does take its education pretty seriously. Like, critically seriously. Case in point: Maa, main paas ho gaya hoon and the subsequent spillover of pathos, melodrama and the extreme theatrics in white sari. I really fail to understand either the son’s excitement or the mother’s surge of emotions on her goddamn idiot of an offspring securing barely enough marks to just pass the exam. He has not got a first class first, woman, so stop with that quivering of the lips already! It is a third division with KTs, and your son, obviously, never liked his books. Why, he must be one of the dumbest guys in his class. Neither he, nor his scores are either to be excited about or proud of. While you were going all vidhwa and stitching clothes and avoiding getting raped by Thakur, your good-for-nothing son was whiling away his time in random shit. DO YOU GET IT NOW, DO YOU?
But then again, if your mother is Nirupa Roy, I would not blame you for whiling away your time.
And. Moral of the story. Hindi Cinema does take its education pretty seriously. So much so that Sadhna Sargam actually rues the closure of the college in the 1992 fim Jaan Tere Naam. Kal College Band Ho Jaayega is reflective of the collective angst of the young generation pining for quality education, highlighting its hopes, dreams and aspirations. Kal college band ho jaayega, tum apne ghar ko jaaoge. Phi ek ladka ek ladki se juda ho jaayega. Woh mil nahin paayega. If you ever thought this song was a love ballad, I am going to judge you and your insensitivity and shed a tear or two for the young India.
Of course, there are black sheep who rejoice at the thought of the college getting shut, singing and dancing to celebrate the closure. Jeetendra croons Aaj Se College Band Hai in the 1979 film Khandan, and his long-haired friends wearing printed shirts join in the revelry with jolly impulsiveness. Yaaron aao. Khushi Manao. Aaj se college band hai. Aaj se college band hai. Halla gulla. Shor machao. Aaj se college band hai. Aaj se college band hai. For those who want to make this song the anthem of their lives, a word of caution, though. If you do not study, your future generation may end up making Kyonkii Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. Or worse, they may look like Tusshar Kapoor.
Just curious, but didn’t the concept of bunking classes exist in 1979? If the college shutting down for the vacations excited the boys so much, I am sure some of them would have died after having sex for the first time. But Jeetendra and friends still get the grace marks, considering there are some students who don’t even know College kehan hai. SP Balasubramaniam sings for them in the 2001 release Yehi Toh Pyar Hai. College kehan hai jaane na. Class chal rahi jaane na. Kya hai padhai jaane na. Desh mein kya hua jaane na. Jaanat hai soniya soniya kudiyan. Pyaar mein hai khushiyan khushiyan khushiyan. But it isn’t this tandoori-dosa mix – SP singing soniya and kudiya, that is – which makes it such a great college song. What follows the first few lines of the song must be the most amazing, the most enthusiastic, the most energetic, the most cheerful exultation of the youthful spirit EVER in the history of Hindi films. Chiraju Juku Buku Luku Le. Didn’t get it? CHIRAJU JUKU BUKU LUKU LE.
I know you are missing it already.
There are a few truisms attached to all colleges in Hindi cinema. First, girls are meant to be teased. Second, romance is meant to happen. Third, I love the way I randomly use the word Truism without even knowing its usage. So you have chhed-chhad songs ranging from Thoda ruk jayegi toh tera kya jayega (Patanga, 1971. Though it is not picturized inside the college, Vimmi, the heroine, is either going to or coming from one, carrying textbooks) to Haai meri amma (Jaal, 1986) to Khud ko kya samajhti hai, kitna akadti hai (Khiladi, 1992) to Gori gori oh baanki chhori (Shola aur Shabnam, 1992, sung by Govinda, no less) to Shava yeh nakhra gori ka (Suhaag, 1994) and many more that would fit into the same mould. 1990s perhaps represented the golden age of eve-teasing, with every second hero, and even Ronit Roy, Avinash Wadhawan and Harish, going at it. So much so that the 1990 release Dil could boast of two such songs, Khambe jaisi khadi hai ladki hai ya chhadi hai and Aaj na chhodunga tujhe dam dama dam. In completely unrelated news, Ruchika Girhotra got molested in 1990, Priyadarshni Mattu was raped in 1996 and Jessica Lal got killed in 1999. :|
Of course, the boys are allowed to be as crass and vulgar as they would want to be. But the girls have to be the Bhartiya nari everywhere, including colleges. God forbid, if some girl isn’t one, she should be well prepared to hear everybody whisper Dekho Dekho College Mein Ek Ladki Aayi Hai judging her, her attire and her character. This is it, give or take a few Sri Ram Senes. Dekho dekho college mein ek ladki aayi hai. Sharam haya bhi dekh ke issko sharmaayi hai. Or this is how Kumar Sanu and Udit Narayan go on with their tirade, demeaning the poor girl because of her choice of clothing. And I would not mince my words, I am simply appalled at this. I am aghast, disgusted and totally revolted even thinking that there exists a college which has both Kumar Sanu and Udit Narayan on its roster. Sick it is!
The second commonly found college songs are those which commemorate the love discovered in the campus. From the obscure Sunday ko pyaar hua from Kanyadaan (1968) to Jise dekh mera dil dhadka, meri jaan tadapti hai from Phool aur Kaante (1991) to Koi mil gaya and Yeh ladka hai diwana from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) to Gori Gori from Main Hoon Na (2004), these are emotional representations of the beauty of love in varied forms and intensity, despite the big words that I just used. And this love is even more passionate when the plea is to the College Girl. College Girl, I Love You. I love you, love you, love you. I love you, love you, love you. Mere dil mein hai kuch, tere dil mein hai kuch, mujhse nazar mila, oh dilruba. And we aren’t talking just any college girl here. Or wait a second, we are. Erm.
Apparently, being a College Girl is a big thing in Hindi Cinema. There have been three movies by the name of College Girl, made in 1960, 1978 and 1990 respectively. Then there was College Kanya made way back in 1935, starring one Madhuri. And this is where I start seeing my grandfather in an entirely new light. Yours, too. I am including the next two songs only to make you realize that your parents and their parents also went to college. And that they are not as dumb as you think they are. The first song is from the original College Girl of 1960 where Shammi Kapoor cutely explains what life is all about. Yeh Kaalej Ka Zamana. Yeh hasna hasana. Yeh banna banana. Yeh din zindagi ke. Ajab bekhudi ke… Subah sabere cycle ki kataren. Gunchon ki aur kaliyon ki takraaren. Na maathe pe pasina, na dil mein koi seena. Yahi toh hai yahi toh hai yahi toh pyaare jeena. Haha. Your parents and their parents were so dumb!
The second song is an Asha Bhosle number from Adhikar (1954), which has a fairly pertinent question, relevant even in today’s times. BA MA PhD BT BCom BSc. Degree le kar baithe hain sab, karenge kya ab socho ji. Socho ji. Bolo ji. The answer, of course, is simple. Join a call center. Bad working hours, average salary, lousy future prospects, but hey, at least you get to develop an accent. Socho ji.
But back to the College Girl of the 1990s, Amita Nangia stood for the transformed Indian woman. Naye zamane ne karvat badli hai, nayi manzilon ki talaash mein nikli hai. College Girl. College Girl. College Girl. Till she gets raped, that is. And then she puts on her leather pants, wears her favourite Jayaprada wig, shows her cleavage and kills everybody. Not kidding.
Come to think of it, I would not blame the lads for getting so enamoured by the College Ki Beauty. She sure can be ruthless while disturbing the peace of mind of the young men. Which totally justifies the boys’ resolve to get her cheeks burnt. No, really. Burnt. College ki beauty ne, ek sundar baby ne, loota mera chain haai. Aai haai. Yeh hai anaar, aur hum beemar, thoda manane do. Gusse mein gaal, hue hain laal, thoda jalaane do. Haaaaan. Any surprises that the song is from the 1994 film titled Anokha Premyudh?
To be fair to the young men, it isn’t as if they don’t ask the College Ki Ladkiyon to take it easy. Udit Narayan does all that he can to control the womenfolk of his college to go all amorous on him in Yeh Dil Aashiqanaa (2002). Ai meri, natkhati, college ki ladkiyon, ladkiyon. Yun mohabbat se mujhko na dekha karo. Meri chahat meri aarzoo ke liye apni masumiyat ko na rusva karo. I would love to be in that college where the girls let go of their innocence because of their extreme urges to eventually consummate with Udit Narayan. I would be the top scorer there. PS: You had me at natkhati, sir.
Obviously, if you find the girls natkhati, you would want to do Do Dooni Chaar with them. Nostalgia hits Govinda as he talks about that one time, perhaps the only time ever in his life, he went to college in the 1990 film Mahasangram. Ek din college gaya tha, mil gayi ladki hansi. Maine yeh socha kar doon ishara, ladki hansi toh phansi. Phir? Do dooni chaar hua re, pyaar hua pyaar hua re. This song gives you life lessons. If the girl gives you a smile, you have crossed the last mile. Now that there is pyaar, there has to be do dooni chaar. Therefore, always keep your bed-sheets clean.
Educationists talk about how the power of positive thinking can actually give life to one’s dreams. Or at least it does sound like something the educationists would want to talk about. Ronit Roy seems to be knowing them well enough. For this is what he croons in the 1990 release Jaan Tere Naam with his perceptive thoughts, hoping for a Romance Period. Mana ki college mein padhna chahiye, likhna chahiye padhna chahiye, romance ka bhi ek lecture hona chahiye. Jo ho romance period, love and dance period. For the record, he did achieve his dreams fifteen years later when he happily posed against an adiposed Smriti Irani in some K-onslaught on TV. It was period romance at its best.
Similar wishful thinking gets echoed in the 1993 film Santaan where Deepak Tijori and Neelam make a case for College Mein Honi Chahiye Pyaar Ki Padhai while preparing themselves for the Navratri dandia nights. Rumour has it that Falguni Pathak makes a public embarrassment of herself and her panchhida every time she listens to the garba beats of this song. Mera kehna mano mere bhai. College mein honi chahiye pyaar ki paadhai. Charo ore se yahi khabar aayi. College mein honi chahiye pyaar ki padhaai. Let me confess here that I am yet to figure what exactly is pyaar ki padhaai. Unless they are insisting on an interdisciplinary scientific study of human sexuality, including human sexual interests, behavior and function. What a bunch of freaks, I swear.
What do you do when the lecture gets cancelled? Barah Se Class Nahin, you are told. And you get the opportunity to entice your girl with your charisma, sophistication and charm. Here’s how you go about it if you starred in the movie Durga (2002). Barah se class nahin, chalo jaayen ghoome kahin, dhabe pe jayenge, dono khana khayenge. Okay, so let us revisit this situation. Here you are, trying to woo this girl. Fortunately for you, there is no lecture, you get your big chance, and the best you can do is to take her to some dhaba!? Like, really, dude? When you said you had no class, guess you meant your own. You deserve the reply that comes to you. Class nahin barah se toh tere saath kyon main jaaun. Kisi dhaabe pe jaake khana bhi main kyon khaun? Saath kyon chalun. Ho tere saath kyon chalun? Smart girl. Despite the inherent crassness in her voice.
Quite a few of these college songs actually are insightful case-studies in understanding and appreciating the power equation amongst the sexes. Sample this. The boy is being an idiot, as boys typically are. Tu na mili dil padhaai mein laga nahin. Ek bhi din bin tere college gaya nahin. I was so correct about the idiot bit. The girl, not surprisingly, gives him a rather terse and straightforward answer, puncturing his pronounced moronic machismo with élan. Din hain padhne likhne ke tum aahen bhar rahe. Fees maa baap ki barbaad kar rahe. Attagirl! Not bad at all. And then. They all. Fuck it up. By singing, I am just about to give up on my life, In The Morning By The Sea.
The only time I use a rumaal is when I have a runny nose. Precisely why I would never strike lucky. Because rumaal can actually be a metaphor for… OMG, I am actually using the word ‘metaphor’ in a sentence! And now, for the life of me, I cannot remember the point I was about to make on this song from the 1992 film Dulaara. Fuck. The girl loses her rumaal, Kal Kahin College Mein, and she then starts singing about it. Because that’s the normal thing to do, right. Kal kahin college mein mera ek rumaal kho gaya. Jisspe likha tha naam, kisi ka naam saathiya. O bolo bolo ab kya karen, o bolo bolo ab kya karen. In an ideal scenario, I would have asked her to go to the lost-and-found guys, but why be a cheaptard trying to retrieve a used kerchief. When you very well know some other cheaptard would find it, and, hell, sing as loudly about it as you were. Kal wahin college mein mujhe ek rumaal mil gaya. Jisspe likha tha naam, mera naam, saathiya. Toh bolo bolo ab kya karen, ho bolo bolo ab kya karen. You really need an answer to that!? It is a used rumaal which has felt some other human person’s body fluids and mucus, you fool, JUST DON’T TOUCH IT!
Btw, if you thought it was just about some song and dance to make that girl from your class like you, you cannot be farther away from the truth. Contrary to popular beliefs, there is a science attached to this entire process. Get that flowchart right and things would flow the way you would want. Agar Ladki Ka Dil Churana Hai, follow Sonu Nigam’s advice in this strange effeminately-masculine voice that he tried for Tusshar Kapoor – I would not blame Sonu – in the 2003 release Yeh Dil. College mein usse bulana, teacher se nazar bachana, yaaron ko nahin batana gar ladki ka dil churana hai. Haathon mein gulab rakhna, baazu mein kitaab rakhna hai, haazir tum jawaab rakhna gar ladki ka dil churana hai. This is it. Now name your first born after me.
Of course, when there is a college romance, people talk about it. The song Pyaar Ka Chakkar Hai Yeh Hai Na from Saath Saath (1982) contains what may just be the most delightfully cute gossiping around a budding college love story. College ka ek ladka hai aur college ki ek ladki. Nain mile aur unnke dil mein ek chingari bhadki. Pyaar ka chakkar hai yeh hai na. Dekho kisi se na kehna. Listen to the song to appreciate the innocent times gone by. Watch it to see Avtar Gill dancing. Um. Okay, listen to the song to appreciate the innocent times gone by.
Some college romances also end up in marriages. But before that happens, you have the entire population of Great Britain singing the rejected national anthem of UK to wish you. I swear I am not making this up. We Wish You A Great Life. We wish you a great life. A great lahaife. A great lahaife. Confused? This is what follows. I promise you a great life. I want you to be my wife. Life life. Wife wife. Life life. Wife wife. And all this inside a campus. If you don’t believe me, rent the DVD of the 2002 Hrithik Roshan starrer Aap Mujhe Achchhe Lagne Lage. Or, actually, just believe me.
The most honest college song, however, is not based in college. Sung by S Janaki and Munna Aziz in the 1986 Amitabh Bachchan starrer Aakhri Rasta, Pehle Padhai Phir Pyaar Hoga is a great choice for exploring narrative perspectives of the gender divide amongst the semi-urban Indian youth in the 1980s. If you got confused with what I just said, that makes two of us. The woman goes Pehle padhai phir pyaar hoga, pyaar hoga, pyaar hoga. Ek baar nahin, sau baar hoga, haan hoga, haan hoga. But our testosterone-filled protagonist cannot take it no more. Mujhse na intezaar hoga, Mujhse na intezaar hoga. The coy but understanding lady admonishes him with a Chup, aaj ka sabak hum yaad ab karenge. Our hero, and this is what makes him a hero, responds immediately with a rather straight Woh toh theek hai magar, woh kab karenge. Whoa!
Munna Aziz, I want to build a hospital in your name. Lollapalooza.
If you liked what you read, you may also like Of fish fry, kala kutta and rasgulla. 10 Best Hindi Film Songs of All Time. and Dear English in Bollywood… Zindagi bhar rahunga, yours faithfully!
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