India's lyrical journey

The famished villagers in B RChopra’s 1957 classic ‘Naya Daur’ want to build a road throughrocky terrain: A passage that would shave off travel time and encouragecommuters to use a monster bus that swallowed their jobs of instead horsecarts.After initial reluctance, more and more villagers join theendeavour, sing and dance — spade and shovel in hand — to SahirLudhianvi’s lyrics, Saathi haath badhana, ek akela thak jayega milkar bojhuthana.The song evokes images of arms reaching out in unison for acommon purpose. It is a song about a future brimming with expectation, endlesspossibilities, about being together as part of a collective nation-buildingeffort.In his famous August 14, 1947, Tryst with Destiny speech, PMJawaharlal Nehru said, “We have to labour and to work, and work hard, togive reality to our dreams.” Stanzas from the same song — Fauladihai seene apne, fauladi hain bahein/Hum chahein to paida kar de, chattanon meinrahein — are perfectly synchronized with that statement ofintent.Few platforms of popular culture have showcased the Indianrepublic’s meta-narrative as succinctly as Hindi cinema songs. They becamea vehicle that took the idea of a nation as envisaged by its leaders —democratic, industrialized and secular —to the people. Through songs, theyinternalised the idea of India.If Nehru said big dams and industrieswere modern India’s temples, ‘Hum Hindustani’s’ titlesong (lyrics: Prem Dhavan, 1960) offered an uncomplicated, almostpamphleteering, view of his vision. Water gushed from dams and smoke billowedfrom industrial chimneys as Sunil Dutt sang, Naye daur mein likhenge mil karnayee kahani...naya khoon hai, nayee umange, ab hai nayee jawani, humHindustani.The words ‘socialist’ and‘secular’ were inserted into the Preamble of the Constitution onlyin 1976. But the twin ideals formed the bedrock of Nehru’s politicaloutlook. In ‘Dhool Ka Phool’ (1959), a Muslim brings up an‘illegitimate’ Hindu child. The song, Tu Hindu banega na Musalmanbanega, insaan ki aulaad hai, insaan banega (lyrics: Sahir Ludhianvi), echoesNehruvian secularism. Not everybody, though, felt the state wasliving up to expectations. In the same Tryst with Destiny speech, Nehru hadremarked that “the service of India means the service of the millions whosuffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and every tearfrom every eye... We have to build the noble mansion of freeIndia”.Songs in Guru Dutt’s ‘Pyaasa’(lyrics: Sahir Ludhianvi, 1957) critiqued the new nation’s capitalisticimpulse. It questioned the absence of space for non-exploitative relationshipsbetween people, individuals and society, says Ira Bhaskar of JNU’s Schoolof Art and Aesthetics.Jinhe naaz hai hind par woh kahan hai typifiedthe drunken poet’s angst as he walks through dimly-lit streets where loveis on sale. Zara mulk ke rahbaron ko bulao, yeh kooche, yeh galiyan, yeh manzardikhao. Anguish takes a sarcastic form in ‘Cheen-o-Arab hamara,Hindostan hamara/ Rahne ko ghar nahi hai, sara jahan hamara (film: ‘PhirSubah Hogi’, lyrics: Sahir, 1958). The song, a satirical take on AllamaIqbal’s ‘Tarana-e-milli’, goes on to say, Jitni bhi buildingetheen, sethon ne baant li hain, footpath Bambai ke hain ashiiyan hamara.Historian Madan Gopal Singh calls this “a dystopian vision” of thosewho remained unconvinced about the potential of India’s developmentproject.By the time the 1960s rolled in, Midnight’s Childrenwere almost teens. The Sixties GenNow travelled light on nationalism andideology; they just wanted to have fun. Shammi Kapoor’s primeval scream,Yahoo, says Singh, “was a rejection of the past, a second declaration ofindependence.” But the early 1960s also witnessed India’s crushingmilitary defeat by China followed by Nehru’s death. The loss that thenation felt also reflected in the defeatist track: Kar chale hum fida jaan-o-tansaathiyon, ab tumhare hawale watan saathiyon (film: ‘Haqeeqat’,lyrics: Kaifi Azmi, 1964).The mood was far more positive afterIndia’s military success over Pakistan in 1965. In Manoj Kumar’s‘Upkaar’ (1967), the song Mere desh ki dharti sona ugle, ugle heeremoti (lyrics: Gulshan Bawra) creates the cinematic equivalent of PM Lal BahadurShastri’s slogan, Jai Jawan Jai Kisan.But by the 1970s, thenation’s narrative and the music of Hindi films became disjunctive, sayshistorian Madan Gopal Singh. “Music ceased to be a direct metaphor ofnationhood,” he says.In the late 1960s and after,unemployment, price rise, corruption, disillusionment against the system createdan anti-establishment mood among thousands of youth who were attracted to theextreme Left’s Naxalism and Jaiprakash Narayan’s Sampoorna Kranti.Countless articles have suggested that this nationwide disposition was bestmirrored by Amitabh Bachhan’s angry young man avatar in a series of films,notably ‘Deewar’. Yet, the music and lyrics of ‘Deewar’are curiously de-linked from the narrative.Popular mood found echoin songs like BA kiya hai, MA kiya/Kaam nahi varna yahaan/Aap ki dua se bakitheek hai (film: ‘Mere Apne’, lyrics: Gulzar, 1971) and Baaki kuchhbacha to mehngai mar gayee (film: ‘Roti, Kapda aur Makan’, lyrics:Verma Malik, 1974). It’s no coincidence that the latter was the mostpopular song of the year in the countdown show, Binaca GeetMala.Liberalization in 1991 was a game-changer with a tsunami-likeimpact on social life. Above all, it unleashed a feverish rush for the goodlife. A couple of Hindi films such as ‘Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman’(1992) and ‘Yes Boss’ (1997) captured this fervent mood where evengetting the world was not enough. Chand tare tod laoon, Saari duniya par mainchhaon, Bas itna sa khwab hai, saari daulat, saari taakat, saari duniya, parhukoomat (film: ‘Yes Boss’, lyrics: Javed Akhtar, 1997) —reflects this age of boundless ambitions.Cut to the new millennium.Mall rat angst, college canteen cool and call centre romance — moments ofteenage life are being captured and expressed in rhyme. So are the delicatenuances of changing times. A married man telling his wife Hai tujhe bhi ijazat,karle tu bhi mohabbat (film: ‘Life in a Metro’, lyrics: SayeedQadri, 2007) would have been unthinkable not too long back but now deftlycaptures a facet of new urban relationships. Green concerns are expressed inPedh ho gaye kum kyun/Duniya mein hai jung kyun/Sarhaden hain kyun har kahin(film: ‘Rock On’, lyrics: Javed Akhtar, 2008). This is also whenanother young generation, free from every past fetter, has embarked upon aprivate journey to make it big: Pankhon ko hawa zara si lagne do, udne do (film:‘Rocket Singh’, lyrics: Jaideep Sahni, 2009).Undeniably,in the new millennium, Hindi film lyrics are again hooking up with the nationalnarrative. Not in the way the Sahirs and the Kaifis did. Because that India hasmoved on. There are no collective roads to be carved out; only private highwaysto cruise along. The lyricist’s name may be missing from CD covers but thenew generation songwriter is developing a modern language to explain love, life,relationship and society. He may be devalued but the word issoaring.