Some quarters are complaining about the use of cuss words in controversial film of the year, Udta Punjab. I don’t see why. A key protagonist in the film is a rockstar, and music director Amit Trivedi has already announced that the film has “a dark soundtrack” with elements of psychedelic trance and hip hop. Anyone familiar with the world of hip hop knows that cuss words are to that genre what Suprabhatam was to MS Subbalakshmi.
Bollywood favourite Snoop Dogg, for instance, includes at least one profanity in every 36 words he utters; and has a total of 3,535 swearwords in his 13 albums. Among the rappers, Chief Keef rules, with a cuss cropping up in every 20 words. At home, superstar Yo Yo Honey Singh’s lyrics are replete with vulgarity and sexism. The irony is since the tunes are catchy, you find men and women dancing animatedly to them at clubs and parties, most of them clueless about what they’re jigging to. Not surprising since, as per the 2001 census, only 2.83 per cent of our population knows enough Punjabi to understand what Yo Yo’s ranting about.
Actually that’s what I’d like to rant about. What’s with the now-not-so-new phenomenon of peppering Hindi films with Punjabi songs? If we wanted to soak ourselves in Punjabi culture, wouldn’t we go to a giddha? When we go to watch a Hindi film, it’s because we have a preference for that language. We don’t want the characters to speak to each other in Hindi, and then suddenly break into a language we don’t comprehend when they’re feeling musical.
I could understand if the plot required it. It makes sense for a girl from Ambala, falling in love with a Humpty Sharma from Delhi, to sing Main tenu samjhavan to him. But, in Airlift, is it necessary for a Kuwaiti businessman helping Indians flee the country after the Iraq invasion to sing Tenu itna main pyar karaan to his Hindi-speaking wife? Or for the highly Westernized characters of Cocktail to submerge themselves in Punjabi lyrics whether they’re sad (Jugni, Luttna) or deliriously high (Angrezi Beat)? And does it make any sense for the star of Roy (a pretty inexplicable film in itself, which flits between London and Malysia and deals with art and thieves), to suddenly jump up from her chair in a phoren café and burst into a song and dance about “white kalaiyaan” and Chanel. (Since she’s wearing a minuscule white top at the time, I thought she was singing about that, but apparently it’s about her fair wrists and how she wants to be taken shopping at Chanel.)
It’s not as if all Punjabis are ecstatic with the Bollywood hijacking. London-based singer Malkit Singh, for one, is most unhappy. “The songs are repetitive, it’s the same composition over and over again, and words that make no sense.” They are destroying our music culture, he says. But I believe there’s method to the madness. Or, rather, money. That most of the Punjabi songs that crop up in Hindi films are already famous/popular, and are inserted in the movies only to make the producers richer. Making all the movie-goers happy clearly doesn’t count.
shampa dhar-kamath
shampa@newindianexpress.com