Aao huzoor tumko sitaaron mein le chalun …
Plato rightly said: “Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.”
Bollywood music, or Hindi songs, are that source of energy or passion that stands, rather plays, by us, in our happiness, sorrow, success, heartbreak, the first crush, wedding and the smallest of all such happenings spanning through our life. Bollywood aka filmi music has filled our lives with a range of melodious forms. Classic, rock, deshbhakti (patriotic songs), dance numbers, disco songs, folk, ghazals, qawwali and, the most common one these days, item numbers, are some of the shades that Bollywood music paints for us.
Saga of music
As most of us would know, Bollywood music came into the picture (pun intended) in 1931 with the first sound film, Alam Ara. Bollywood music has travelled from the ragas to the remix, taking us all along on the harmonic ride. From nasal renderings by the likes of K.L. Saigal and Noorjehan, to the soul-soothing melodies like Pyaar Huya Ekraar Huya, which is still the perfect song for the rainy, starry eyed day, we have heard it all.
R.D. Burman tried to pave a different trail for our favourite Hindi music by introducing westernised tunes, which gave us songs such as chura liya hai tumne jo dil ko: it still makes everyone want to learn to play the guitar. Bollywood music in the 1970s gave us diversity, with songs such asthum aa gaye ho to dum maaro dum, in the same decade.
Filmi music took us on a roller-coaster, leading to the discotheque with Bappi Lahiri playing the glittery conductor of music in the 1980s. The 1990s, my personal favourite eon, whipped out musical hits such as 1942 A Love Story and Taal: they both still give us goose bumps with their high-pitched simplicity.
The current era has been all about playing around with music, where the rappers like Badshah, with his Mercy, and Honey Singh with his ‘char bottle vodka’ are found putting their musical soliloquies, better known as rap, in nearly every song. As we reach the end of another musical decade, we see that the music around us is out to make another change with the dominating club mixes and item numbers with meaningless lyrics cueing at things like Badnami and Jawani. When you end up turning to mundiyan to bachke rahin or ladki kar gayi Chul in the midst of getting closer, you know that Bollywood music has really come a long way.
A warm embrace
I feel that it was after tapping his feet to the rhythms of Bollywood music that Victor Hugo said: “Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.” No matter what my mood, Bollywood music always has some flavour to blend with it.
I was bitten by the music bug after listening to Lata Mangeshkar in Hum Aapke Hai Kaun and A.R. Rahman in Taal and Dil Se. Bollywood music has emotions, sensations and passion, all amalgamated into one.
Though Bollywood music is in the experimentation phase these days with plain- sailing words and big on noise, our filmi music, even with all the remixing, still has an edge to it. There are songs for all outlooks to life: tadap tadap ke iss dil seto add emotion to the blues, ye jo des hai mera and haan yehrasta hai tera for our patriotic and inspiration-drawn side, celebration with ‘it’s the time to disco’ topped up with abhi to party shuru hui hai, flirting with palat to pallo latke to kala chasma, reminiscing of those college days with purani jeans aur guitar, and waving away our fears with all is well, sprinkling love into our life with kabira, agar tum saath ho and channa mereya, tujhe bhula diya to add the drama into the life after a big fight, ye dooriyan to shed that silent tear when missing the special someone.
And on top of all this we even have the break-up song, literally. You name the emotion and there will be a Bollywood song to complement it.
So all in all, we can sing our way out of any situation, with the perfect beats from the extravagant pool of our filmi music.
So, to sum up, chalte chalte mere yeh geet yaad rakhna.
sanjana.sm3@gmail.com