Urdu anybody???

What’s with Bollywood and Urdu these days? Every next song that I get to hear on the TV set or blaring on the speakers of all the ricks in Mumbai HAS to have one word of Urdu. The raison detre being its phonetic value that adds to the meter of the song. Don’t get me wrong. I am not ignorant to the fact that Urdu has always been the boli of 80% of the Hindi film songs.
In good old days we have had the best of shayars penning down the lyrics for our movies. Stars of the sixties like Sahir, Shakeel, Jaanissar, Kaifi ruled the skies of the Indian film world. With their chaste Urdu and proficient lines they could make songs even on the mundanest (Couldn’t resist the temptation!) situations seem profound and insightful. Taking their mantle ahead were the likes of Gulzar and Javed Akhtar. The former could complicate a simple situation like lovetalk between two passionate lovers and make it sound like a description of a chapter in a geography text book viz –

“Iss mod se jaate hain,
Kuch sust kadam raste,
Kuch tez kadam rahe,
Pathar ki haveli ko
Shishe ke gharondo mein,
Tinko ke nasheman tak
Iss mod se jaate hain.”

Or give Panchamda a piece of prose and ask him to put in meter and record it viz –

Mera kuch saman
Tumhare paas pada hai
Sawan ke kuch bhege bhyeege din
Rakhe hai
Aur mere in khat mein lipti raat padi hai who raat bujha do mera who saman lauta do.

Just kidding.

Me thinks Gulzar is someone who has penned down easily some of the most simple but profound lyrics of our times.

By adding everyday words like – makan, railway, chatri etc. he has given us words which were more closer to life than just mohabbat, afsana, wafa, aah etc.

But again, I digress.

But how can I go ahead without speaking about Javed sahab, he has in actuality simplified the whole process of lyrics writing. Sagaar, Saath Saath,Tezaab,Silsila were some of his gems.

All these stalwarts time and again have taken generous helpings from the Urdu reservoir to convey the hapless condition of a lovelorn aashiq. Albeit with abundant dexterity.

But I seek your attention to introduce you to this new breed of lyrics that have taken the Hindi film industry by storm and are threatening to stay put for the near future at least.
The modus operandi of these scamstars is to browse through the Urdu to Hindi dictionary. Look out for words, which have a nice phonetic value. (Preferably words, which people have never heard of before) Use the word repeatedly and jot some peripheral lines to disguise it and make it look like a song. Have some jazzy beats in the background and voila you gotta chartbuster over there. Ever done something simpler than this?
Well let me cite some examples.

Nikkamma kiya is dil ne (The word was first made famous by Ghalib. Now he must be turning in his grave on the beats of this song!)
Kambakht ishq (Ghalib again!!)
Khubakhu mujhe tu nazar aaye
Gumshuda
Talatum talatum (And you thought it was one of those oley oley kindda senseless shit. It means a storm)
Lahaulvila
Janab-e-ali

Do guys know of anymore to add to the list?

This will go on until one day they will run outta words in Urdu.Then they will start taking each regional language one by one and rape it repeatedly and thoroughly till its reduced to a lifeless pulp. Then they will search for greener pastures abroad and use Spanish,German,Lebanese,Swahili and the likes.

Anything to make a hit song!


PS. Coming soon is my venting out session on all the remixes. But for that lemme take a break and listen to some songs…;-)