Songs of life, sweet and sour

Here is what Urdu’s poet laureate Mirza Ghalib had to say about heaven:

Hum ko maloom hai jannat ki haqeeqat lekin Dil ke behlaane ko Ghalib ye khayaal achha hai.

That translates as: I know heaven does not exist. But it’s a good idea to amuse yourself with.

Ghalib’s existentialism preceded Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and, of course, Sartre. Ghalib’s influence continued on the Urdu poets who deigned to pen Hindi film songs. Their sharpened sensibilities brought into sharp focus the essential meaningless of life, the human predicament, the irrational world, and so on.

Sample Sahir Ludhianvi: ‘Main pal do pal ka shaayar hoon’ (from the film Kabhi Kabhi) about life’s transience, ‘Tang aa chuke hain kashmakash-e-zindagi se hum’ (Light House) about life being a struggle, ‘Jo bhi hai bus yahi ek pal hai’ (Waqt) about living in the moment.

But despite everything, you can give meaning to life. How? Savour these lines by Shailendra: ‘Kisi ki muskurahaton pe ho nisaar. Kisi ka dard mil sake to le udhaar. Kisi ke vaaste ho tere dil mein pyaar. Jeena isi ka naam hai’ (Anari), which suggest that life means to get beguiled by somebody’s smiles, to partake in somebody’s pain, or to have your heart filled with somebody’s love.

Majrooh Sultanpuri, who was particularly peeved with poetry fleeing in Aati kya Khandala, had scores of gems to his credit, such as: ‘Dil pe aasra kiye, hum to bas yoonhi jiye. Ek qadam pe hus liye, ek qadam pe ro liye’. That is, “I lived from the heart: laughing at one step and crying at the other.”

Exuberance and love were not missing from the lyrics of older films. But our changing society — at least in our films-seems to accept only these emotions now helped with large doses of implied sex.

While receiving the Dadasaheb Phalke award, Dilip Kumar mentioned the fall in literary merits in our films. Not many producers today have the guts to put out real, balanced emotions, such as Guru Dutt, Mehboob, V Shantaram, or BR Chopra had. Not just films, even life seems to be getting straitjacketed now. No longer can somebody write: ‘Zaahid sharaab peene de masjid mein baith kar, yaa wo jagah bata de jahaan par Khuda na ho! (the line preceded the song ‘Mujh ko yaaro maaf karna, main nashe mein hoon!’). This was mysticism at its best: “O priest, let me drink liquor in the mosque or point me to the place where God is not.”

The writer is a Hindi film music historian.