On Hindi film music

A great Hindi film song (there are thousands) stands on its own strength – words, music, voice. Some songs work their magic because they fit the situation in the film perfectly, and enhance the story-telling. Sometimes a song works because it is picturized on an actor that you adore and he or she does a terrific job on screen, with the song.

But there’s another reason why some songs are simply emblazoned in gold in your mind. It’s when they set off memories that are intensely personal. The song then becomes a part of the documentation of your life as you grew up. And that’s why Hindi film music is many things to many people. Many of us grew up with a ‘radiogram’ in the living room and the saucy new entrant, the transistor radio, in our bedrooms (to be kept on even whilst studying for exams), Binaca Geetmala, EP records that gave you just four precious songs from a film or LPs that gave you the whole lot, sometimes with an intriguing bit of dialogue just before the song (Zindagi bhi ek nasha hai dost, glug-glug-glug – Dev Anand saying the words and pouring himself a drink in Guide, before Din dhal jaye hai, raat na aaye.)

These songs became part of our lives, like family photo albums. Every family has their own ‘geetmala’ in that sense. A unique set of songs that became family favourites, or marked some event or period, or were best sung by a particular uncle. In this way they become inextricably woven into family lore. And that’s why the story of any Indian family can be told via a selection of songs that served as markers to the family’s life and times.

In our family, in the sixties and seventies, my brother would come home with those little ‘song books’ that you could buy outside the theatre after a film. He had stacks of them, and these would be consulted for when a song was being prepared for a musical evening at home or up on the terrace, under a Kojagiri Poornima moon under a Bombay sky.

Of those, Manna Dey’s Kasme vaday pyar wafa sab, baatey hai, baton ka kya was one that he sang like a charm. What with the full moon, the musing words, the somber, delicate melody, magic happened. But that was not what we remembered for decades after that, so much as what that magical rendition of the song did to an Aunty family friend. She simply fell in love for the rest of that evening. A mother of three teenagers herself, she was swept off her feet by the song and the 21-year-old singer, my brother. That evening, she had eyes only for him, coquettishly asked him to fetch her water, and generally doing the eyelid batting and flirting that we younger kids, in our brutal 11-13 year-old way, found hugely funny and absurd. (At 11, an Aunty of 38 is a Very Old Person with no right whatsoever to feeling a flutter in the heart.) It became something of a family joke, till one day we were asked to just stop it, and never make reference to it again!

Some songs, you heard a family member sing often, well before you heard the actual song. My father, with his rich KL Saigal voice, would sing Janay woh kaisay, log thay jinse…from Pyasa. Only years later did I see the original, complete with Guru Dutt’s brooding presence. That was lovely too, but it was my father’s song first. The same goes for Poochon na hamay hum unke liye…kya, kya nazaarane laye hai. When I first heard Asha singing it on radio, it was a shock – hey she’s singing my mother’s song!

A whole bunch of songs are recorded in my mind as nostalgic-for-India songs. Sung by my parents and a clump of Indian friends, nostalgic for home in 1970s Singapore, even today those songs take me instantly to musical evenings in that country – it’s a terrific form of time travel. Rahi matwale, tum ched ik baar, man ka sitar, janay kaisay chori chori aiye hai bahar, chedo man ka sitar…they sang robustly together, with each one taking turns at different verses. That song’s a Singapore snap-shot in my head.

The Kagaz ke Phool great Waqt ney kiya, kya haseen sitam – will forever be the song that my sister had to sing under duress. Made to perform in sulky adolescence in front of people, she would regularly sing it (very well, really) and stamp out of the room upon completion in a flood of tears. Move over Waheeda and Guru Dutt, that song’s got my sister’s name written on it.
A shy and nervous cousin coaxed to sing at a family get together once began to softly sing Har tukda meray dil ka, deta hai duaahi. He started with the first two words and Champi, their family dog, raised her head and howled. Much tittering, shushing, and the cousin was asked to start again. Again the first two words, and the dog raised its head and moaned in wolf-like woe. A couple more attempts, and that was that. That song thereafter became known as Champi’s song. The cousin never sang again.

Then there was O Sajana, barakha bahar ayi…the Sadhana song that for some reason caused me to burst into tears, as a 2-year-old. My parents would try it out to show people, and I would obligingly cry copiously on cue. To date, it’s known in our family as ‘radaycha gana’ – the crying song. Yesterday it came on on the radio at 11 at night during Bela key Phool – and I nearly cried on cue then too; it was like stumbling on a very old and precious family album.

The Emperor has no clothes!

It’s time we stopped gushing and genuflecting to long-faded legends.

As a child, when you hear the Hans Andersen story about The Emperor’s New Clothes, it’s fun to listen to, like most stories, but you kind of don’t get the point. Being yourself in that unpremeditated state of innocence and spontaneity, of telling it like it is, you don’t quite understand what was so great about declaring that the Emperor Has No Clothes. You kind of giggled at the image of a nanga-panga potentate, walking grandly in procession, etc, but you didn’t exactly catch why it was so wonderful that the child blurted out the truth. At that age, you know that you would have too. And so would have all your friends. Because that’s the nature of childhood – calling a spade a spade. And, well, a naked king a naked king.

Only later, after you step into more multi-layered adulthood, when your special licence to say what comes to mind is taken away from you, do you understand why the child’s shout: "But the Emperor has no clothes" – was such a high-point of the story. Only then do you sadly realize what a burden it is, once you grow up, to, like the adult citizens in that story, go on pretending that various Emperors are indeed wearing the finest of fabrics sewn in the greatest of patterns and looking oh so handsome.

But we specialize in that kind of thing. Our country abounds in various Emperors and Empresses – real people and concepts too – who have gone well past their sell-by date. And some kid (or kid-like person) needs to shout out to them from the crowd, as they parade their long-faded, now non-existent, charms: "Enough already! You were the Emperor once; you were the High Priestess once…but now you have no clothes. So please go home and wear something, for godsake, and stay home." And yet we don’t. Not most of us. We are all obliged to keep gushing and exclaiming publicly over their eternal youth, singing/compering/drawing/story-telling abilities.

Of course, we have many living legends amongst us. Writers, artists, singers, scientists and institutions that have done so much in their lifetime – who have in fact redefined the contours of their various fields. And yes, we must revere them, acknowledge them, keep fresh the memory of their contribution, and look after them as they age. But must we pretend that their talents and acumen remain untouched by time? Can they not pass into godhood, simply becoming figureheads who will continue to inspire? Must we put up with or encourage their performing, working, and talking – even when they’re all run out of steam?

Let’s take a look at some of our favourite emperors and empresses – national and local - all of whom badly need to be gently persuaded to stop parading their ‘new clothes’.

There’s the singing sensation that has reigned supreme over the last five decades and more. The ethereally sweet voice, the pristine pronunciation, the depth and range…the sheer quantity of songs sung. All of it make her a national jewel. No argument with that. But must we go on pretending that it all remains the same – untouched by time? And must she too? The cracks had begun to appear in the 80s – the too-shrill song, the strain in the voice, and worse of all, the re-rendering of her own classics in highly forgettable new versions. We need to put aside our need to gush and genuflect, and simply accept, with all due respect, that time has taken its toll.

Then there’s the person who has immortalized the foibles of politicians, stars, the common man. Every morning, he made us laugh, smile, giggle, smirk, wince, and nod in agreement. With a line here, an expression there, and very few words, he hit the nail on the head. Every day – for decades. Before reading even the headlines, your eye quite naturally ran to the slot reserved for this great man’s pictorial comment. But now it has to be said: he’s simply not funny or sharp anymore, and is positively wordy. While the effort to continue as before is laudable, surely that’s simply not enough. Why not stop now?

… Who was it who famously said when asked why he was retiring at his prime: "Better to retire when people ask ‘why’, than when people ask ‘why not’?

Another holy cow, a local one, is the Udipi restaurant we all grew up with on FC Road. It has, over the decades, fed generations of Punekars with the best idlis and dosas anywhere. People in faraway San Jose pine for its taste. It’s been second home to us all. But someone’s got to say it: today the uttappa is gummy and tasteless, the coffee is so-so, and the dosa and idli taste suspiciously as if they have come, not from naturally fermented batter, but from some nameless, centralized kitchen that indifferently processes and churns the stuff out in cater packs. Some of us accept, again with reverence and some regret, that this emperor is wearing no clothes, and simply move on, further down the road, to the promise of a real dosa and superb coffee. Others cling anxiously to the idea that it’s the best, and will be forever.

There’s the other concept that urgently needs to be retired: ‘Pune is the Oxford of the East’. No more. Let’s admit it. Dubious institutes sprout up every day and churn out half-baked engineers, journalists, managers, doctors…the entire gamut. As for the older institutes, for which our kids and those from far-away north and northeast vie and queue up to join – they simply haven’t got it anymore. All of them are caught in a vicious circle of bad teaching, low attendance, hence more bad teaching, hence more low attendance…and on and on. No, Pune just has to stop pretending that it is the Oxford of the East.

The list is long – the woman journalist who now bores us to tears with books about her Page 3 life and her designer children; the ageing actor who makes you cringe in front of the screen; the newspaper that was once an opinion-maker but is now simply colourful raddi; the woman compere stuck in time with her haw-haw Oxford accent; diamond jewellery with all its pretend mystique…There are far too many Emperors parading around with no clothes, and far too few kids to shout out the truth.

Attack of the Networkers

‘Networking’ – that word sends a shiver down my spine, these days. In the old days it was called ‘making contacts’. Then that phrase took on a crass, pushy hue, so now people Network. No doubt, it’s part of doing business – letting people know that you have goods or services to offer; or that you’re looking out for goods and services to buy. How else would businesses function? What seems downright creepy, however, is that there is now a whole lot of people who simply do not make the distinction between catching up with friends, and Networking. So every interaction, every evening out, every telephone chat is a potential business proposition. Much as I love men and women in their early 30s for their focus, sense of fun, positivity, and growing maturity, a lot of people in this age-group seem to be true devotees of Networking.

It takes just a very slim reference for a serious devotee to begin Networking activity. A web-designer friend called up the other day: "I’m going to Bangalore – give me the names and numbers of any friends you have there." "What for?" I asked.

"To get business," he said.

"Array, how can you just call people out of the blue and press business out of them?" I asked.

"But I won’t be calling out of the blue – I’ll be calling as your friend," he said, by now wondering why I was behaving so guarded. "It’s just networking, yaar, we’ll go out for a beer, chat."

"But maybe they don’t want to go out for a beer and be chatted at," I heard myself saying. My young friend muttered something that sounded horribly like "cranky old woman" – but I can’t be sure.

Somehow, we weren’t on the same page, as the Americans call it.

Does anyone remember a time when people would ask you if they could ‘quote your reference’? Not anymore, in Networksville. It is most legit, now, to drop your name in the right quarters, if that helps. (I hope people are suitably impressed that I am a potential name dropee for name droppers. But that’s not the point.)

And if amongst your old friends is a celebrity or two – an IT biggy or a film star or a famous chef or something, you have to really watch it. The Networker a) wants to ride piggy back and instantly get on first-name terms with them b) is really flummoxed that you haven’t used this connection for your own advancement. And if you were to complain that you’re going through a bald-patch, workwise, the Networker will sigh in resignation and say – "well with your contacts…" to which you bleat: "But they’re my friends and not my contacts. And we’ve remained friends precisely because I haven’t used them as contacts." At this juncture, you get a pitying, disdainful look – as if you’re some fussy-fiddly leftover from a bygone era. And you deserve to have bald-patches in your career.

Networking can sometimes be performed with the same hope and tenacity with which people squeeze out toothpaste from a tube that’s all used up and flattened. Take this scenario: You may have mentioned in passing that your dentist needs to upgrade his equipment and spruce up his clinic. Before you know it, a Networker friend asks you for your dentist’s number. Assuming that people go to dentists only when they have an impending dental crisis, you pass on the number. Only to be called up by your irritated dentist (never irritate them, they’re equipped with high-precision sharp weaponry) who asks you why you’ve done "choo" and set some person trying to sell new medical equipment on him like a killer-dog. You explain that you thought he wanted to come as a patient…and then it dawns on both of you: The Networking virus has struck.

A week ago, I went out for dinner with some people to sample some great fish and get to know them better. A mixed bunch we were: a few writers, some journos, a software person, a yoga instructor, and some more people, whose professions I didn’t know, and we never got down to talking about them. That’s because no one, thank god, was Networking. All of us present were more than our professions, and so had much to say on sundry subjects, from Automobile repair to Zucchini growing – none of which we do professionally. Then we ate some fish, and then some more. If that’s wasting an evening of potential profession peddling, bring on the kolambi sukhe, and keep the sol kadi flowing, I’d say.

Slice it any which way, constant Networking – in the gym, at dinners, at weddings, at kid’s birthday parties - can only be described as opportunism dressed in frilly clothes. The interesting and yet sad thing is, that somewhere, the Networker knows that he or she is pushing the ticket. Why else would they get themselves business cards made out of some dread material that simply can’t be torn and thrown away, and is capable of surviving floods, fires and nuclear holocausts?

Black Dog Apparition

Many of us grew up with stories from the Ramayan and Mahabharat. Some got them straight from the horse’s mouth – told by a well-read grandparent or elder. Some of us got them mainly from Amar Chitra Katha – the action etched in our minds in only four colours. Drawn by just one or two artists, all the good guys looked like each other and the bad boys looked exactly like one another too, straight out of a mould – Ravan melded into Duryadhan, merged into Dushyasan, fused into Shakuni…all baddies sporting the mandatory heavy mustache, red tongue, thick knitted brow and staring eyes.

As you grew up, you saw other renditions of scenes from the epics – in paintings, etchings, scrolls, embroidery, weaves, batik, rangoli, mosaic, neon lighting… the visual works. Some scenes have always been on top of the popularity charts with professionals and amateurs alike. Arjuna riding his chariot; Indra resplendent with the sun’s rays; baby Krishna caught butter-handed; Ram stopping by Shabri’s humble hut; Laxman revering his brother…But the one scene that I have long been looking for, I have never found illustrated anywhere except long back in Amar Chitra Katha, and I would like to see it in another style beyond that.

It’s my favourite part of the whole Mahabharat (we dog lovers at times tend to ignore the much larger canvas of human drama and concentrate on the canine detail) is that of Yudhishtira firmly and politely declining the invitation into heaven, if his accompanying black dog was not allowed in too. I love that story. There he is, at the end of a whole yug, an age. Much, much has happened, literally of epic proportions, in his life. And yet the choice is just so simple for him: Take me and this faithful friend, or I’ll give heaven a miss. Thanks but no thanks, he seems to be saying, at the much-touted heaven’s gates.

Whether the dog is real, or symbolic, a projection of Yudhishtira’s own psyche, a test, an apparition…I don’t know. I love the episode. Kya scene hai! But I haven’t found it illustrated anywhere. I’ve often toyed with the idea of trying my hand at drawing it. I have imagined up how various artists would take a stab at it – the Badris, the Maqbools, the B Prabhas, even the Wyeths, or the Hockneys, even Picasso! Or even in a folk art from – Madhubani, Kalamkari, Warli…I sometimes even grandly think of ‘commissioning’ someone to do such a painting for me. But I want to see it in many styles, just like you can see cross-stitch Karnas, batik Bhimas, needle-point Nal-Damayantis. I would love to see Yudhishtira and his black dog celebrated every which way.

That may or may not happen for me, but, in the meanwhile, I’ve had a couple of interesting black dog interactions of my own. When I mentioned it to a friend, she marveled at my story and then told me mysteriously – go Google it and see what you get. I wrote ‘black dog’ on the net, and hundreds of thousands of websites popped up. People across cultures and continents and classes have had a black dog apparition of their own. Sometimes it’s been seen as evil and threatening and sometimes as an auspicious and joyous sign.

My ‘sightings’ of a black dog, in keeping with my fascination for the Yudhishtira story, have been wonderfully rewarding occasions.

The first was a few months ago in Africa – in a town called Arusha, Tanzania. I was back from a semi-climb up Kilimanjaro (the daunting summit section, I had given a miss to), walking in the ink-black night to the dining shack of a lodge cut into the foothills. The mountain looming behind me was the much-ignored-because-of-Kilimanjaro Mt Meru (get this: the Yudhishtira episode happened on a Meru parvat). The friend I was travelling with was summiting Kili that night, and here I was, out of contact with anyone I knew, and I thought: "My god I am so alone here…and so alone everywhere".

Close on the heels of this thought, I heard a clicking of nails behind me, and quickened my pace, not sure if my slightly wobbly mental state was pursuing me or some equally dangerous animal was. The clicking kept pace with my increased speed, quite like something out of an amateur horror film.

Finally, I stopped and turned around, and out of the darkness stepped an even darker dog, only the benign gleam in its eyes visible. I actually asked it out loud in surprise, that too in Marathi: Array, kon tu? Who are you? It gave a small friendly whine, did a cat-like circle of my legs and vanished, literally into the rock surface of the mountain wall besides me. In that kind of darkness, anything that moves a foot away from you, does seem to simply vanish as suddenly as it appeared. I smiled to myself – really how fitting that any sign I should get about not ‘being alone’, would come to me via some canine messenger!

Just the other day, I stood in the compound of a city hospital. A dear friend (another dog lover) was scheduled for major surgery the next day. As we stood together, sobered at the thought of what she was going through, a shy-but-frisky black dog came out of nowhere, ran around us, fixed us with a trusting, confiding gaze, wagged its tail, stood companionably with us, and then followed me jauntily to my car. That was no apparition, just a cheery soul telling us it was all going to be okay.

So now if I start my own publishing company, I’ve decided I won’t call it Dog-eared Books, as planned, but maybe Black Dog Books. And don’t anyone pinch these names please – the black dog will get you.

Barter

I have an admission to make. Yesterday, I lied thoroughly and outrageously – to three young people. With the lies I told them, I have spread disinformation and confusion too. (And god knows, they’re a confused lot already, poor things.) What I did was nothing short of ragging, but luckily, since I don’t belong to any college hostel, no one can take action against me.

I have only this to say in my defence: they called me up at a bad time. And bad time is when you’re answering the 300th phone call in the last one month from people asking you if you want a credit card, a home loan, or a car loan. Yesterday’s three young people – let us call them Rahul, Shweta and Neha - were just doing their job, but poor kids, they turned out to be the proverbial last straw on this camel’s back, and I kind of broke. Just flipped out.

It wasn’t your everyday or garden variety of flipping out. I didn’t yell and screech and say sarcastic things or slam the phone down or pretend that I was the maid and shout Tai ghari nahi nantar phone kara. I simply engaged them in a long conversation and enlightened them. Got them to think laterally.

First a brief backgrounder: Last week I got one of those ‘pre-approved’ credit cards in my mail – complete with my name embossed in it – from a bank with whom I have never banked or transacted any business. It came with the usual glossy colourful brochures, which I promptly cut up into little squares to add to my palette of paper mosaic that I work on whenever MSEB cuts me off. As for the card, I cut it into four pieces with my garden shears, put it in the bank’s postage pre-paid envelope, and posted it back to them. It was my wordless ‘no thank you’ – a social grace taught to me by a friend who gets about 5 of these in the mail every week.

But somehow, the bank seemed to have not got this subtle hint, and wondered if I had maybe cut up the card ‘by mistake’. So they got a Miss Shweta to call me and ask. It started with her asking: "Ma’am, will you be availing of our credit card facility?" Now normally I would have said, employing my Marathi-manus sarcastic best tone: "Shweta, child, when I send you a card cut into four, does that look like I want to avail of your facility?"

However, yesterday I simply said, "No, thank you."

To which she asked: "May I know the reason why?"

Again, normally I would have been tempted to say "No you may not," or descended into some childish retort like "Why? Because the sky is so high."

But to my pleasant surprise I found myself saying, "Because I don’t use credit cards. I use the barter system."

Poor Shweta – I could here her gulping, and then she said: "Ibegyourpardonmaam?"

I said: "Barter…exchange of goods and services. We don’t use cash or credit at all."

In a slightly faint voice she asked: "Ma’am what is the nature of your work?"

"I’m a book-editor and writer and counselor," I said, and a series of lovely lies floated into my head in preparation for her next question.

"But ma’am you need to buy things, no…groceries, white goods, etc?" Shweta asked.

"No. The people I write for pay me in dalia sacks," I volunteered, and offered her an extra nugget of info, that my dogs eat dalia as their staple.

While she was digesting this, I added: "And counseling clients pay me in fruits and vegetables; as for particularly complex cases, they pay me with microwaves, hair dryers. And for a large book edit project I got paid with a Zen by the publisher. So you see, I don’t need to buy or sell anything with money or credit."

At this point Shweta went dead silent for a few seconda, said one minute maam and passed the phone to one Rahul who said smoothly: "Rahul this side maam, I believe you are looking for a car loan to buy a Zen?"

I said "No, no…I just said that I wanted to exchange a Zen and 15 sacks of dalia, for a holiday to Europe. You in the market for it, Rahul?"

At which point he said, mustering up all the dignity and presence of mind taught to him at home and in B-school, "Ma’am please speak to our Area Manager."

And then came Neha here. To whom I said, "You know Neha, credit-shedit, loans-woans…all these are going out of fashion. You must re-train your people in Beg. It’s the next big thing in the consumer finance sector. And I’m a Beg Consultant."

"I beg your pardon?" Neha asked, now deeply confused.

"B-E-G – Barter and Exchange of Goods," I told her patiently. "It’s a complete new way for the economy to function. Actually it’s how our ancestors transacted business. And now it’s a subject being offered in all the big B-schools. You can call me in to your bank any time as a consultant on Beg. All I will ask for in exchange is 300 floor tiles to re-do my bathroom."

At which point she put down the phone. I had achieved the hitherto unachievable: getting this kind of banker to put the phone down before I did.

Don’t judge me harshly. Call it my little April Fool joke. They were asking for it - given that these ‘pre-approved’ credit chaps try to make fools of us round the year.