Bhoole Bisre Geet

Photo by Vardan Mathur on Flickr

So the other day I was thinking… if I had to chooses between staying in India and leaving the county, when parting from my love is inevitable, where would I prefer to be… in India or any other county? After listening to songs like, “Jalte hain jis ke liye, meri aankon ke diye…” I realized, damn, I’d prefer to be out of this god awful country any day. Where else in the world, except for Pakistan, will you be hit by a song - at a bus stop, chai ki kitly, market, restaurent, salon, etc, etc, etc… - that could make you cry? I still remember how I cried at Khanpur bus stop, in Delhi, listening to,

hum bhool gaye har baat magar tera pyaar nahi bhoole
kyaa kyaa hua dil ke saath
magar tera pyaar nahi bhoole

playing at a road side paan shop…

“Shyarana si hai zindagi ki fazza, aap bhi zindagi ka mazza leejiye; Main gazal ban gai aap ke saamne, shaukh se ab mujhe gun guna leejiye” or “abhi na jaao chod ke, ke dil abhi bhara nahin”, etc etc etc etc etc etc…. etc.. etc… Indian film music is way too rich.

So as I said, I’d prefer to far away from India, then be tortured by these beautiful songs which are the blood stream of our nations (I am taking the liberty of including south, north east, j&k, etc). Our rich heritage of songs, music, dance and culture is awesome! And at the age of 28, I have just begun to be proud of this heritage. There was a time when I used to hit the forward button the moment a film song came up. No more.

Tell me, which country can boast of millions of songs which the whole nation can recite word for word! And I am not even talking about the classical music traditions of India! I am talking about contemporary Indian cinema music. Kishor Kumar, Mohd. Rafi, Lata, Asha, Guru Datt… have given happiness and comfort to millions of Indians for decades. And I can bet my ass on this, they will continue doing this long after we’re all gone!

Despite the crap that Bollywood is spitting out for the past couple of decades, mostly due to deliberate killing of Urdu language and poetry, I am glad that our film music heritage is so rich that I won’t have to compromise on good music in at least my life time. Future generations you are fucked. :P

Note: I believe, there is a general trend in India, as kids and teenagers, we tend to detest and hate Indian music, and prefer Shania Twain, Shakira, U2 over Kishor, Rafi, Lata etc… but with time and age… things change... how cool!

Note: Indrasabha (1932, J J Madan) had 71 songs!