By Ojaswini Srivastava:
Munni badnam hui, sheela ki jawani, halkat jawani, chikni chameli, jalebi bai, Anarkali disco chali, dil mera muft ka, and so many others. And now it’s again Kareena Kapoor, with the Fevicol song.
All the dazzle and sizzles the thumkas and jhatkas, are driving the nation crazy. The bold lyrics, the youthful music, the sexy (no, this word is no more a taboo) moves and of course Kareena Kapoor, is enticing an umpteen number of people. It is playing on every radio station, every car, every phone, every dhaba, every hotel, everywhere, all over. There are people who won’t even know the exact lyrics, or won’t remember the complete lines, but only the punch, “mere photo ko, seene se yaar chipka le saiyaan fevicol se”, and they keep humming it.
It’s the item songs that are like a trademark to every Bollywood movie today. It is often the first song that is launched, and this serves as an excellent agenda, the audience gets attracted to it, gradually obsessed with the song and therefore interested in the movie. It sounds strange but this is exactly what happens.
A few years back the songs were a mark of soulful lyrics, romantic, painful, inspiring. It added an essence of life to the movies; it added a lot of persistence to the story. And the idea of an “item number” was nowhere in view. But today’s songs, are high on entertainment, adds drama, and of course when talking of item numbers, they add a lot of colour and vibrancy to the films
But seriously, are they so necessary? So inevitable? Even a ‘U’ movie perhaps gets those elements of a ‘U/A’ movie, because of the words and sometimes even the visualization. Or perhaps, this is too conventional an opinion, because, we are living in the 2012 India, kids are all aware of every slang, and every drop of the snazzy lyrics and the flamboyant moves, nothing is perchance unknown or vulgar and thus nothing offends . A whole family watches these movies together, sings together and enjoys it.
But, isn’t it really getting into their tender minds? Isn’t it making up Bollywood more and more dramatic and less real? Isn’t it taking away life from movies? All the masala and commercialization kept apart, isn’t it making a movie only darker (and certainly that makes it more tempting)?
Just give a look to serious movies, they barely have any such songs, rather any real “song” at all. Or wait, Talash, a serious, suspense, too has a flashy textured “muskaane jhooti hai” (again featuring the same, Fevicol girl). The clothes the slangs the appealing cinematography and all the glitz and glamour, contradicts the fact that “art reflects life”. But who cares? Isn’t it a commercial movie’s need and the commercial value that these songs add and increase? But, the impacts? No…nothing really? We are all aware ! A muddling subject!
Whatever be, the item songs are likable to the majority of Indian audience today. A fullstop. The maker’s work is done. But Really?