There has been times when Bollywood (Hindi Industry) has used other languages as a need of character buildup in its story like- Navrai majhi ladachi (Marathi) in movie English Vinglish, One Two Three Four (used bit of Tamil) in movie Chennai Express, Mere Dholna Sun (Bengali) in movie Bhool Bhulaiyaa, Nagada Sang Dhol (Gujarati) in movie Ram Leela etc. and also used in period movies like Rajasthani in Padmawat, Marathi in Bajirao Mastani etc.
But the point is these used languages had a strong connect with their characters in it. Now imagine going for a Marathi movie and getting hit by Goan songs, going for a Bengali movie and watching people dance on Asameese song… shocked right!? Similarly, almost literally every song of Bollywood uses Punjabi/ Urdu as a language for expressing their main leads feelings and situation ships- in spite of any background they are.
Non- Hindi speaking population (like me) when watch a Bollywood movie, and observe the character transition of their image in native language (depending on character), then directly to their image in a Punjabi / Urdu song; the audience do struggle with corelating the characters persona in rest movie and the lyrics/ concept they are dancing on. Lets take an example of a song in Highway movie where in the character (Tripathi) doesn’t have any Punjabi/Sindhi background –
Tu le naam Rab da Ali Ali
Jhall Khaleran challi
Naam rab da Ali Ali
Har darawaza Ali.
What exactly does Jhall Khaleran even mean? Can a character with non Punjabi background ever think of this phrase in whatever situation she is? And if we observe we could get more of like these examples.
There’s an example of Urdu in a song which has lyrics –
Ishq-e-Khwab Khwaab Sa Hai
Mera Behisaab Sa Hai
Tere Lab Choom Loon Main
Urdu Ki Kitab Sa Hai …
Even here, the masses, portrayed character who sings this (Raj Vardhan Thakur), and the audience doesn’t even know what is a ‘Urdu kitab’ and what it looks like. There’s literally no relation/ context of that in entire movie plot, chemistry etc., and still these words are being used. And… Let’s not connect language to any religion here, Its not about Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Isai etc… its just that the characters cultural background doesn’t fit to what he sings. There could be agreement on 1 thing that Urdu has the brevity i.e. the ability to say much in few words. To give an example:
If we take a phrase- Andaaz-e-Guftgu (Urdu)
And If we try writing it in hindi- Baat karne ki paddhati, dhang, baat karne ka tareeka. The way you talk (English)
We see it took 4 words in Hindi to express when Urdu did that in 2 words. That’s brevity and am sure that’s what poets try to seek and its not about the language in specific but again why not experiment and accept the challenge of expressing (बयान-ए-दास्तान) into (कथा का वर्णन), Let the song be of 4 or 5 stanzas and expressive in its own way, there’s no hurry.
Songs should be easy and enjoyable and not stressed on the words that are foreign to listeners as it just breaks the connect. And although Punjabi themed dance/ song is more catchy and mood uplifting but we don’t want more songs over-praising some Pind da Munda or Kudi, Daru- Sharu through ‘Hindi’ film industry.
Every Indian language is equally beautiful, no doubt in that but the part of pure Hindi lyrical (apart from some graceful Hindi poetry and contemporary literature) are decaying in comparison to funky lyrics which have a short shelf life. Lyrics have become repetitive, cheap and don’t hold any emotional value amongst the masses due to which they prefer listening old songs (which are comparatively more Hindi). There was a time, when my non Hindi speaking senior family members in their time used to remember the lyrics of a song effortlessly, for example-
शीतल पवन बहे मोर आंगन
समीर बहे आवन मन भावन
दादूर मोर पपिहा बोले शगुन सुनावे कोयल बोले
सूर से तन मन नाच नचावे … and even Lata Mangeshkar Ji’s-
ऊषा ने आँचल फैलाया
फैली सुख की शीतल छाया
नीचे आँचल के ज्योति कलश छलके …
These lyrics are enough to inspire, motivate and captivate people. Isn’t it thought worthy that Punjabi songs with powerful beats can be remembered effortlessly, but it takes time to sing a better song, with lyrics of pure Hindi ?, If once Bollywood starts exploring this word game again, even retro era’s senior citizens would sing new songs and be fan of new Bollywood.
Coming back to Punjabi, we see quiet dominance/ contribution/ influence of Punjabi folks in Bollywood so naturally they promote their language and culture. Punjabi is a language quite closer to Hindi compared to other Indo-Aryan languages, like Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati etc. so creators might think that Punjabi resembles Hindi in many ways but, Bollywood is a Hindi film industry and Punjabi has their own film industry in Punjab.
So some questions like- Is Bollywood using these languages prominently due to masses around the world enjoys and remembers Indian music / dance through Daler Mehndi’s record hit- Tunak Tunak tun ta na na? Does Bollywood think that without using Punjabi/ Urdu their content might seem like a mythological content ? Can’t Bollywood lessen the usage of Urdu/ Punjabi in their contents, which most of the Indians don’t understand?