When heartbreak became uncool

Coy,did I say? Now that love has been shortened to luv,and inchoate yearnings on screen have given way to sex aur dhoka,what do our melodies say? Now that filmmakers shy away from making their characters jump from low-key dialogue to high-pitched song,how often do you hear the Q-and-A of lovers,her laughing response to his earnest plaint? Hum aapki aankhon mein is dil ko basa de toh?/Hum moond ke palko ko is dil ko sazaa de toh?

And where is the classic song of heartbreak,that genre so loved of men defeated by love? Jab dil hi toot gaya,ab jee ke kya karenge, KL Saigal had sung. How can we write such a line anymore,asks Joshi,in these buoyant times,when the young know how to cut their losses and run. When you dont fall in love forever,then you can pack all your despair into 140 characters and tweet it into cyberspace for closure. The current generation handles failure in relationships much better. And so,even in songs of heartbreak,such as Tadap Tadap Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam or Nayan Barse Dev.D,the protagonists seem to be angry. The music is rock or metal,not a soft melody, says music critic Pavan Jha. In Dev.D,Anurag Kashyaps remake of the definitive heartbreak story Devdas,a pair of Patna Presleys at Paros wedding belt out Emosanal Atyachar,an over-the-top take on the sentimental lament over the bewafa sanam. In North Indian weddings,there is always this one singer in brass bands who sings with such passion,especially the songs of Rafi saab,so much so that the effect is funny. I tried to get that tone, says lyricist Amitabh Bhattacharjee,who wrote the song.When the old language of love and loss has become too lush for this age,how can it get Saigal?

How is the Hindi film song holding up in Bollywood today? The current debate on the vulgarity of Bollywood lyrics has been prompted by the skewering of a certain DK Bose in Delhi Belly,the toilet humour of Mit Jaaye Gham and Salman Khan jiggling his hips to show his dheela character. But there are more significant changes afoot: the shrinking language of love,the gradual fade-out of lyp-synced songs to tell a story,the growing use of the item number to reel in the crowds and the evolving voice of the youth.

First,the question of language. Both Character Dheela and Bhaag DK Bose tap into long-standing gentle campus ribaldry. But for many,Bhaag DK Bose,well on its way to becoming a pop anthem,has irrevocably crossed a line in its sly reference to a popular expletive. There is no creativity in using cuss words. To defend it in the name of openness is wrong, says Jha. Ram Sampath,who composed and sang the song,shrugs off the criticism,reading it as the old guards refusal to understand the new. The proof that young music is young is that the old dislike it. Its one of the requirements of young music. You could say that is what makes it hip, he says.

The old joke about every generation thinking it is the first to discover sex holds true for Hindi film music,where every few years,a dirge is sung on the death of good music. The song lyric has always been seen as being on the decline. Part of this is nostalgia,as the song has not only its meaning at the present time but years of accrued memories. Sahirs songs are beautiful but he was criticised for lyrics such as Gapuchi gapuchi gam gam Trishul, says film scholar Rachel Dwyer. Or cut to 1945,and a song written by the poet Josh Malihabadi and sung by Zohrabai in the film Man ki Jeet. More jobna ka dekho ubhaar,says the singer of the swell of the heroines breasts,without the slightest blush in her full-throated voice: Jaise nadi ki mauj/Jaise Turkon ki fauj/Jaise sulage se bam/ Jaise baalak udham. The song was banned on release years later,the relatively less explicit Choli ke peechhe wasnt.

Songs in the language of the street,or of everyday life,began to be written around a decade ago when the traditional idiom of chand-taare and wafa-gila seemed to have become lifeless formulas. The work of lyricists like Prasoon Joshi,Swanand Kirkire,Jaideep Sahni,and,above all,Gulzar,was enriched by a commitment to the contemporary,and showed how poetry could be wrung out of bol-chaal ki bhasha. Cinema is todays mirror,it should speak todays language. The language of shaairi is not what we speak. If a word is used in a way that hints at abuse,I see no problem with that. We abuse in real life,no? says Kirkire,who has written songs for Parineeta,Hazaaron Khwahishein Aisi,Lage Raho Munnabhai and 3Idiots.

But Javed Akhtars fear that language is shrinking is legitimate. Its not about bad songs,which will always be written. Look around you,the vocabulary of an average person in his 20s has shrunk. So many people know neither English,nor Hindi well. We have not nurtured the language, he says. In Bollywood,where film scripts are conceived and written in English by English-speaking urbane professionals,Hindi is a fraying language. Amitabh Bhattacharjee,who was born and brought up in Lucknow,says,I realised that no one here Mumbai speaks correct Hindi. They sometimes dont even know when to say hota and when hoti. That the Hindi film industry is no longer assured in its use of the language reflects also in the indiscriminate use of lingo in songs,in order to be with-it. When Gulzar says,Aankhein bhi kamal karti hain/ Personal se sawal karti hain,that enriches the language. But you cant turn a sentiment like Sandese aate hain into SMS aate hain, says Joshi by way of an example.

There are fewer filmmakers,too,with the exception of Karan Johar,Farah Khan,Imtiaz Ali,Aditya Chopra,and Vishal Bhardwaj,who are at ease with telling a story through lip-synced songs. Of the eight tracks in Delhi Belly,only one can be heard in the movie. The result is that the conversational song,the classic repartee between two lovers,is being written less frequently. Today,the song has been freed of the responsibility of letting characters express emotions that they couldnt speak about. So,more of the songs comment,or express inner feeling,or tell us what is going on inside a characters head, says Joshi. Many new filmmakers,says Sampath,try to balance the need for songs and the need for them to not get in the way of narration. For Akhtar,thats another sign of the snapping away of roots. Its one of the greatest traditions unique to South Asia,and I dont see why we should be embarrassed about it. Im not happy about its fading away at all, he says.

But,in the age of Munni and Sheila and the item song,does the film song have any need to worry? In response,film professionals point out the complete commercialisation of the song. The song is now outside the film,an accessory to it. It is used for pre-release publicity,to create a buzz. It no longer has to be integral to the story or the plot, says Jha. Music companies and marketing departments,especially,insist on peppy tracks around which to build their campaigns though that isnt a foolproof formula. Katrina Kaifs fab abs and Sheila ki Jawani set the dance floor but not the box-office ringing.

But music is still intrinsic to the success of a film a hit song might not a hit film make,but rare is the successful movie that does not have popular songs. If anything,the best writers bridge language and lingo inventively,and a line such as this floats out of the clutter in all its jingly-jangly west Delhi gusto: Chai mein dooba biscoot ho gaya/Main toh ainvayi ainvayi ainvayi ainvayi lut gaya. Or a long-forgotten Urdu shabd slips into a love song,Dil gira dafatan Delhi 6,and 20-year-olds stop texting to Google it.

The melancholy of the best Urdu poetry survives,too,despite the demise of the heartbreak song. It has simply found other emotions, says Joshi. Some of the best sad songs have been about a range of emotions protest O ri duniya in Gulaal,a childs sadness Maa,Taare Zameen Par,desire Meri arzoo,Kaminey,or that old,evocative word intezaar Ab mujhe koi,Ishqiya.

As cinema has found many stories to tell,lyricists too explore the breadth of human experience. In the words of Faiz Ahmad Faiz,aur bhi gham hain zamaane mein mohabbat ke siwa. n