O
urs is a country with a very strong oral tradition, where people read less and listen more. And Hindi film songs, which have so eloquently reflected the morality of their times, form an important part of that tradition. A journey into the lyrics of film songs is, in fact, like a crash course in Indian popular culture through the decades.Since romance has been the backbone of filmi geet, one might conclude that Indians are a very romantic people. In fact, the opposite is true. The intricate social and moral fabric of Indian society has always made a simple man-woman relationship into a kind of participative sport, played by society in the arena of restriction and sanction. Implicit in this is the fear that an unbridled man-woman relationship has the power to shake up and threaten established social codes and structures, like the joint family system and the sub-units of relationships.
Since open display of romantic emotions was taboo, it was expressed mainly through the medium of poetry and song. And film songs conveyed the entire gamut of romantic emotions with memorable effect, whether it was to convey your feelings to the object of your affection (Tere husn ki kya tareef karoon) or to express your own emotions (Meri aankhon se koi neend liye jata hai). For every facet of love, there was a lyric that spoke from the heart, through the transparent veil of the Hindi film song: desire (Aaj sajan mohe ang laga lo); playfulness (Hum aap ki aankhon mein); longing (Abhi na jao chhod kar); togetherness (Tere mere sapne); grievance (Apni to har aah ik toofan hai); pain and catharsis (Mann re tu kahe na dheer dhare); or appreciation of physical beauty (Chandan sa badan). The list is endless.
The code of social conduct decreed that such things could not be said through dialogue or be shown in a scene. That's why longing and pathos are the dominant emotions in so many of our earlier songs, written in times when a boy and girl dared do no more than glance at each other the first five times they met, and wait for weeks before they spoke to each other. The longing, the intensity, was built up gradually. In 99 per cent of the cases, love lost and society won.
Another factor, I feel, that underlines the language and the tenor of the songs of the early 1950s and, to some extent, the 1960s, was the fusion between elements of Mughal aristocratic tehzeeb and those of Brahminical restraint. The tunes were heavily inspired by Hindustani classical music ragas and thumris—voices were classically trained and refined.
