Ok budding writers, an exercise for you. Try to write a Bollywood song with Hindi equivalents of these words:-
Dil, Jigar, Nazar, Sanam, Kasam, Humsafar, Nadaan, Iqraar, Izhaar, Eitbaar, Dilbar, Hosh, Madhosh, Dhadkan, Inkaar, Mehboob, Mohabbat, Khat, Dua, Tanhai, Khayal, Lafz, Ishq, Ashiq, Allah, Maula, Khuda, Jazbaat, Beqaraar, Wafa, Bewafa, Fida, Bekhudi, Dard, Junoon..
Or at least try remembering Bollywood songs which don’t have them.
Tough, isn’t it?
All the above words have been used to death by Bollywood lyricists right from Ludhiyanvis to the Akhtars. The origins of most of them, like the other components in Bollywood were from northern gangetic plain, or more specifically from western Punjab. As a result of extended Islamic rule has and later on Urdu variant of Hindustani receiving recognition and patronage under British rule ensured that most literature that received recognition and reach came out of this language.
The use of Hindustani/Urdu has been so extensive in Bollywood, that its viewers cannot even imagine that songs can be written without calling anyone “jaanejaan” or giving your “dil” to them. Bollywood calls itself a Hindi film industry; it’s actually a Hindustani film industry. Hindustani has the grammatical structure of Hindi, but it replaces most of the Sanskrit based vocabulary with the words originating from Persian, Arabic and Chagatai (Turkic).
Before partition, the terms Hindustani, Urdu, and Hindi were synonymous; all covered what would be called Urdu and Hindi today.
The only difference between Hindustani and Urdu were the scripts. But one cannot deny that Hindustani shed its Sanskrit roots at every given opportunity to become distinct from khadi boli Hindi.
While it is true that Urdu/Persian was most patronized literature by the Islamic empires in north India, the financial dominance of Bollywood by the Muslim underworld has a huge part to play in the Urdufication of Bollywood. The Urduization of Hindi via Bollywood is not a new phenomenon at all. It’s been going on right through the 1940s to the 90s and beyond. Some of the songs are so persianised that the listener feels if at all any Hindi substitute to the lyrics exist at all. Both melodious and cacophonic songs are privy to it. One can write volumes upon volumes on examples, but here are a few:-
Khuda jaane ke main fida hoon, khuda jaane main mit gaya,
Khuda jaane ye kyon hua hai, ki bann gaye ho tum mere khuda (Would have sounded like a sermon if not for the locales)
Chaudavin ka chand ho, ya aftab ho,Jo bhi ho tum khuda ki kasam, lajawab ho (half of the adjectives used in the song can’t be understood by most Hindi speakers)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZUR92B-UzE
Oh mere Shah e Khuban, o meri jaan e jaana, Tum mere paas hote ho, koi dusra nahi hota (I wait while you woo the girl of your dreams by calling her shah e khuban)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv5StHC5OH8
Wo jab yaad aaye, bahot yaad aaye,Gham e zindagi ke andhere me humne,Chirag e mobabbat jalaye bujhaye (I mean “dukh ke andhere me prem ke deep jalaye” could have been worked out to a rhyme.)
Ibteda e Ishq me hum, saari raat jaage, Allah Jaane kya hoga aage, Maula jaane kya hoga aage (What is ibteda e ishq in Hindi? And why will a Hindu woman with a bindi sing about Allah and Maula?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTD7GikKNMk
Aaayiye Meherbaan, Baithiye Jaanejaan,
Shauk se lijiye, Ishq ke imtihaan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjZ0DCaPSP0
Is this Hindi?
Ehsaan tera hoga mujhpar, dil chahta hai wo kehne do,
Mujhe tumese mohabbat ho gayi hai mujhe, palkon ki chhaon mein rehne do (taking pleading to a new level)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bsf4lQXjSo
Or the same pair wishing each other ‘’shabba khair” (why force this terminology of shabba khair or khudaya khair)
Huzur is kadar bhi na itra ke chaliye,
Khule aam aanchal na lehrake chaliye
Even the most mundane songs in the era of Bollywood mediocrity that was the 1980s and 90s had their Urdu in place
“Iss tarah aashiqui ka asar chhod jaunga, tere chehre pe apni nazar chhod jaunga”
Urduization of Hindi in Bollywood is not just limited to unseating Hindi. It does the holy job of whitewashing tyrants by having them sing romantic songs:-
Razia Sultan lost in romantic thoughts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJRIAKQhaYA
Shahjahan pining after Mumtaz (we are coaxed to believe that Shahjahan was monogamous with Mumtaz)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCfaJrq_5gs
Or the fictitious character of Anarkali dancing in front of Akbar and Salim :-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Au_J6jHKE0
Akbar is “azeem o shaan shehenshah” and the best thing to happen to India:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M446aJJekz0
Well in Bollywood, even Bajirao the great can’t help singing with Persian vocab (Stupid people and pop culture have reduced this best of generals to Mastani loving romantic):-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk_Z79Fjqss
Another thing seen in Obsession with parda, i.e. the veil. One example in recent times is:-
Main agar saamne aa bhi jaaya karu,
Laazmi hai ki tum mujhse parda karo
I mean, the leading lady is wearing a midriff exposing lehenga. Parda is the last thing she has in mind!
Other old examples are:-
“Parda hai parda, parde ke peeche parda nasheen hai,”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBEUOZ1-_gE
“Ye parda hata do, zara mukhda dikha do, hum pyar karne waale hain koi gair nahi”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aFnFW2-ksc
(The heroine isn’t even wearing a veil in this one)
“Parde me rehne do, parda na uthao, parda jo utth gaya to bhed khul jayega…allah meri tauba (what else)”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lthlT_CWzmo
The huge bulk of Shayari (which is promoted as something as grand as astrophysics in Hindi cinema), consists of the poet or protagonist fantasizing about how a woman would look once her veil is off. I do not mean to say that there is nothing else in Shayari, quite the contrary. But this aspect of it is taken by the Bollywood lyricists the most. Shayari came into being from the Muslim settlers as well as converts in the northern part of India. As in case of any Sharia ruled society, where segregation of sexes was followed strictly, and women were seldom seen. Hence, the biggest fantasy of the poet was to see the face of the object of his desire. All kinds of wishes were made by him, for the wind to blow the veil away or for the woman to be generous to push the veil aside herself to give the thirsty person a fleeting glimpse of her face.
And we are supposed to treat these wailings as beautiful romance?
You can’t find such desperation in Sanskrit or any ancient Indian language’s poetry, because women weren’t kept like wads of cash hidden in houses only to be brought outside with a male relative. In fact the attire leading up to the thirteenth century, the women’s attire was skimpy by even today’s standards. That’s why when Bollywood promotes ‘’ghoonghat’’ or veil as ‘’Bharatiya sabhyata”, it’s nothing but glorification of an ignominy heaped on us. The veil is not Indian culture. It was a forced measure taken to shield the women from the Islamic invaders where the problem was the worst. Why don’t women wear a veil in south, west and east of India then?
Urdu is promoted as a rich and cultural language in Bollywood. A sherwani wearing Khan Sahab who starts every discussion with “barkhurdar” is always very mature and upright and with deep insight on life. On the contrary, someone who speaks shuddh Hindi will always be shown as a bumbling idiot.
Any profound philosophy will always be laced with Urdu:-
Any disaster or a flop show is always in shuddh Hindi:-
Any song which makes a life changing impact for the protagonist has to be some kind of sufi wailing, and not bhajan:-
Even in real life, you’ll see Bollywood stars visiting Ajmer amidst much publicity. Will you see them visiting a temple with such fanfare? Because bijness eej bijness.
And then, the only thing worth in life is pyar and mohabbat.
“Hum pyar mein jalne waalon ko, chainn kahaa, haaye, aaram kahaan “
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXQY5otyhJ8
The likes of this song make us feel that pyaar is akin to carrying a hundred kilo cement sack to the hundredth floor. The ideas that these kind of songs produce are cringe worthy and ridiculous. Pyar is the most important thing in the world and you should spend your time either indulging in it or pining for your other half when he or she isn’t there, no matter how fleeting the romance is. Building yourself for something higher? That’s for losers.
The damage done by this kind of cultural conditioning has over the time, produced weak people, who want melodrama in everything , from entertainment, to the leaders they elect.
So is it impossible to write a Bollywood song without a barrage of Urdu/Persian?
What about this then?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoW_I4DS0MQ
Or this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSRN316hGFA
More examples:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvuFicZH3Jw
(hehe, a little racy, I know)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUq7jDt_sgc
More examples here:-
http://www.echarcha.com/forum/showthread.php?t=12149
But these examples are few in comparison to Urdu laden songs, whose lexicon is set.
- Bowing down to love or god in song is always ‘’sajda’’.
- Asking for a divine boon is “dua” from “rabb” or “khuda”.
- Pining for love involves “beqarar dil” or “dil e beqarar”.
- No one can survive with “toota hua dil”.
- Love at first sight aka Pehli nazar mein pyaar
- No proclamation of love without invoking allah or maula
Urdu as it is is nothing but a mishmash of Persian, Turkic and Arabic vocabulary woven into the Hindustani grammar structure. But as per seculars, this is a culturally rich language, this poor language which doesn’t even have even its own vocabulary is better than Sanskrit or Hindi, as far as secular values are concerned, this pidgin language which has its origin in the tents of the mercenaries of the invading Islamic armies (Urdu is derived from Ordu, meaning a tent, or Orda from which the word horde is derived) or the nautch girls in brothels begging more alms from their clients are greater than all the literature of ancient India.
After all, this is a secular country, where if Ramanand Sagar makes Ramayan and Shri Krishna, he has to make an Alif Laila to balance it out.