The importance of Bollywood songs

It is such a pity that I learn most of the important lessons of life too late. Story of my life, in general. There is no real point in me, at age fifty or so, suddenly going 'Eureka' and finding out that I should have done this, instead of that, at age twenty-five but, invariably, that is what happens. If only my realizations would come a shade less tardily...

Recently, I saw 'Yaadon ki baaraat' on TV and the seminal importance of a proper choice of family song struck me. (You do not HAVE a family song? There is no hope for you then). We all know that a family song is an important contingency measure to bring a family together in case the family split up due to some calamity. But...just consider. If that family in the movie had opted for "Sare jahaan se accha..." as their family song, instead of a carefully crafted exclusive song for the family, what would have been the consequence? The youngest brother would have been hugging every Indian and claiming him for a brother, merely because the other could complete the song, thereby living up to the school pledge, "All Indians are my brothers and sisters.." The problem, though, would be that the other guy may have forgotten his school pledge. (Family song redundant in the interconnected world? Not really...it is just that the youngest brother would not need to go around hotels singing it. He would put it out on Youtube and, if the choice is "Saare....", he may end up claiming the entire Indian diaspora for siblings).

Then there was that important lesson on running an international criminal gang that I learned from the Amitabh Bacchan 'Don'. If you are an impostor - not in Blandings Castle - trying to carry yourself off as the Don in front of the creme de la creme of world crime, how do you comport yourself? You take recourse to the power of music, of course. Break into a dance and start singing "...Main hoon Don..." and people would line up to kiss your ring and swear allegiance. It is a lack of this knowledge that landed Al Pacino in a lot of trouble in the Godfather series. If, after Marlon Brando's death, he had only called a meeting of all the dons and broken into a song and dance, he would have been universally acclaimed as the 'Capo di tutti capi", and there would have been much lesser bloodshed going forth.

I may have concluded that the importance of music was fading in the modern world but Mani Ratnam revived my belief in its importance. There is this chap in 'Guru', who marries a girl,  having decided to do so - without ever having seen her  - for her dowry and her brother tells her that what attracted the chap was her dowry and not her. She goes off, hurt, back to her father and the man goes to woo her back. Exactly what does he say? "Not that I loved you less, but I loved your father's money more"? Mani Ratnam neatly avoids this troublesome scene with a song at the end of which they reconcile, without the chap having to prove how he could have loved her at all, when her very existence was mere hearsay to him at that time. Talk about the power of music!

There...you see. All of you who think that a song is a nice time to take a break (or fast forward), think again. More often than not, the only good thing about a movie are the songs, so you may consider taking a break (or fast forwarding) when the rest of the movie is playing and rush back in for the songs.

P.S: There is this Facebook Page for my humor novella which is about to be published next month. If you need information about the book (Allow me my illusions :) ) the previous post on this blog gives details. If there is someone insane enough to want to be updated on its release and all, he may consider liking the page here A Dog eat Dog-food World