It happens only in India
Posted on: August 15, 2020
This article is written by Peevesie’s mom, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in other sites without the knowledge and consent of the web administrator of atulsongaday.me, then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
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Happy Independence Day
15th August- a very very important day in the life of any Indian. The day we are thankful to our predecessors who laid down their lives for getting us freedom from foreign rule.
Predecessors includes even those unnamed freedom fighters who walked along with the leaders of those times. It includes those who did not like to be ordered around by people who didn’t have an iota of understanding why India was the way it was.
Thinking back we can see that beginning from Alexander there have been regular invasions and intrusions into India. Our history books have taught us that prior to that there were the Aryans who moved in to make this their land. Plus we have read how the Persians fled from their country and were given a place in our land and hearts. All this was before the Muslim rulers of say Turkish or Mughal dynasty. Some of them came to plunder or conquer; they either stayed back or plundered and left. But those were the times when this part of the continent was made up of various small kingdoms or states and each was a country of its own.
As I have understood Indian History, it was only after Akbar took charge in the north and some of the existing rulers of that period accepted his supremacy, was there a semblance of oneness among those who, he ruled over, in that region. Even at that time we had chieftains or Kings or Ranas who opposed being ruled by an outsider. This I am speaking of the 1500s when Rana Pratap was against bowing to the might of Akbar. Similarly, about 100 years later, we have had Chhatrapati Shivaji standing up for his right over his motherland and fighting the forces of Aurangazeb.
The European rulers also looked towards India around the 1500s when the Portuguese rule began which lasted till 1961. The French and the British followed in the 1600s. They started as traders and stayed back to rule.
A few small kingdoms joined forces to stand against the Muslim rulers. But when the people realized that the Europeans had also taken over a large part of the territory and were not interested in fair governance they united to try and shake the reigns off. At that point there was no difference between Hindu or Muslim kingdoms and we had a Rani Lakshmibai, Tatya Tope, Nanashaeb working alongside Begum Hazrat Mahal and Bahadurshah Zafar. There were numerous smaller kings too who joined hands for this purpose.
Rana Pratap, Chhtrapati Shivaji, Rani Lakshmibai, Tatya Tope, Nanasaheb, Bahadur Shah Zafar, Begum Hazrat Mahal are the predecessors of Mahatma Gandhi, Balgangadhar Tilak, Netaji, Sardar Patel, Pandit Nehru etc. who nailed the final nails into foreign rule and united all the small kingdoms into what is today INDIA.
All these so-called outsiders have left their mark on the psyche of the country. There are elements in our cuisine for which we can thank the Persians:- it is said that the national favourite Samosa is of Persian ancestry (should ask some researcher for confirmation). The Biriyani was introduced to us by the Muslim rulers. We should be thankful to the Europeans for bringing the cake to us. Just as these outsiders liked our spices we also accepted their soups, salads and art of baking and made it our own.
Those days most of our clothing used to be one long un-stitched garment we don’t even know who taught us the art of stitching.
In our haste to rectify what has happened in the 200 to 300 years of foreign rule we should stop to think what all we can give up. We are slaves to our modes of transport and communication which was not there before the 18th century- posts, telegraph, vehicles, trains, phones can we live without them? Can we live without electricity? Are we ready to give up cooking with LPG which is more comfortable than cooking with firewood. And most important we converse also freely in a foreign language. There are many among us who cannot write a sentence in their own mother tongue without errors. (I plead guilty)
Yes we have our own culture that makes us proud of being Indians. We are proud that we welcome everyone with open arms. We have a concept of “Attithi Devo Bhava”. Even if later we regret welcoming them as it happened when the foreign rulers came.
We are proud that there is a family system in place and even in this 21st century a child obeys his/her parents and elders even when he/ she is 50 or grownup or old. We look down upon people who don’t take care or abandon their elders. We still have mothers worrying about their children through her lifetime. Even children know that they have a family to fall back on in times of crisis.
All the things about India and Indians that I want to state is present in this new (by blog’s standards) song so I shall jump to the song as my post has become rather long.
The song is clearly an extension or we can say inspired from Manoj Kumar’s “Hai preet jahaan ki reet sada” that came in 1970. And the choreography seems to be inspired by “pag ghunghru baand meera naachi thi” to start off with.
The song is set in a restaurant. The hero (Govinda) has just been shown the door at a job interview where (according to the interviewer) he has given an absurd answer to the question “Tell me something about India”. He equates India with Cow saying that ‘a cow is our mother just as India is our mother. It has four legs India has four pillars- Hindu Mulsim Sikh Issai (christianity)’ He says a few more similarities between India and a Cow and he is thrown out. He sings this song on his way out and the public present at the restaurant appreciates and enjoy themselves. But the end result is he still doesn’t get the job but that is beyond the realm of today’s post.
It is sung, written and composed by Anand Raj Anand in the 1998 Raveena Tandon-Shilpa Shetty-Govinda starrer “Pardesi Babu”. The movie and the singer/lyricist/ composer also make their debut on the blog.
Jai Hind!!!
Song-It happens only in India (Pardesi Babu)(1998) Singer-Anand Raj Anand, Lyrics-Anand Raj Anand, MD-Anand Raj Anand
Lyrics
jahaan paaon mein paayal
haath mein kangan
ho maathe pe bindiya aa aa
(chorus)
jahaan paaon mein mein paayal,
haath mein kangan
jahaan paaon mein paayal,
haath mein kangan
jahaan paaon mein paayal,
haath mein kangan,
ho mathe pe bindiya
it happens only in India,
it happens only in India
jahaan paaon mein paayal,
haath mein kangan,
ho maathe pe bindiya
it happens only in India,
it happens only in India
jahaan jung pe jaaye sipaahi toh khud sajani tilak lagaaye
jahaan jung pe jaaye sipaahi toh khud sajani tilak lagaaye
munh se toh kuchh na bole chupke chupke neer bahaaye
jahaan jung pe jaaye sipaahi toh khud sajani tilak lagaaye
munh se toh kuchh na bole chupke chupke neer bahaaye
aur ashkon se apne likh kar bheje pyaar ki chithhiya
it happens only in India,
it happens only in India
oh ho oh ho ohhoo
oh ho oh ho oh hoo
jahaan din nikale sunkar shlok gurbaani aur azaan,
allah o allah
jahaan din nikale sunkar shlok gurbaani aur azaan
jahaan mazhab se ooncha hai insaan saare ek samaan
arre aanch nahin hai saanch ko chahe dekh le sari duniya
it happens only in India,
it happens only in India
(some swar by chorus)
shabari ke khaake ber Raam ne prem ki pratha chalaayi
shabari ke khaake ber Raam ne prem ki pratha chalayi
Meera ne pikar zehar ka pyaala preet ki reet nibhaayi
jahaan prem ki dhun pe gopiyo sang naache krishna kanhaiya
kahin hota hai re bhaiya
it happens only in India,
it happens only in India
saawan ke jhoole kahin pe baisaakhi ke mele
arre saawan ke jhoole kahin pe baisaakhi ke mele
lagta hai khud kudrat iss dharti pe aakar khele
jahaan maa se lori sune bina bachchon ko na aaye nindiya
it happens only in India,
it happens only in India
prem kahaani mere desh ki ee ee
ek se ek niraali
jahaan sohni ne mahiwal ke khaatir apni jaan ganwaayi
jahaan raanjhe ne heer ki ik pal na sahi judaai
aaaa aaaaaa
jahaan sohni ne mahiwal ke khatir apni jaan ganwaayi
aur raanjhe ne heer ki ik pal na sahi judaai
jahaan shirin aur farhaad ke ishq mein bahi doodh ki nadiya
it happens only in India
it happens only in India
it happens only in India,
it happens only in India
it happens only in India,
it happens only in India
it happens only in India,
it happens only in India
it happens only in India
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
August 15, 2020 at 11:40 pm
Good song choice for the occasion and a nice post too.
You are right that foreign rulers whenever they came they faced resistance, they fought and they either won or lost. There is a series of who now are called foriegn invaders, who fought great battles for Delhi Sultanate, with each other. Aurangzeb’s army had wars with the Aadil shah in Deccan too.
Britishers were more shrewd, they circumvented Delhi for close to 100 years and kept making overtures to all the different small rulers, some of whom agreed to the autonomy under British rule. Maharajas of Rajasthan and some princely states elsewhere, are a case in example. In the 17th Century, the British Army defeated Tipu Sultan, who was killed in battle at Srirangapatnam. There are so many legends about Tipu Sultan, the warrior, you might have heard of them.
Overall, through the centuries, this land has accepted the just rulers and given where credit is due to the great administrators. The vile and the unjust were opposed, and not allowed to rule.
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