This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
Blog Day :
3702
Post No. :
14625
——————————————————————— Discussion of Railway related matters-2
——————————————————————– Discussion on economics-1
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We in this blog have covered lots of HFM from all eras. While doing that, we have had lots of discussions on Hindi movies as well.
Yesterday night, and early morning today, I was thinking about the differences between Indian music and Western music, and I realised that there is considerable technical and conceptual differences between the two and the difference between the two kinds of music is something that very few people are aware of. I realised that the “western” music that we in India have brought in is not really “western” music as it is in the west. We have failed to import the spirit of western music. We have ended up introducing western instruments in India but we have failed to tap the vast richness of western music. We have ended up largely becoming a frog in the well, deluding ourselves that our music is older and richer and all that vis a vis western music, whereas the real facts are altogether different. It is a very interesting (at least to me) topic and a rather vast and somewhat involved topic as well. I hope to able to discuss it in detail when I get my thoughts sorted out on this topic.
While thinking about Indian music vis a vis Western music, my thoughts veered to movies- Indian movies vis a vis western movies. And I realised another very interesting and deeply significant difference between the two kinds of movies. This is the topic of discussion in this writeup.
When Hindi (and other Indian language) movies began to be made, the movie makers obviously wanted to make profits. Those were the days when India was quite a poor country with extremely low purchasing power per capita. Moreover, vast majority of Indians were illiterate. Under there circumstances, the movie makers decided that they needed to address each and every section of society as well as age group in their movies. Their idea was to maximise the head count for their movies and they hoped to achieve that by catering to all their “requirements”. Thus we had the situation where the movie would pack in all possible kinds of situations and scenarios, viz love, misunderstanding, separation, bedard zamaana, remonstrating with the Almight mother, cruel villain, helpless sister etc. Likewise, we have several songs in the same movie catering to the different emotion requirements of the movie.
Each and every movie tried to attract the same (real all) sections of the population. If a movie became successful, they everyone else would try to ape the contents of that movie. In short, every movie wanted to be a please all movie, and in the process it often ended up pleasing none.
There are some cases where niche market movies were made that appeals to a small portion of audience rather than entire audience, for instance religious movies. But these niche movies were made more out of financial considerations ( availability of small budget) rather than by design.
When one tried to pack in everything in every movie, then obviously the movie ended up looking like jack of all trades and master of none. So the qualities achieved by these movies were not as high as they possibly could have been had they dispensed with some of the lesser important ingredients (for instance comic side plots) and had concentrated only on the main ingredients.
When I compared Indian movies with Western movies, I found a startling difference. Western movie makers did not try to cater to every section of their population. They made movies on a particular genre and tried to cater to lovers of that particular genre only. The result was overall high quality of their movies. Even though these western movies were not targetted at the entire population, they still did big business becaue the audience there were prosperous and even smaller head count for a Western movie meant bigger amount of revenue for Western movies than say for Indian movies that attracted bigger head count. So good quality movies meant for niche market (plus prosperity of the market) meant that overall good quality movies with good budget were made in the West and that did good business.
To put it arithmetically, Indian movie makers had the LCD (least common denominator) of population in mind while making their movies while Western movie makers had the HCF (highest common factor) of population in mind while making their movies. And Western movies proved that quality products aimed at niche market can earn far more in a prosperous population that what can be earned by lesser quality product (where ceiling on quality was imposed deliberately) aimed at impoverished masses in a poor country. So Western movie makers considered market segmentation whereas Indian movie makers tried to cater to the entire population treating that as a unified market without any segmentation.
I have often likened Hindi movies to Indian Railways. And I find that Indian Railways have traditionally followed the very same policy as Hindi movie makers as far as their target audience is considered. Hindi movies try to pack in all ingredients in each and evey movie and end up with a movie that is often unsatisfactory. Indian Railways try to run all kinds of trains, viz Rajdhani, Express Trains, Passenger trains, Goods trains etc on the same track. The passenger tickets are kept artificially lower and goods fares are kept artificially high. As a result, Indian Railways ends up losing punctuality as well as revenue while running passenger trains. They also end up losing goods traffic because goods traffic switches to road which turns out to be economical for them.
Today India is not a poor country unlike in the past. India is the sixth biggest economy in the world with a nominal GDP of $ 2.8 trillions. Per capita annual GDP of $2000 may be low but it is still a vast improvement (200 times) from the past when Indian per capita annual income used to be $100 in 1960s. Using 80:20 principle, which states that 20 % popuation has 80 % of money and the rest 80 % population has the remaining 20% money, it means that today 20 % population of India has a per capita income of $8000 whereas remaining 80 % population has a per capita income of $500. So one can say that 20 % population (viz 26 crore population) of India is already reasonably well off. 26 crore population is equal to the population that Indonesia, the fourth most populous country in the world. So now it is possible for Hindi movies makers to produce movies of various genres with niche audiences as targets audience rather than seeking to attract the entire population as the target audience, because the niche audiences are now sizeable in number and they are prosperous enough.
Indeed that is happening. Many recent movies are meant for niche audience and the movie makers do not try and make all kinds of compromises that old time movie makers did in their attempt to make please all movies. And the results are quite outstanding.
Take the example of “Dangal”(2016). It is the tale of a rustic retired wrestler who wants to live his dream of wrestling glory through his daughters. He fights society that disapproves of girls taking up such activities and he subjects his daughters to lives of extreme discipline and physical exertion. Usual Hindi movies of yore woould show the girls winning their bouts rightaway after just a token exercise or two, but that is not how it is shown in this movie. The girls work hard but keep losing repeatedly and after every loss, they are made to work even harder. That is how it is in real life. In the past, such movies would not work in India. Movie watchers in the past expected their lead actors to be supermen/ supergirls who were not required to work hard. In fact Indian movies themselves rarely showed the lead actors doing any hard work, or for that matter any work at all. They would only sing songs and that is all they seemed to be doing throughout the movie.
“Dangal” (2016) was a professionally made movie and it caught the imagination of Indian public. More dramatically, it caught the imagination of movie goers in China as well, and the movie did bigger business in China than in India ! It earned more than Rs 800 crores from Chinese market !
It showed that a movie that had outstanding quality had universal appeal even beyond the traditional Indian audience and their diaspora.
That is true for Railways as well. India is at present in a situation where they can think of catering to niche markets of customers by providing them dedicated facilities. Instead of running all kinds of trains on the same track, running goods trains on a dedicated track and passenger trains of separate track would ensure that both kinds of customers would get proper attention. Work on dedicated freight corridor is in advance stages and soon we will be in a situation when goods trains will run on their own dedicated tracks and that would free up the existing Indian Railway tracks for passenger carrying trains.
Then Bullet trains are coming up as well. People who criticise this project as a wasteful exercise are like old time movie makers and old time Railway organisation who feel that all trains and all movies should be for everyone. Bullet trains have noting to do with Indian Railway. They are more like metro rails which too have nothing to do with Indian Railways. We have seen how Metro Rail has changed the face of commuter services in Delhi. Unlike Indian Railways, Metro rail have proved that it is possible to ensure that every commuter enters with a valid ticket and after proper security check. So Metro Railway has been a quantum leap in public transportation in India and it is absolutely world class. Bullet trains too will have its own track and it will have nothing to do with existing rail ntwork. Bullet train too will have Metro rail like effect. In fact Bullet train has more in common with Metro rail rather than normal trains. It competes with short duration flights and it will in fact be a more convenient option compared to flights in those sectors where they will run. It will basically ensure that places like say Ahmadabad and Mumbai would become like suburbs that one could reach in a couple of hours or so.
Just like airlines are meant for more prsperous people, bullet trains too will be for the same segment of population. as mentioned by me earlier, India have 26 crore people who are prosperous and this bullet train is meant for them. They will use it and they will pay full unsubsidised ticket price. Just because the existing Indian Railways train tickets are subsidised does not mean that all future trains and other services need to be subsidised. As mentioned earlier, India is no longer a poor third world coutry. Japan started its bullet rtrains in 1964, just before it became the first Asian country to host Olympics. Japan GDP per capita at that time was $ 840. China had its first bullet train in 2003. at that time. Chinese per capita income was $ 1289 . So these two Asian countries were poorer than India when they developed their high speed trains for the first time. And these bullet trains changed the face of these countries. Now one can reach from Beijing to Shanghai (1300 km) in a little over four hours. This distance is similar to the distance between New Delhi and Mumbai (1386 km). At present New Delhi- Mumbai Central Rajdhani takes about 16 hours to cover this distance. Just imagine this distance being covered in 5 hours ! That would shrink distance for people. This train is a success in China and such trains would succeed in India as well.
I was telling our regulars that I would discuss Railway related topics in detail in my writeups. This writeup gives me one such opportunity where I have put my views across about bullet trains. I hope rail enthusiasts among us (such as Raja, PAvinash Scrapwala, eevesie’s mom, Peevesie’s brother etc) will get some food for thougt with this writeup.
As I mentioned, it is time India stopped thinking local and started thinking global. Bullet train would be a step in that direction. “Dangal”(2016) was very much a world class movie made in India. “Bahubali” was another world class movie. These movies have earned India great respect worldwide and have enhanced Indian soft power among foreigners. When I visited Bali recently with my family, a local of Bali asked where we were from. I replied “India”. “Bahubali part two!”- that person exclaimed. 🙂
I watched “Dangal”(2016) onboard the flight on my way back from Bali. And I was suitably impressed. It is a fantastic movie that keeps one spellbound throughout. It is a professionally made movie that has an universal appeal.
Hindi movies cannot do without songs. This movie too has songs but they are background songs and they blend in nicely with the movie. I am happy that the movie makers did not consider throwing in the usual formula of yore where hero’s wife would sing a bhajan, hero would sing an inspirational song, a fakeer would sing a philosophical song and a comedian would sing a comedy song follwed by a cabarat. A movie like this would have fallen flat. Many such Dev Anand movies have fallen flat because of such reasons in the past. Fortunately Aamir Khan the producer of this movie is a professional.
The songs are quite interesting. The song under discussion is especially interesting. The lyricist Amitabh Bhattacharya has come up with fun lyrics from the point of view of the two daughters of Mahavir Singh Phogat (played by Aamir Khan). A word like “haanikarak” is what Hindi medium students use in their science class while discussing some chemicals. 🙂
The song is sung by Sarwar Khan and Satraz Khan. Music is composed by Preetam.
The song picturisation is quite good as well. Overall, a superbly created and picturised song.
With this song. “Dangal”(2016) makes its debut in the blog.
Song-Baapu sehat ke liye tu to haanikaarak hai(Dangal)(2016) Singers- Sarwar Khan, Sartaz Khan, Lyrics-Amitabh Bhattacharya, MD-Preetam
Lyrics
re bapu
re bapu
hmm
Auron pe karam, bachchon pe sitam
Re baapu mere ye zulm na kar
Auron pe karam
bachchon pe sitam
Re bapu mere ye zulm na kar
Ye zulm na kar
Baapu sehat ke liye
Baapu sehat ke liye
Tu toh haanikaarak hai
Baapu sehat ke liye
Tu toh haanikaarak hai
Hum pe thhodi daya toh karo
Hum nanhe baalak hain
Hum pe thhodi daya toh karo
Hum nanhe baalak hain
Discipline itna
aa aa aa
Re discipline itna
Khudkushi ke laayak hai
Baapu sehat ke liye
Tu toh haanikaarak hai
ham pe thhodi daya to karo
ham nanhe baalak hain
ham pe thhodi daya to karo
ham nanhe baalak hain
Discipline itna
aa aa aa
Re discipline itna
Khudkushi ke laayak hai
Baapu sehat ke liye
Tu toh haanikaarak hai
re bapu
Tanne bola picnic shiknik jaana hai mana
Yo toh torture hai ghana
Re yo toh torture hai ghana
re baabu
Re bachcho se hi bole
Ke na karna bachpana
Yo toh torture hai ghana
Re yo toh torture hai ghana
Jis umar mein shobha dete
Masti sair-sapaata
Uss umar ko naap raha hai
Kyun ghadi ka kaanta
Apni kismat ki gaadi ki
Khasta haalat hai ae
Apni kismat ki gaadi ki
Khasta haalat hai
Aur humaare bapu
O aa gayo re bapu
O humare bapu
Iss gaadi ke vaahan chalak hain
Bapu sehat ke liye
tu toh haanikaarak hai
Tanne bola khatta teekha khaana hai mana
Yo toh torture hai ghana
Re yo toh torture hai ghana
re bapu
Re mitti ki gudiya se bole
Chal body bana
Yo toh torture hai ghana
Re yo toh torture hai ghana
Hey… Re bapu
re bapu
Mmm.. tail lene gaya re bachpan
Jhad gayi phulwaari
Kar rahe hain jaane qaisi
Jang ki taiyyaari
Sote jagte chhoot rahi hai
Aansu ki pichkaari
Phir bhi khush na hua Mogambo
Hum tere balihaari
Teri nazron mein kya hum
Itne naalayak hain ae
Teri nazron mein kya hum
Itne naalayak hain
Re tujhse behtar toh o
(Manne chhod do re bapu)
Re tujhse behtar apni
Hindi filmon ke khalnaayak hain
Bapu sehat ke liye
Tu toh hanikarak hai
This article is written by Ava Suri, 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 sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
Atul ji’s 10K Song Milestone Celebrations – 9
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I am an Atulite and I am proud of it. It is an honor to be associated with a blog that drips pure love of music. Like almost all Indians I love Hindi film music. But I cannot claim to be knowledgeable about it. I do know many songs but that is not a qualification. There are thousands of songs out there, many of which have fallen into oblivion. It is the die-hard music lovers that keep track of these songs and chase them with an assiduity that would make Sherlock Holmes feel jealous.
I am amazed when some of my friends are able to name the movie, singer, lyricist and music director as soon as the song is mentioned. Some Atulites could also tell you charming little stories behind the making of each song. Delving here, I have discovered gorgeous songs that not much known but are as precious as Koh-i-Noor. Read more on this topic…
This article is written by Pradeep Raghunathan, fellow enthusiasts of Hindi movie music and contributors to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
Atul ji’s 10K Song Milestone Celebrations – 7
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Sudhir ji, got in touch with us Atulwaasis and told us that there is a HUGE milestone coming up on the blog.
I had no clue that it was this huge. With my little knowledge of maths, I did some calculation and it works to an average of around 3 posts a day for the last 9 years. If that just seems like a number to you – you either do not understand hard work when you see it, or you are just a passer by seeing this blog for the first time.
While I still wonder how it is even possible to have such commitment and endurance I am reminded of what Atul ji often tells us – this is a “Labour of Love”. And then it all falls in place and makes so much sense. Atul ji has been a beacon of light, a guru, a nostalgia maker, the man who got all us crazy Atulwaasis together. Read more on this topic…
This article is written by Peevesie, 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 sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
[Belated Happy Birthday, to Peevesie (23 Dec) 🙂 ]
Himalayan Diaries – 1
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Sometimes people end up giving really deep insights to you about yourself. But during the conversation, you do not grasp it and brush it off. This happened to me during my first jury at NID. First let me explain the concept of jury. Jury is what happens, when instead of exams, the college decides that a student should have only half an hour every semester to display every scrap of work they did for 4.5 months and justify that he/she did learn something. If one manages to do that, then they give you a decent grade and pass you for the semester. Nahi toh, Thakur toh giyo! Read more on this topic…
This article is written by Peevesie, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in sites like lyricstrans.com and ibollywoodsongs.com etc then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
10,000 songs! It seems years since I made my first comment on this blog. I was just 15-16 when I discovered this blog (I have no idea how I discovered it). I remember that I had made a request for an old Dev Anand song to be posted back then from Atul (chupke se mile pyaase pyaase). I continued to make requests for months after that while also introducing my mum to the blog. Then my brother. And also my grandfather. It really became a family affair. Read more on this topic…
This blog discusses Bollywood songs of yesteryears. Every song has a brief description, followed by a video link, and complete lyrics of the song.
This is a labour of love, where “new” songs are added every day, and that has been the case for over TEN years. This blog has over 14800 song posts by now.
This blog is active and online for over 3800 days since its beginning on 19 july 2008.
Total number of songs posts discussed
14884
Number of movies covered in the blog
Movies with all their songs covered =1162
Total Number of movies covered =4071
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