MUMBAI: Noted lyricist and writer Javed Akthar has highlighted that the current music churned out by mainstream Hindi cinema is a reflection of society’s demand and consumption, coupled with the new generation’s lack of grounding in the country’s cultural legacy.
Speaking at the recently concluded ‘Cinema 100- The Next Wave’ festival organized by Whistling Woods International Institute of Film, Fashion and Media, on Poetry in Cinema, Akthar said poetry and music have always undergone changes throughout ages, but in today’s fast-paced world where we have made leaps in technology we have left behind our culture, language and Classical Arts.
“Every generation will look down on the previous generation’s style like my generation received poetry and culture from our parents through osmosis. But my generation is guilty of failing to imparting the legacy of our art, language and poetry to the next. Today language has shrunk and communication is more important than language. Language is an art but its nuances and subtleties are lost.”
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The ‘degradation’ of poetry (especially in Hindi film songs) began when middle and upper middle class parents gave less importance to language and poetry and laid more emphasis on English language. Vernacular language became more used by lower- class and the poor- a section that could hardly enrich the language due to spending most hours surviving and having little time to creatively enrich the language.
“The middle class has abdicated its responsibility to the language. A convent educated young person one day suddenly has to work on a script in Hindi- probably for the first time in his or her life. But if you don’t use the language, you cannot use the vocabulary. Hindi language is the root and English language is the branch. We are concentrating on just one part and not growing full trees. We need to look at our education system.”
Another reflection of our degradation and poverty in language is well reflected in the songs.
“The new breed (artists and musicians) are neither brought up in Indian or Western Classical music but pop music for pubs. In the West music is meant to be listened (to), here music is to be sung by everybody. We are living in an illusion, hits are manufactured via money pumped into radio stations. Do you think the songs (today) will be studied? Today’s songs either have no meaning or will have two- we are being forced fed.”
But all is not doom and gloom for the film and music industry. He said one way to confront the assault on senses and sensibilities for society is to apply pressure making it clear those vulgar songs (for one) are not acceptable. While the talent is there, it is not getting ‘room’ to get poetry in.
“I am not pessimistic about the future. At every stage, life gives a package- of good and bad. On the brighter side a lot of the hamming, melodrama and rhetoric have been replaced by good understated scripts. Though we may not have another Dilip Kumar or an Amitabh Bachchan, the standard of acting is better and there is more sophistication. Regarding film songs, we lack content in language and lyrics. We are yet to get the intellectual depth but we are in the right direction.”
