SOLD FOR A SONG

In this holi-songs parade meant to fathom the fairest of them all, a friend and I find ourselves rooting for the same candidate. Yes, the Oscar goes to Mother India. The song: होली आइ रे कन्हाई रंग बरसे
Sample this excerpt:
छूटे ना रंग ऐसी रंग दे चुनरिया
धोबनिया धोये चाहे सारी उमरिया
मोहे भाये ना हरजाई मोहे भाये ना
मोहे भाये ना हरजाई रंग हलके
सुना दे ज़रा बांसरी
What’s it about these plain and earthy lyrics that makes them so endearing, I ask the friend. ‘उस समय लोग हिंदी में लिखते थे,’ he replies very matter-of-factly. And even though my first reaction is to nit-pick upon that answer on technical grounds, I’m not able to. The unassuming profundity of those words has me in its grasp soon enough.
Indeed, not only was the language of those times a language easily understood, it was also a language that filled in the gaps in our understanding. And thus began a tradition where film-song lyrics provided articulation to that which we wanted to say but could not entirely express. They became the ventriloquist to the dummy that was our ineffable emotion. They were the sparkplug to the gas-charge of pent-up sentiment (most easily set-off by the electrical signal of drunken joviality .) Why, songs even began to 'manufacture' sentiment. Take for example the melancholy drenched ‘दिल जलता है तो जलने दे’. It allowed one to wallow in the grief of an imagined heartbreak from the imagined unfaithfulness of an imagined girlfriend. Or take ‘कभी ख़ुद पे कभी हालात पे रोना आया’. Where else were you permitted to bask in the glory of being a loser?
But I guess all that is over now. For a generation that knows what it wants - and is more forthright in demanding it - where’s the need for assisted articulation? So lyrics today have become mere addendums set to a blaring music. And it appears that the sole purpose of that blaring music is to obviate the need of a conversation between those listening to it.
Quite right my friend is. आज कल लोग हिंदी में नहीं लिखते।