What's with so much noise in Punjabi music, asks Savita Bhatti

Punjab is alive and kicking-dancing to the thumping music. Flipping through the various music channels of Punjab, you can't think otherwise. You cannot even imagine that with this computer generated vibrancy in the songs that this could be a state gasping for breath.

Every second, a Punjabi aspires to be a singer. There's nothing wrong with this dream, provided you can sing. So we have a medley of 'wannabe' singers, mediocre singers, good singers and our singing superstars. Well, if you count their entourage and their menacing bouncers that count for almost half of the state's population. The rest is, of course, planning to go abroad by any means. If you're lucky, you go by the pedigree, by money, by status. If not so privileged, then, like Columbus, you're finding all possible routes-land, sea and air-to connect to the land of your dreams.

Coming back to the music of the state, Bhangra put the Punjabis on an international platform. It is a dance of pure pleasure, stamina, elegance and rhythm. None of us realised when the solid rhythms and beats of the dhol gave way to the sleazy pop songs in a place that looks like a bar but isn't. It's a place none of us have been able to find on the map of the state. It's this place where the singers dip in their feet in the pool, surrounded by a bevy of scantily clad firang women, booze overflowing and generally nobody has a care in the world.

What we would all do to be in such a world where we don't hear of a farmer dying daily, where we don't hear of one more life tragically lost on the roads, where we don't hear of unscrupulous leaders selling their conscience and their motherland. So let's enter this magical world of love, drugs, dhokha and the 'jatt'. Every protagonist in the songs is a 'jatt'. Just as we have the prefix of Dr in front of anyone's name, we are humbled by the man's skill and education so I believe that the Punjabi industry liberally prefixes 'jatt' to almost everything.

A man who has the license to do almost anything in this makebelieve world. He's on the tractor singing songs; next minute he's at a 'panj taara theka'. Miraculously he's on the poolside, or on a yacht, or in the middle of a jungle or on the top of a steep cliff bellowing out his love for his lady love. Whether he's sad or happy his well creased and flamboyant appearance doesn't change. If we mute the TV set, I can bet that we cannot have the tiniest of idea whether our 'sirji' is happy or sad.

After watching these songs, I have come to believe that Punjabis are 99.99999 per cent incurably hopeless romantics. So whether you're watching a college mate or blocking her car as she gets out, whether she's travelling in the roadways bus, whether she's enticingly dancing in the pub, whether she's betraying you for your best pal, whether she's left you high and dry by marrying a foreign kabootar, it's always a story of love's labour. Very few musicians venture out of this super hit formula. Very few talk of the troubled unemployed guy, very few talk of the pain of the NRI as he fondly looks at his home in India, very few talk of despair, social ills or debts. They are so few of these singers that you can almost count them on your fingers.

And the centre of all the brouhaha-the pretty damsel. She almost has a mind of her own. So while the poor 'jatt' is singing out to her about her paranda, her swag and her blushes, she decides to throw all caution to the winds and ends up appearing in a mini attire that leaves everyone worrying if she'll catch a cold. So much so for women liberation. Well at least in the videos the woman has a mind of her own unlike the reality where she's disposed off at birth like a used napkin. Honey Singh and co. have got to be credited.

They have the entire country swaying to their music. And lots of Punjabi songs have made it to mainstream Hindi cinema. And every Tamilian, Assamese, Maharashtrian, Bengali wedding has a Punjabi remix if the DJ is playing. That's great strides for the music and its acceptability pan India. In a funny take off on Honey Singh and his lyrics there's a troll on the Internet that records a conversation between Honey Singh and Mika.

Honey Singh: Hello Mika
Mika: Yo Yo
HS: What are your plans for this weekend?
Mika: Kuch khaas nahi...pehle gym jaana hai...fir sham ko party hai...Phir daaru ka plan hai...kafi ladkian aayengi...shopping bhi karni hai...
HS: Thank you
Mika: For what?
HS : You just gave me the lyrics of my new song!

The Punjabis don't disappoint anybody. I am sure that with the pulsating and throbbing beats of Punjabi music, our musicians, singers, film makers will also soothe our souls with meaningful lyrics, haunting music and elegance so that every Punjabi is not dismissed as just having 'char botal vodka' dancing with a girl whose claim to fame is 'lak 28 kudi da'.

Let the land of Bulleshah, Kabir, Shiv Batalvi, Gulzaar, Amrita Pritam and Surjit Paatar not bear the torture of listening to something like, "EMC wich ikk mahina daakhal karaya, Asi Bhuaji da har ikk test karaya, Oh Doctor vadde toh vadda vekh laya, Hoya asar na kisee vi dawayi da, Og Dengue na Bhua ji de cell ghat gaye, Hun Bakri da dudh Ae Piyaida piyaida!"

Let there be music for the soul too. As Robin Williams says, "You know what music is? God's reminder that there's something else besides us in this universe; harmonic connection between all living beings, everywhere, even the stars! So play on my friends. Evoke the flesh, but also soothe the soul!

Contact the author at savitabhatti@gmail.com