Remixing, remaking, recreating, rapping and DJ is all what’s being served in the name of music these days. Yesterday evening, was sitting with a friend, then a watsapp story came of a friend who is mutual with both of us. He, probably the only person who uses TikTok in my contact, had put a tiktok video with some song ‘Roohe Dariyan‘ in the background, in which he falls into the swimming pool on his back, with his arms wide open, in slow motion. Imagine! Looks like Shahrukh Khan falling into the pool in his legendary pose, backwards. He dedicated that video to his girlfriend, as was mentioned in the caption. We both had a healthy share of our laugh on our friend. That wasn’t a mockery in any sense, just a slight grin and stretched crow-eyes after watching these acts by our childhood friend. However, he uploads such videos daily, not an issue for him. Thanks to him for bringing smiles to us. We also expressed our deep concern towards the changing trend in our teenagers and, particularly in youth who aren’t willing to give upon their teenage. Anyway, anything which brings you joy shall be done, so no issues. Now I asked my friend what that song was, felt a little soothing to ears. Immediately he replied, “Darshan Rawal, he is famous in teenagers and TikTok users“. O.K., I had already heard few of his songs, so, OK. We searched the video on YouTube, it appeared under the name ‘Hawa Banke’ and watched it. Throughout the video, he kept his commentary on, about how every song is shot in the similar fashion these days. A top model, with the looks and features similar to any Ukrainian beauty, will be called and then the cast would do nothing except staring into each other’s eyes, walking in slow motion on the roads, standing beside each other and holding hands. All these leads to creating so much hypothetical sense of love in our teenagers, everything begins to look pink all around, and they too start falling in love (falling in swimming pool in this case) on the tune of these songs. Both of us appreciated the song. The song was really good. Keeping all the judgemental statements aside, we really appreciated the song. In the age of Badshah, Honey Singh and DJ-raps, it’s very soothing to hear someone singing non-party song which doesn’t put cars and girls and luxuries and alcohols and wines and clubs on the show. So, it was good.

Now late that night, all alone, once again I was searching that song. It got me so many cover versions in the list. At the top was a song ‘Boohe Darian‘. But anyway, I didn’t listen to it as the thumbnail appeared quite vintage and I felt it might be some other song. I slept.

Fast forward to next evening, means today evening, I searched the song on JioSaavn music app. I was unable to find the song, may be because I was searching the wrong keyword; ‘Roohe Dariyan‘ instead of ‘Hawa Banke‘. My search gave me the result ‘Boohe Darian‘ at the top. It wasn’t what I had searched for, but anyway, it was a cool, cloudy evening so I played the song. The music began flowing, the initial tunes emanated drenched in the symphony of Latin Punjabi-Pakistani essence. After few seconds of echoing music, a female Sufi voice comes which anyone could tell had a Punjabi-Lahori texture. The song had every ingredient to be called a vintage flavor, to send you back into time or to give you nostalgic Sufi touch of a farmer’s love story amidst the scene of mustard fields, yellow Salwar-Kurta, long pony-tail, yellow background, a bright yellowness everywhere. Anyway. The song was beautiful and sounded original for it was too behind the time. I immediately went to the YouTube to see this version and to affirm myself if whatever I had imagined was true or not. However I was wondering how could the cover of such a modern time Darshan Raval song sound so vintage. Anyway. Sometimes should not overthink much. Video played. Exactly as I had imagined. Typical Punjabi feel. Traditional village, traditional scenic beauty, traditional characters, traditional feel, traditional everything. Now I felt who would make such a vintage traditional cover of a modern day song. Weird. I checked the upload date and found it was uploaded in 2006. Ok, means Darshan’s version was a remake.

I googled the name of the artist, the singer of the song, Hadiqa Kiani. The very first line read, ‘Rawalpindi born Pakistani singer’. Oh! Means the guesses were right. The voice was actually from Pakistan. I searched a little more history of the song and the singer. Amazingly, Hadiqa Kiani is one of the most celebrated singer of Pakistan, first Asian to perform in BBC, first Asian female singer to be signed by Pepsi Cola international. The song dates back to 1998. This is the singer

It’s a beautiful song, and the lyrics adds much sweetness to it. Actually the soul of any song is woven by the zephyr of lyrics which pathetically disappoints these days. The lyrics of the song goes like, “Boohe Barian de naal kandhan tapke main aawangi Hawa banke” which means “I’ll come crossing the doors and windows like air”. ‘Boohe Barian‘ means doors and windows. A beautiful delineation of love being metaphorised as air which comes over crossing everything. This is where the songs fail these days. This is where true melophiles can’t tolerate music these days. This is where serious music lovers keep going back to old days and old music.

Coming back to the question, why has Bollywood lost it’s Melody. Songs lose Melody later, they lose listeners first and the taste of the listeners who form the bulk of the masses are party fanatics, comprising of teenagers and youth. Supply demand curve has always been the last truth, irrespective of the market, even in music industry. You demand what you fantasise, you get what you demand, you actually fantasise what’s shown to you, what’s shown to you is what you had demanded for. This viscous web has to be understood, a simple psychology, that masses are caught into. You fantasise of luxurious cars, late night parties, dance clubs, vodka, free flowing liquors, what not and end up listening to highly visual songs

Sometimes I literally wonder what would happen to Badshah and Honey Singh and other modern day singers if Alcohol is banned. Badshah is seriously going to file bankruptcy then. From the age of, “No obscenity, pure class” to “Pure obscenity, no class”, music industry has deteriorated a long way. Music listeners are bereft of all feelings, they don’t want emotions now, all they need is a loud-beat song to groove upon and make TikTok videos. That’s the only demand, and all they want. And, you get served what you demand.