Sufism That Resists but Assimilates

In ‘Naram Kaalija’, the hip-pinching notoriety of Chamkila’s music is voiced by the women who enjoy it. It is strange to have both Alka Yagnik’s voice, which has this melodic, sexless innocence — like her duet partner of the Aughts, Udit Narayan — and Richa Sharma’s rough hewn jute-like texture, repeat lines after each other, giving a range of sound that is neither young, nor erotic, but winking and jubilant, like wedding music. The onomatopoeic “Daingad”, which Kamil used previously in Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania (2014), is chanted like a siren song of sexuality here.

Age has never been a crippling consideration for Rahman, for example using the voice of a then-62-year-old Asha Bhosle over the then-22-year-old Urmila Mantonkar in Rangeela’s (1995) ‘Tanha Tanha’. He says “Aawaz ki koi umar nahi hoti”, that there is no age to voice, but of course there is a discernible age, and by thrusting older voices on younger women, like in ‘Naram Kaalija’ there is a spiky, almost disorienting discordance, one that draws attention to itself, which Rahman loves to do through his soundscapes. If there is something we can trust in a Rahman score, it is for it to never fade into the background — given its lush, almost dense, overwhelming arrangements, even The New York Times pulling up his “goopy synthesiser passages”.

Calling men “aish ka samaan”, an object of female pleasure, the song reverses the gaze not by reforming it, but by giving it back, by acknowledging its presence, and replying to it in the same language of unbridled, unhesitant lust. The infamous bhabhi-devar relation, too, is stoked.

“Devar ki bhabhi ji hoon main,

Rishte qaboolun par main na bhoolun

Kaise bujhani hai jo agg jag jaye,

Jalta badan jo mera ho

Gupchup gupchup ye na samjhi tera hi hai jee karda,

Gupchup gupchup tumse zyada mera bhi hai jee karda”

(The sister-in-law to my brother-in-law,

I acknowledge this connection, but how can I forget,

To extinguish a fire that consumes my body.

Secretly you yearn for me, I did not know.

Secretly, I yearn more, for you.)

Ali and Kamil have previously worked on songs that scratch on the film’s surface an exclusively female chorus, with no space for men or their voices. From Rockstar’s ‘Katiya Karoon’ to Love Aaj Kal’s (2009) ‘Thoda Thoda Pyaar’. Even though Tamasha’s ‘Heer Toh Badi Sad Hai’ is sung by Mika Singh, the subjectivity of trying to be inside the head of its slowly decaying female protagonist completely makes the male perspective mute, even as the male voice is used.

This is no second-wave feminism, uninterested in critique, much like Kamil-Ali’s philosophical reach, which does not exceed their Rumi-in-translation grasp; it is content with clarion calls to freedom, wrapped in gorgeous metaphor, such that the beauty of the metaphor becomes the beauty of its meaning; here metaphor doesn’t aid meaning, it is it.

“Chal hawa bana ud jaawaan,

Sama bana gum jaawaan”

(Come, let’s become the wind and soar away

Come, let’s become the sky and be astray)

But it is also strange to see how ‘Sufism’ which always insisted on standing apart from society is being used so convincingly — through rousing poetry, pulping melody — to stand within society, with an illusion of standing apart. Close to being rendered banal by overuse, how much Bulleh Shah can we cite, as is done in the song ‘Bol Mohabbat’, before we forget the serration with which he critiqued his society — caste, included? To stand apart from society is not an aesthetic choice, but a moral conviction. When rebellion becomes aspirational it loses some of its teeth.

Quiz: How Well Do You Know AR Rahman?

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