English gana aye, ya na aye, gana chahiye

When Aditya Narayan crooned 'But I love you daddy' in Akele Hum, Akele Tum, we sat up to listen because we rarely heard Hinglish numbers in Bollywood films then. Little did we know that the trend would catch on in such a big way that undiluted Hindi tracks would become more the exception than the norm. From the inane 'I want to Chiggy Wiggy with you boy' to the verbal diarrhea in Ajaab Prem...u00a0 that goesu00a0 'Shining in the setting sun like a pearl upon the ocean come on feel me'; the very popular 'Give me some sunshine, give me some rain' from 3 Idiots to the catchy 'Ten on Ten' from the recent Pyaar Impossibleu00a0-- Bollywood songs now seem incomplete without a few English lines. And the trend isn't surprising considering that most of them turn out to be instant chartbusters.



On a new track
Says Suraj Jagan of the Give me Some Sunshine fame, "Earlier there was a clear distinction between English and Hindi audiences. Now the two are merging so Bollywood too is experimenting with newer ways to connect with the junta. And it is working." Singer and music director Wajid seconds him. "After a point the same fare turns boring. So there is nothing wrong with the fact that Bollywood is going the Hinglish way." While Wajid might advocate this upcoming trend, he feels that it is important for these numbers to congruously fit into the film. He says, "When we sang 'Your mama says you love me, your papa says you love me, love me baby love me,' the song was meant to have a teasing tone and it fitted into the script. 'Surili Akhiyon Wale' too has English lines, but again they flow well as part of a London scene." And unlike the other Hinglish songs floating around, it is grammatically and phonetically correct, he adds.

Pen drive
We are yet to find out what Chiggy means. We're assuming that the term has been inspired by Will Smith's 'Getting jiggy with it' number. But all said and done, the song still is a rage. And how can we forget the famous Billu track 'Love mera Hit Hit'? While some of us, including lyricist Gulzar, might only remember it as being a tongue-twister with words like hit hit, fit fit, khit pit being tossed around, most others simply loved it. And the same goes for the chartbuster 'Tera Hone Laga Hoon'. We have no idea what Irshad Kamil was thinking when he penned 'Shining in the setting sun...' The lyrics might have been a poor attempt at profundity, but they still worked. Explains Suraj, "Very often lyricists who are used to writing in Hindi are made to pen a few English lines too. That might sometimes result in trashy lyrics."

But trashy or not, we can't stop ourselves from grooving to them.