Hindi cinema has become more accepting of alcohol; there is no longer guilt associated with drinking. Akshay Manwani says an unabashed hedonism has crept into cinema’s depiction of the same, both in terms of song lyrics and picturisation
Hindi cinema has traditionally been averse to the idea of alcohol. Yes, villains committed their acts of villainy having had their fill of liquor, but protagonists didn’t drink to celebrate the occasion, but to get drunk. When our heroes or heroines took to the bottle, it was either to signal their moral decline or to drown their sorrows as a result of unrequited love or to cope with some kind of inadequacy playing out in their personal lives. Think of chhoti bahu played by Meena Kumari in Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962) or Amitabh Bachchan’s Vicky Kapoorfrom Sharaabi (1984) and the characters are only dealing in excesses. Moderation was never an option in our films.
Songs in popular Hindi cinema have also mirrored this narrative. One can think of any number of film songs, which show the hero, glass (or bottle) in hand, grieving aloud after his lady love has either walked out on him or betrayed him (at least in his mind). Dev Anand singing Din dhal jaaye in Guide (1965) or Rajesh Khanna crooning ‘Yeh jo mohabbat hai’ in Kati Patang (1970) are ready illustrations of such instances. On the odd occasion that there was mirth associated with drinking, it came from a defensive standpoint as highlighted in songs like ‘Jungle mein mor naacha kisine na dekha, hum jo thodi se pee ke zara jhoome, hai re sab ne dekha’ (Madhumati, 1958) or ‘Thodi se jo pee lee hai, chori toh nahi kee hai’ (Namak Halaal, 1982).
Alternately, the consumption of liquor has even offered our heroes a rare clarity, which allows them to comment on social evils or take a harsh, incisive look at society while they can hardly stand on their feet. One of Pyaasa’s (1957) defining songs, ‘Jinhe naaz hai Hind par woh kahaan hain’, comes after the poet Vijay (Guru Dutt) has turned to liquor on learning of his mother’s death. In this state alone can he sing and comment upon a society where women are traded for their flesh and the nation’s leaders should be aghast at such a turn of events. In another song from the film Kaajal (1965), actor Raj Kumar, very much an alcoholic and grey character in the film, sings philosophically, ‘Achchon ko bura saabit karna, duniya ki puraani aadat hai, iss mai ko mubaarak cheez samajh, maana ke bahut badnam hai yeh’, thereby hinting at the fact that not all that is criticised by society is necessarily bad.
Since the turn of the new millennium, however, popular Hindi cinema has been more accepting of alcohol. In fact, it has now gone to the other extreme, where there is no longer any guilt associated with drinking, but a celebration, an unabashed hedonism that has crept into cinema’s depiction of the same. And this depiction or change in stance has played itself out most in song sequences, both in terms of the lyrics of the song and in their picturisation.
Think of the number of songs in the last 15 years that have the hero, heroine partying either on some kind of an exotic island or cruise-liner or in a discotheque, with champagne bottles being popped or potent cocktail shots being consumed in an MTV-grind-style redux. In Kal Ho Na Ho (2003), Preity Zinta having consumed one such shot too many, sheds away her jacket (a metaphor for her inhibitions) to reveal a black halter top and bursts into ‘It’s the time to disco’, only to be joined in by her co-stars Shah Rukh Khan and Saif Ali Khan.
Since then, umpteen songs — ‘Tum hi ho bandhu, sakha tum hi ho’ from Cocktail (2012),‘Saanu vele kende, saanu ki’ from Student Of The Year (2012),‘Aaj blue hai paani paani’ from Yaariyan (2014) — have shown their protagonists drinking and doing so without a care in the world. From Malibu, to vodka shots, to Patiala pegs, the Hindi film industry is an equal variety consumer, as these songs tell us. Correspondingly, there has also been a surge in the number of songs where the word ‘party’ (the perfect excuse for consuming liquor) is very much in focus — ‘Where’s the party tonight’ (Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, 2006), ‘Party on my mind’ (Race 2, 2013) and ‘Abhi toh party shuru huyi hai’ (Khoobsurat, 2014).
lyrics like ‘Talli hua, talli hua, yaara dekho yaara mera talli hua’ from Singh Is King (2008) or ‘Vilaayati pee gaye par desi abhi baaki hai’ from F.A.l.T.U (2011) or ‘Chaar botal vodka, kaam mera roz ka, na mujhko koi rokey, na kisi ne roka’ from Ragini MMS 2 (2014) depict a brazen celebration of liquor, which is a far cry from the despondency associated with the earlier Hindi film songs, which had actors downcast and apologetic for having taken recourse to the bottle. Now, be it the hero — ‘Haan main alcoholic hoon’ (The Shaukeens, 2014), or the heroine — ‘Main sharaabi, main sharaabi’ (Cocktail), lead characters shout out their dipsomaniac lifestyles from rooftops.
More recently, Roy (2015) took this hedonism to an altogether new level when it blatantly told viewers in one of its songs: ‘Matalbi ho ja zara matlabi, duniya ki sunta hai kyun, khud ki bhi sun le kabhi… Sooraj dooba hai yaaron, do ghoont nashe ke maaro, raste bhula do saare ghar baar ke’. That all these song are chartbusters says something about the times we live in.
It’s hard to determine when exactly did this shift in attitude towards drinking take place in our cinema. Surely, the post-liberalised Indian economy of 1992, which ushered in greater disposable incomes for the Indian middle class and a more aspirational, materialistic lifestyle, was the trigger that brought in this change. But even up to the mid-90s, songs like ‘Mujhko peena hai, peene do’ from Phool Aur Angaar (1993) or the title track of Ram Jaane (1995) had their respective heroes, Mithun Chakraborty and Shah Rukh Khan, sing songs of catharsis only after they had been on a drinking binge.
Perhaps, the earliest instance of the shift in stance, then, happens when in Yash Chopra’s Dil To Pagal Hai (1997), SRK (Rahul) and Karishma Kapoor (Nisha) are shown to partake in tequila shots on her birthday. It’s an important moment, where the narrative around alcohol has shifted from guilt and corruption to one of celebration. From there on it was okay for heroes and heroines to drink without falling into nether territory.
A few years later, in another landmark film, Dil Chahta Hai (2001), the three protagonists of the film, Saif Ali Khan, Aamir Khan and Akshaye Khanna in an early scene in the film, are in a discotheque and are shown, or at least implicitly shown, to be consuming liquor. Soon there is a song which follows, where Aamir takes the lead, only to be joined in by Saif and Akshaye, and the trio go on to belt out the very popular, ‘Hum hain naye, andaaz kyun ho puraana’. There has been no looking back ever since.
Manwani is the author of Sahir: The People’s Poet