Place Names in Songs

Place names in songs sometimes bring in the patriotic fervour, as in 'Yeh mera India, I love my India,' or 'Hai preet jahan ki reet sada, main geet wahan ke gaata hoon, bharat ka rehne wala hoon, bharat ke geet sunata hoon.' (Shah Rukh Khan and Manoj Kumar respectively).

Sometimes, the reference is to an ornament which fell in a marketplace (Jhumka gira re, Bareilly ke bazaar mein), or exotic locations where love blossoms (Night in London, An Evening in Paris, or Love in Tokyo). The hero sometimes proclaims his antecedents, as in Rampur ka basi hoon main, lakshman mera naam.

Bambai se gayi Poona, ...se gayi Patna, phir bhi na mila sajna, is the lament of Juhi Chawla in a song.

In the old-time farmaish or 'request' song shows on radio, even the names of towns the requests came from were very entertaining. The most famous among them was Jhumritalaiya, but there were many frequent ones like Rajnandgaon, Jabalpur and Kathgodam. Shekhupura in Pakistan figured regularly in All India Radio's Urdu service, for some reason.


2 comments:

smita said...

very interesting, one on relations will include, behna ne bhai ki kalai se..mera pati sirf mera hai..mai to bhul chali babul ka desh..hai na bolo bolo mummy ko papa se, papa ko mummy se pyar hai.
Bollywood music is fun!!

Diamond Head said...

I don't know where 'Khandala' ranks in the geopolitical spectrum but I suspect as an actual place it is likely obliterated by those that took the 'Aati kya Khandala' to heart

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