The songs of the 1940s, 50s and 60s and every decade reflect their times, the passion of that era or the lack of it in terms of aesthetics and literary depth. For instance, a Woh subah kabhi to aayegi (Will the new dawn ever break?) could have been composed only in the 1950s or 60s. Its writer Sahir Ludhianvi was a very good poet and took film song-writing very seriously. He wrote on his own terms and was the first to bring the film song closer to the poem. Be it Woh subah or the songs in Pyaasa, most of these are like poems. Sahir wrote lyrics too but he made his mark because of the poems he wrote for the films. Shailendra was another master of saying something emotional and deep in ordinary and simple words.

The reducing influence of folk and ghazal in our songs over the years tells us something about what is happening to our society, where dignity has been the casualty. I’m not afraid of outside or Western influences. But we had developed a unique style of picturising songs. It was unbelievably good. Directors like Guru Dutt, Vijay Anand or Raj Khosla had a superb style of picturising songs. I am disappointed to see that we are not carrying forward that tradition. Now we’re aping MTV and Channel V and the songs in today’s films cease to have a real function within the drama. The song has become a kind of a perk that’s offered with the film. We are achieving speed (as seen in the Western influence on the tempo of our songs) at the cost of depth and it’s not a good deal.

... contd.