SONGS OF INTEGRATION

SONGS OF INTEGRATION

After many years I visited Vizag ( Visakhapatnam ) recently. My friends, those who had stayed in that city were in praise of its rapid progress and development. It was hailed as the ‘Goa of the east’ during the NTR era.

As my vehicle moved toward the city from the Airport the Telugu film posters drew my attention and I slipped into the past reminiscing of my tenure in the city in 1983 when large number of ‘Hindi’ cinema was screened and ‘Telugu’ cinema was emerging. People saw Hindi films as probably they had no option. However when I returned to the city in 1989/90 the ‘Telugu’ cinema had taken over along with the NTR wave. Hindi cinema was hardly available and was pushed to the fringes. On this occasion too I noticed that the hoardings of cinema were dominated by Telugu stars. When I explored the city further I noticed that all the advertisements, notices and signboards were either in English or Telugu, Hindi was not traceable nor any film posters were visible, though my driver spoke to me in Hindi. Therefore there was wide spread development and also the regional culture was in upswing along with the Ganesh festival and many pandals were decorated and immersions at the prescribed dates were occurring. One remarkable aspect of Vizag has been its adoption of other cultures. Durga pooja too is celebrated with devotion and zeal befitting the occasion; a culture imbibed from the adjoining states of Orissa and West Bengal. Ganesh, of course popularised by Tilak in Maharashtra and celebrated with gusto has made impact on Telugu culture by the reach of Television.

As is customary a few of my friends invited me to dinner at a prominent sea side Hotel. After some time my host asked me if I was interested in listening to the ‘live music’ by one ‘Babu’, so as not to displease my friend I agreed and we moved to an open space near to the sea in the Hotel premises where Babu ,with a cap on was singing Hindi film songs. His songs were not of recent times but of the sixties and seventies- Hemant Kumar, Mohamad Rafi and Kishore Kumar. He played some of our requests too and the guests seemed to be enjoying themselves including some children, I wondered as to how many of those were ‘Hindi speaking’. The next day the organisers of the conference held a ‘Dinner party’ in another sea side Hotel, there too one ‘David’ was singularly enthralling the guests with his fine selection of Hindi film songs mostly of the ‘Golden era’.

On my return to my Hotel room I was thinking that a fortnight in September is devoted to the promotion of Hindi in Government Offices. The National language is relegated to such a status that it requires such ‘steroids’ for sustenance and even then most participate to register attendance , in real terms it has not helped in usage of the Language.

Real promotion of the ‘Hindustani Zuban’ is being made by the songs of Hindi films specially from the old era when ‘emotion’ was of value. They sure were ‘songs of Integration’ ; of Hearts.