A poor man’s cigarette got the whole country groovin’ in 2006.
Beedi jalaile from Vishal Bharadwaj’s reimagined Othello, Omkara (2006), on the face of it, belongs to the Bollywood’s raunchy item number genre.
But with lyrics by Gulzar, it becomes an extraordinary poem of three lives — Kesu/Cassio (Vivek Oberoi), Billo/Bianca (Bipasha Basu) and Langra Tyagi/Iago (Saif Ali Khan) — that drives the doomed love story of Omkara/Othello (Ajay Devgn) and Dolly/Desdemona (Kareena Kapoor Khan) forward.
Gulzar, one of the few genuine polymaths in Bollywood, wrote the song for Bharadwaj, who he calls “like my son”. They do go back a long way together. Eighties and Nineties kids would know Gulzar wrote the Jungle jungle baat chali hai title track for The Jungle Book series aired on Doordarshan. Bharadwaj, then in his 20s, composed the music. Gulzar gave Bharadwaj his big break as music director in his film Maachis (1996). When Bharadwaj turned film director with Makdee (2002) and Maqbool (2003), it was natural that he would compose its music and turn to Gulzar for the lyrics. Omkara was Bharadwaj’s third film with this pairing.
Here, Bharadwaj gives the song its raw, folksy flavour, but amps up the heartland Nautanki syntax with an electric beat, a clever use of percussion and chants. Singers Sunidhi Chauhan, Sukhwinder Singh and Nachiketa Chakraborty, with backing vocals by Clinton Cerejo and Bharadwaj, bring whistle-worthy energy to the track.
Sunidhi’s warm lilt playfully offsets Sukhwinder’s high-pitched energy. Nachiketa, famed for his Bengali jibonmukhi songs, brings a menacing edge to the portions he sings as Langra Tyagi. While Sunidhi’s vocals embody unblushing desire, the contrasting voices of Sukhwinder and Nachiketa imbue the bawdy song with the undercurrents of a brawl.
And yet, 20 years later, it’s the lyrics that give Beedi jalaile its staying power. Even Javed Akhtar has famously envied Gulzar for writing the song.
Na ghilaaf, na lihaaf, thandi hawa bhi khilaaf, sasuri
Itti sardi hai kisi ka lihaaf lei le, ja padosi ke chulhe se aag lei le
Beedi jalaile jigar se piya, jigar ma badi aag hai
In 1963, a young Gulzar debuted as a songwriter with Bandini’s tender Mora gora ang lai le, mohe Shyam rang dai de. The Awadhi touch is unmistakable in Beedi jalaile. But no tenderness here, this is a song of hardscrabble lives. Winter lust served hot with a generous tempering of violence-in-waiting.