66th Sense

Kiski Jai Ho

I’m listening to ”Jai Ho” by AR Rahman…The song starts with nice rhythm, stops for a while and then comes the ever so energetic voice of Sukhwinder Singh. The song has a thump, a beat about it…

The singer is singing about the hardships that the protagonist has faced all his life…
How he has been dying each day of his life, bit by bit, slowly and steadily. Each night of his life has been juxtaposed to “dancing on burning coal”. How he blew sleep off his eyes and has spent the long nights counting the stars in the sky….


And then a sweet female voice asks the protagonist to accompany her under the open blue sky. It’s amazing how the poet takes you straight from the hardships of slums to an open blue sky. He takes his composition straight from the dark despairing night sky to an open blue sky of carefree life. He transcends to a life full of hope and to hail that life come two words “Jai Ho”…

And the song continues…

Oscars have ended and Rahman and Gulzaar have got Oscars for the composition. But there are few things that are untold about the song, about the cast and the writer of this amazing story.

The song Jai Ho was initially offered to movie “Yuvraaj”. But Mr Ghai declined it, rightly so, because one wonders where they would have fitted this song in the story’s plot. But then again not all the songs in a Bollywood flick suit the plot or characters. Most of the times, the songs are included because they sound nice.

We all know the movie is about how a “slumdog” becomes a millionaire after winning the the famous “Who wants to be a millionaire” game show. And we also know that two of the Bollywood superstars had hosted the very show in reality. Then why weren’t they offered the role. Or were they offered and they didn’t feel that the movie or the role was worth a try. Or was the money too less. Well I don’t know…maybe someone does. Maybe some of them didn’t appreciate the title...Whatever it was, it was an opportunity that went begging…

I agree that title is a bit harsh, but the truth is whatever the title is, the movie has 8 Oscars next to its name. And if someone thinks the controversy of the title won it the Oscars, then I guess whenever we send a movie to Oscars from next time, we are better off changing its title to represent some controversial issue.

After all in contemporary world, means are justified by the end. Maybe the creator of “Lagaan”, “Munnabhai” and “Swadesh” can take a few notes here…But then I ponder as well that if an Indian would have made this movie would it have been considered for even a single Oscar.. Now maybe the academy may help me here.

Finally let’s talk about the writer of the story. Without whom, forget the eight Oscars, the movie wouldn’t have existed.The movie is adapted from the book Q&A written by Vikash Swaroop. But did we hear this name before or even after the movie got released... Well…let me think myself…Swaroop works with Indian Civil Services and has been appreciated worldwide for his writing. But nobody is willing to give any credit to the man behind the story. I say so because I feel bound to compare this situation with the situation of movie “Hello”. Everyone knew, long before the movie was released, that the movie “Hello” is based on the book “One night at the call center”, , . But then I guess the way “Hello” was made it certainly needed that “Chetan Bhagat” milage to pull the crowds to the box office…

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