Mainline Bhangra

It’s bad enough that teenagers too young to be drinking gyrate to Char botal vodka, kaam mere roz ka (Four bottles of vodka, that’s what I down daily). But Yo Yo Honey Singh’s celebration of what a seasoned drunk might be hard put to handle would sound like a nursery rhyme in comparison to the hits playing in Punjab’s pubs and discos. Sample a song called Nagni, by Resham Singh Anmol, which goes Jinni teri college di fees jhalliye, enni naagni jattan da putt khanda tadkey. Sung to a girl being wooed, it says her college fee is the amount her swain spends daily on his quota of black-tar heroin. This brazen and tasteless bad-boy boast has logged more than a million hits on YouTube, and is boomed everywhere youngsters gather.

This in a state with the worst drugs problem in the country. Punjab accounts for 45 per cent of all drug-related convictions and 34 per cent of its undertrials are in jail for narcotics crimes. In 2013, drugs hauls totted up to a staggering 31 lakh kilos. Of course, popular culture—song especially—has frequently streaked itself in rebellious edginess to draw the young. But such a mainstream celebration of addiction and addictive substances? Especially when the hardy youth of rural Punjab, a fecund recruitment stock for sports and the armed forces, are being hollowed out by alcohol and drugs?

“Such numbers have always been a hit with teenagers, but when I heard my five-year-old nephew humming these tunes the other day, I was really shocked,” says activist Aman Deol, 28, who runs the Stree Jagran Manch and tries to counter this mainstreaming of what might be tolerable as underground hits. And Ravinder Singh Sandhu, a professor at Punjabi University, Patiala, who has conducted an extensive study of the sociological impact of drug addiction in the state, says, “References to opium have always existed in Punjabi songs. It’s not new—there have been jokes, couplets from yesteryear. But like when Munni badnaam hui was released and children could be heard singing it, there’s a problem!” Singer Harpreet Dhillon, with numbers like Kaali Nagni to his credit, agrees. “It’s always been there, and part of a culture,” he says. “Only, in the journey from folksy-rural traditions to pop, the lyrics, the beats and the videos have bec­ome more aggressive and in your face.” There’s also the argument that art—popular or otherwise—reflects society as much as art influences society.

Industry insiders offer a more mundane explanation: the pressure to deliver hit songs, which is driving pop singers to take the easy, dangerous route. There’s little to be said about rhythmic variety or tunes to make these songs stand out—it’s only the drug angle. “Television is a hungry animal,” says lyricist Amit Khanna, “and every aspiring artist wants to take a rebellious attitude—and songs about drugs and drug-taking are very much a part of that.” Resham Singh Anmol, who sang Nagni, is sheepish about the lyrics of his songs and blames it on the industry. “I never wanted to release the song as I thought it sends the wrong message,” he says. Record companies, according to him, force singers to release such songs because they sell. He has tried to redeem himself with Nagin-2, with lyrics stressing on the ill-effects of drugs. Needless to say, this new album is no big hit.

Opium, bhang and ganja have traditionally been in use across all parts of India for centuries—hence the old songs, couplets and jokes about these substances and their addictive hold. In 1893, a Royal Commission appointed under the British Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade concluded that mothers in the Malwa region (including parts of Punjab, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh) gave small doses of opium to nursing children, believing this was good for the child’s dig­estion. Also since it made the child sleepy, it allowed the women to go about their chores. Even today, bhukki (or poppy husk) is the poor man’s drug in the region and is the second-largest drug in use. But it’s not bhukki or opium these songs are about: they’re about hardcore stuff—smack, heroin, cocaine, party and rave drugs. And Sandhu’s studies show it’s well-off youth, mostly in the 16-35 years bracket, who do these drugs and sway and jive to these songs.

“College-going kids who come from smaller towns to the bigger cities listen to these songs and strive to be a certain way. And it’s not just the drugs either, some songs glorify explicit violence too,” says Gaurav Sharma, a filmmaker from Ambala. Children as old as 12 years can be heard mouthing these songs, he says, and are quite influenced by them.

Most songs and the videos pictured on them promote a male-centric stereotype that’s been done to death and yet has much traction: a young man with a fast car and a girl (or girls) with the tripping thrown in for good measure. “Yes, it’s almost like gangsta rap in the US,” says Sharma. And Deol adds that the glorification of drugs—and an uncouth macho self-destructiveness combined with the commodification of women—eats away at Punjabi roots. She points to songs referring to women as intoxicants. Mainu soneya feem de, soneya feem de wargi nu, rakhi chandi di dabbi de vich paa ke, as Gippy Grewal’s song Chandi di Dabbi goes, in which a girl educates her lover-boy that she’s like opium and he should keep her safe in a silver box. It’s the sort of song that youngsters have DJs playing at every gathering, be it weddings, birthday bashes or parties.

There is a fightback on now. Organ­isations like the one Deol runs have been campaigning hard for a stop to these songs. The state government, too, is trying to spread awareness against such songs as it can’t outright ban them. But the real eff­ort will have to come from the singers themselves. For instance, popular singer Diljit Dosanjh has already toned his act down a bit. Punjabi NRIs have also stated a campaign against these songs—and because foreign concerts earn these performers big money, their reluctance to have these songs playing might put the brakes. So for now, lyric writers and singers seem to be going slow on the naagin trip. But perhaps it’s only till the next chartbuster hits a high.

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Tunes To Trip On

Song: Nagni by Resham Anmol

Jinni teri college di
fees jhalliye
enni naagni ni yaar
tera khanda tadkey

(Boy to girl: The money you pay as your colleges fees is how much I spend on heroin every day.)

Song: Chandi Di Dabbi by Gippy Grewal

Mainu soneya feem de, soneya feem de wargi nu, rakhi chandi di
dabbi de vich paa ke

(Girl to boy: I am like afeem, so keep me safely in a little silver box)

Song: Bikaneri Di Afeem by Amrit Mann

Je tu daaru ta Jatt vi, Bikaneri afeem kud...

(Girl: if you are a bottle of alcohol, then I am Bikaneri afeem.)