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Amar Singh Chamkila: Bright aspect of society

The character ‘Chamkila’ is much discussed in Punjab. Does a Chamkila live within all of us? Years ago, during a Lavani presentation in Mumbai, a friend was translating the lyrics of a Marathi song to me in Hindi. She was saying that this is a famous Marathi folk song. In his childhood, he had heard the women of his neighborhood singing: The meaning of this song is that you bring the threads of itra for me; there is more fire inside me than the fire outside. You blow me away with your sandalwood-like shadow.

Last week, while watching a film based on the life of Punjab’s popular folk singer Amar Singh Chamkila on OTT, I remembered his Lavani song Koi Betahasha. Chamkila used to write and sing similar songs in Punjabi.

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He used to say, This is all I have seen in my childhood. He has taken the lyrics of the songs from the life around him. The kind of life that common people lived in villages and towns. Born in 1960 into a Dalit Sikh family in Dugri, a small village in Punjab, Dhanni Singh had just a small dream of becoming an electrician. Dhanni Singh was fond of playing the tumbai. While working in a textile mill in Ludhiana, Dhanni felt that he should do something of his choice. He started composing songs from his mind. Such words, which he liked at the time,. There was playfulness, bullying, molestation, and also love and obscenity in those forces.

Amar Singh became a shining Punjabi star overnight. A title was also coined for him: Punjab’s Elvis Presley used to come to listen to Chamkila, and the women of the villages also used to gather on the rooftops of their houses to listen to him. In the 1980s, cassette records of his songs were sold. Writer-director Imtiaz Ali has cast Diljit Dosanjh, a well-known face of Punjabi Bollywood, in the role of Amar Singh Chamkila. This is not just a document from one period of the film. Although there was minimal mention of Chamkila’s caste in the films, even today, 36 years after her death, she has more than one crore listeners on YouTube and other channels.

Famous musician and writer Giv Schrefer called Chamkili and Amarjeet ‘commercial folk’ singers in his book. He has written that his aim was to entertain people. No surprise, after the release of the film Chamkila, suddenly people on Google, YouTube, Spotify, and other social media have become curious to know about her. A folk singer has become the cause of great social discussion. The question is, is Chamkila still relevant today? Were the allegations leveled against him four decades ago true? Does making a film glorify an ‘obscene’ singer?

However, the definition of obscenity is very narrow, and in our country, obscene songs have been embedded in various folk cultures for centuries. North on South from East to West. Everything must have started here, when there was no modern medium for entertainment and happiness. Was different in the social environment. During festivals and social gatherings, some kingdoms were taken away in an atmosphere of fun. It was common to make jokes about love, sexual flirtation, and taboo subjects.

If you see, you will see and hear abusive questions and songs in marriage, Lavani in Maharashtra, the festival celebrated around the border of Himachal, Hulas, and Dev Utsav Aurangabad, as well as the same old traditions and songs during Fagua in Holi. We have been meeting. In the folk songs of Bhojpuri, Magahi, Bundeli, and Maithili, the relatively dark but bright side of human emotions emerges again and again. Such songs have always had a special place in our society. Such songs were sung in Gujarat and also in Kannada.

Sahadat Hasan Mantu and Ismat Chughtai, who are among the world’s famous writers, were accused of obscene writing for years and were even dragged to the courts. Obscenity can never be removed even from mainstream literature; often the discussion is diverted in the direction that obscenity lies in the eyes or minds of the viewer and listener. The argument is also old: people listen, which is why songs are made. There would hardly be any corner or similar in the world where a little amount of creativity has to be achieved.

Director Mani Ratnam, one of the top Tamil filmmakers, has also used Duarthi and Bhades songs in almost all his films. Regarding the song Rukmani, Shaadi Ke Baad Kya-Kya Hua from the film Roja, he said in an interview, I have seen this since childhood. Whoever gets married in the locality, everyone starts drowning in joy, the style of communication starts changing, teasing an old man, talking about sexual relations in veiled words—all this becomes very common. Almost everyone enjoys it. We cannot suppress it by just calling it obscene.

Read more: Who was Amar Singh Chamkila?