Monday, May 23, 2011

gender-agnostic love

I was listening to दस बहाने from Dus today and remembered how, when I had heard it the first time, I wondered if the singers were actually saying दस बहाने कर के ले गए दिल instead of दस बहाने कर के ले गयी दिल. I am quite sure now that it's the former. This is a strange choice of conjugation, because the references to the loved one use उसकी and not, as one would expect, उनकी. Of course, one does not look to Bollywood as an informal school of Hindi grammar (surely one remembers how Guru Dutt convinced Majrooh Sultanpuri to go easy on the grammar in सुन सुन सुन सुन ज़ालिमा for Aar Paar). What I found even more interesting this time around was that the song almost completely eliminates any notion of gender. Both KK and Shaan go on and on about the other one and the heart and so on and Vishal Dadlani tosses in DJ toasts every one and then to punctuate the dance floor number, but never (well, almost never) is there a sign that we're talking about her. It makes you wonder if this was because the song was originally written to be sung by girls. Now that it's just the boys singing, one also wonders if nobody noticed that it might have become the trendiest paean to gay guys all around except for one pesky detail (remember I had said almost): one of the lines Vishal Dadlani spits out is you stole my heart from me girl. girl is the clincher. He just saved this song from being an ode from him to him. Bring on the two large sunflowers and whack them against each other.

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