A look at why Himesh Reshammiya is the saviour of pop culture and the last hope of the catchy tune.
So I was talking to my friend Vasu the other day, the day after I had met him in Bangalore, and the man pasted a link onto the chat window.
"The idea of a tune, a melody, a combination of musical sounds that seems to be on everybody's lips at the same time, that spreads through a society as rapidly as a respiratory infection, and seems to invasively seize and occupy space in peoples minds until they finally succeed inforgetting it."
The reason why he had thought it fit to send me this link was that in our previous meeting, I had driven him off his rocker by humming 'Jhalak Dikhlaa Jaa' at every break in the conversation. Now Vasu is a Pop Culture God, he can sit through five Ramsay Bhailog movies in a day, but even a man of his stature has his limits. It hit me at that point of time that Himesh Reshammiya is a person who deserves not just my respect but also a standing ovation for managing to AFFECT people with his tune and voice. But the Himeshiyaa has been getting a lot of flak from all quarters, everywhere I see, there are people dissing him. Any lame standup comic or some babe-in-the-woods VJ thinks he can get a bellyful of laughs out of the potential audience by talking about The Him-man's cap and his mike-holding posture. But you are wrong, all of you. Let me point out why.
1) The voice. We are a nation who have been adoring Lata Mangeshkar's glass-shattering screams for about fifty years now, and we cannot take a man with a nasal tone? What are you, aurally retarded or something? I felt the same way after I heard Ozzy Osbourne for the first time, and even Robert Plant, or for that matter, RD Burman on Mehbooba. Offbeat voices that feel like a cat's claws on glass when you hear them the first time, but which grow on you, and a couple of decades down the line have become pretty distinctive in their own right. You may not like the voice right now, but twenty thousand hearings later, or perhaps after the next Hit Music Director decides to sing his own songs, you are going to beg for apna Himesh-bhai's renditions. And oh, Indian music already has a nadir as far as voices go, and that happens to be Anu Malik.
2) The look. On a flight to Bombay, I read an interview with Himesh Reshammiya. The interviewer asks him about the cap and the stubble, to which our man has a very legit explanation. I am quoting from memory "My friend pointed out that in India we have no rock stars. No Bryan Adams or Michael Jackson who the youth can identify with. I want to change that. My friend made me wear the cap, it has become part of my look. Even if you see a silhouette of Himesh Reshammiya, you ought to recognise it as Himesh Reshammiya." Now hold on, I bet all of you are snarking at the guy's audacity. Personally, I remembered an interview AR Rahman gave in 1997, when Vande Mataram was about to release. Did anyone complain when Rahman got himself the curly hair and the blue-jeans-white-shirt makeover? Nope, we were cheering him through and through. So why single out Himesh Reshammiya? And on top of it, his plan's working, isn't it? You see anyone with a cap and a stubble, and the first thing that comes to mind is HR. The same way a goatie below the lower lip will always, ALWAYS make you say "Aamir Khan". Image, people, it's all about image.
3) The attitude. People say he comes off like a dick. Doesn't smile in public. C'mon, just because a guy doesn't grin like a vacuous moron whenever an interviewer is asking him questions doesn't mean he's being a dick. For all you know, he's scared shitless of the camera. And then you've Rahman who giggles uncontrollably after every question, and ruffles his hair - so when Harris Jayaraj does the same thing in his interviews, everybody's like "HARRIS COPIES RAHMAN. OMG COPYCAT!". Well? Himesh-bhai isn't copying Rahman. Himesh-bhai is blazing new trails for himself. The Unapproachable Musician, the Bad Cop in the panel of reality TV judges who cannot be swayed by your ass-kissing or your heartfelt pranaams. And hey, at least he doesn't go around saying things like "I am the best music director in the country." He's quite open about his respect for other music directors too.
4) The music. Back in the days when Himesh Reshammiya was still a nobody, there was this article I read about the making of this film called Pyaar Kiya Toh Darnaa Kiya, which starred Salman Khan and Kajol and had music by Jatin Lalit. The article was about the fact that Jatin-Lalit, then one of the hottest music composers had tried rather hard to write the title song of PKTDK, and they had given up in disgust because, according to them, the tune of the Mughal-e-Azam song from the sixties "Pyaar Kiya Toh Darrna Kiya" was too overpowering for them to think of any other tunes for those words. What a bunch of pussies. It was then that Himesh Reshammiya snuck into history. He composed a tune which was quite decent. At least, unlike most the other songs in PKTDK, Himesh's "Odhli Chunariya" was not ripped off from other sources. Over the years, his output has been dhinchaak at best - ranging from ear-friendly desi tunes to club-thumping numbers, which really got to you if you heard them a couple of times. And all the time, he didn't quite have a "style" - sometimes he would sound like Nadeem Sharavan on a really good day, other songs he would be like Anu Malik on a bad acid trip.
Aashiq Banaaya Aapne changed all that. You might argue that Tere Naam was a superhit too, but the Himesh-bhai style, His Voice, the solitary violin, the tabla flourishes, the sexy babes in the title songs, Emraan Hashmi - everything came together in AAB. And of course, the Ear Worm effect. The voice lodged itself in your ear, the tune bounced around like a flubberly creature, and all was right with the world.
Now the problem that everyone seems to have is, all his tunes after Aashiq Banaaya Aapne sound the same. Not true. Jhalak Dikhlaajaa from Aksar is better. It is a superior song. If you thought Aashiq Banaaya Aapne was an earworm, Jhalak Dikhlaa Jaa is like a mega-super-duper ear-worm designed to bring mankind to its knees. Do you know anyone who has used the shehnai properly in Indian Film music after AR Rahman's 'Humma'? Himesh Reshammiya has, in Jhalak Dikhlaa Jaa. Can you think of anything who can make Emraan Hashmi look cool? Nope, not humanly possible, but Himesh Reshammiya, or rather, Himesh Reshammiya's music can distract you from Emraan Hashmi. Which is always a good thing, my friends. How many other music directors use Sunidhi Chauhan and Shreya Ghoshal's voices in innovative ways? The correct answer would be "Everyone", but because we are talking about The Him-man, the answer is, you guessed it right, Himesh Reshammiya. And the other tune from Aksar, called 'Laagi Laagi' also has him singing, and he sounds different on it. More like Sukhwindar Singh.
We are all in denial. Himesh Reshammiya has given us something like TWENTY EIGHT hits in the last six months, and we refuse to acknowledge his talent. Yeah, every Bappi song sounded the same when it came out. When Bappi Lahiri released Disco Dancer in 1982, and followed it up with a series of disco anthems, there would be these disgruntled janta who, with their ears plugged and their constitutions soured, would mutter curses against the newbie composer and his disco tunes. The more hallowed among them would say things like "Ah, he's ripping off Modern Talking and Laura Brannigan and The Buggles" and then go listen to bootleg tapes of Thriller to purge their ears of such pedestrian compositions.
Twenty four years down the line, Bappi da's having the last laugh. How many of you have heard of The Buggles? Yet, when I sing "Auwwa Auwwa", you will think of Bappi Lahiri, and his magnificent Disco Dancer album. I believe that is precisely what Himesh Reshammiya will become twenty four years from now, a cultural icon and representative of the early 2000s, and I think I will give him his due. Which is better than having to explain to my kids why I thought HR's music sucked at first.
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