Roses are red, violets are blue. V-Day pressure making being single taboo?
There’s a whole lot of fuss over romantic love this time of the year. The world is bigger than just two people in love, with all sorts of fulfilling relationships. Today, chuckle at the cheesy social media posts or splurge on something indulging, without bemoaning the lack of a SO. We all deserve our own theme songs. So whether you’re single and ready to mingle; do not subscribe to the idea of ‘The One’; a member of the lonely hearts club; or simply couldn’t bother, here is a playlist for you.
Chinna chinna asai
This song from the film ‘Roja’ is full of main-character energy and the dizzying potential of being unattached. Sung by Minmini, composed by AR Rahman, ‘Chinna Chinna Asai’ or ‘Choti Si Asha,’ is a sweet exposition of a country girl in love with her dreamy, idyllic life.
The lyrics describe the power and beauty of small desires that when satisfied feel like you’re kissing the moon or building a world. Roja’s insatiable curiosity is matched with her resistance to marriage, pretence and coyness. Why else would a movie of the southernmost State, set itself high up in the North?
Excuses
AP Dhillon’s song encapsulates the bad romance that speaks to broken hearts, which is perhaps why it is so wildly popular at the same time as TikTok’s ‘You think you can hurt me’ and the ‘Cheat on me…I dare you’ trends. Some amount of heartbreak is probably inevitable, and this song guarantees that jadon tenu koi chaduga tan pata laguga (you’ll find out when someone leaves you too).
Aika Dajiba
This 2002 hit is about a woman who has had enough. Relate much? She’s fed up with men and their nonsense described in a series of synonyms –“kat kat,” “mach mach” and “gadbad” – because that’s how exhausted this woman is. It’s a peppy number doling out some pop women’s empowerment logic in a catchy mix of Marathi and Hindi. It’s funny, sexy, and cheerfully subverts the stereotype that women talk too much.
Kyu
Modern society has overcome every fear except of itself and it’s up to the youth to ask why. In a world full of deceit, empty struggles and cheats, the only way forward is to trust yourself. Seedhe Maut represents. The unrelenting pressures of fleeting time, harsh unequal society, crushing disappointment of capitalistic industries and the withering of dreams – these are the forces that cow us down.
Hope
Movies like ‘Dil Chahta Hai’ and ‘Three Idiots’ have proved that there’s lots of love in platonic friendships, which can be as rewarding as true love. Friends can get us through the worst break ups and demotions of life. On those bad days, when you feel like no one cares enough, a new song might fill your friends’ shoes resolutely. ‘Hope’ by Aman Jagwani and Anubha Kaul soothes us, holds our hands as we hold out for better days.
Raakhite Narili Premojol
This song insists that love cannot stay in a half-baked vessel. Bauls have forever told us to sacrifice divisions of caste, creed, religion and gender to pursue ‘moner manush’, or the inner being. With so many barriers, we as a society are not ready for love.
Ab Ki Yeh Subah
Finally, a song that falls between our unwillingness to compromise and our idealism. We don’t say that if love is not perfect, we don’t want it. But iterate, if it’s not good enough now, there will be a time where it will be and we’re ok to wait. Thanks, Parvaaz.
