{"id":3990,"date":"2015-11-26T20:53:04","date_gmt":"2015-11-26T15:23:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teekhapan.wordpress.com\/?p=3990"},"modified":"2015-11-26T20:53:04","modified_gmt":"2015-11-26T15:23:04","slug":"khada-hai-khada-hai-was-a-sufi-song-a-dreamy-conversation-with-pahlaj-nihalani","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vivekkaul.com\/2015\/11\/26\/khada-hai-khada-hai-was-a-sufi-song-a-dreamy-conversation-with-pahlaj-nihalani\/","title":{"rendered":"Khada hai khada hai was a Sufi song: A dreamy conversation with Pahlaj Nihalani"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/a>\"pahlaj\"<\/a>
\nIt is 12.30AM at night and I am sleeping. In my sleep I am dreaming about Pahlaj Nihalani. I am actually talking to him. We are having a conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cSir if you could produce a film with a song khada hai khada hai khada hai,<\/em> why don\u2019t you like kissing anymore?\u201d I asked him a simple question to start the proceedings.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are misquoting the song?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMisquoting the song?\u201d I repeated, wondering how does one misquote a song.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell you are just singing a part of it,\u201d explained Mr Nihalani, the censor board chief and started humming it himself: \u201cKhada hai khada hai khada hai, dar pe tere aashiq khada hai.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the complete line?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a Sufi song. In fact, it was India\u2019s first filmi Sufi song.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSorry?\u201d I asked, wondering what made one of India\u2019s grossest double meaning songs, a Sufi song.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me explain,\u201d continued Nihalani. \u201cThe lover is calling out to his beloved and singing that he is standing on her doorstep waiting for her to open the door.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe beloved is essentially a representation of God, you see and the lover is her devotee,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cAh,\u201d I said surprised at this masterful spin that Nihalani had come up with.<\/p>\n

\u201cImagine a Sufi song in Hindi cinema of the 1990s. They used to be full of these double meaning songs. Choli ke peeche\/andar kya hai<\/em> and all that. This was a time when the world hadn\u2019t discovered Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan sab<\/em>. Or Abida Parveen for that matter. I was \u2018so\u2019 ahead of the times.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Sir what about lal duppette waali tera naam to bata<\/em>?\u201d I asked, trying to get back into the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat about it bacche<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell there is a line in the song where the heroines sing, \u201char ajnabi ke liye khidki nahi khulti<\/em>,\u201d and in a very suggestive way slightly raise the hemline of their white mini-skirts. This clearly wasn\u2019t a good projection of Indian culture that you now seem to be so passionate about?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAh, the tragedy of my life,\u201d shouted Nihalani.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody ever understood the real meaning behind my songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cReal meaning?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes. That was a song against pollution. I was telling the people to keep their windows closed till the air gets a little cleaner. Again, I was ahead of the times. Now we at least have Modi Kaka\u2019s Swacch Bharat.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what about main maal gaadi tu dhakka lagga?<\/em> What was that all about?\u201d I asked, hoping to catch the censor chief off-guard.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh that was a song for the Indian Railways,\u201d he replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cIndian Railways?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know that the passenger service of Indian Railways is a loss making operation?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was my way of indirectly telling the government that they should be running more freight turns, if they wanted the Railways to be profitable and sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAh.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd look at what happened?\u201d he asked rhetorically.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened?\u201d I repeated.<\/p>\n

\u201cLalu Prasad Yadav stole my idea when he became the Railway Minister in 2004. He gave immense importance to freight operations and revived the Railways,\u201d explained Nihalani. \u201cI never got the respect I deserved until Modi Kaka came along.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHmmm. But what about angna main baba duare pe ma?<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat about it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe song starts with the heroine Shilpa Shirodkar lifting her\u00a0ghagra\u00a0<\/em>to reveal her thigh. It is followed by the heroine and a string of women extras gyrating their chests and doing other suggestive movements.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo?\u201d Nihalani persisted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell if you can produce that sort of a song, what is wrong with James Bond kissing?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, again you are seeing only what unfolds on the screen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what is the \u2018deeper\u2019 meaning?\u201d I asked, trying to be sarcastic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a song against obesity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cObesity?\u201d I asked, with my head ready to spin.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes. Look at the dance movements. I have just tried to Indianise aerobic movements. I had given special instructions to the choreographer to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes. And this was a time when even Baba\u2019s Yoga was not on the scene,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes that is pretty recent,\u201d I said accepting defeat.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it was up to me that the country remained healthy until Modi Kaka came along.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was when a bucket full of water landed up on me and the girl-friend yelled at the top of her voice, \u201ccan you stop shouting Modi Modi even in your sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Vivek Kaul is the author of the Easy Money<\/em> trilogy. He tweets @kaul_vivek. On most days he writes on finance and economics).<\/p>\n

This spoof originally appeared on Huffington Post India<\/a> on Nov 26, 2015<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is 12.30AM at night and I am sleeping. In my sleep I am dreaming about Pahlaj Nihalani. I am actually talking to him. We are having a conversation. \u201cSir if you could produce a film with a song khada hai khada hai khada hai, why don\u2019t you like kissing anymore?\u201d I asked him a … <\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"qubely_global_settings":"","qubely_interactions":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,39,68],"tags":[1848,2661],"qubely_featured_image_url":null,"qubely_author":{"display_name":"Vivek Kaul","author_link":"https:\/\/vivekkaul.com\/author\/vivekkaul\/"},"qubely_comment":2,"qubely_category":"Huffington Post India<\/a> Humor<\/a> Satire<\/a>","qubely_excerpt":"It is 12.30AM at night and I am sleeping. In my sleep I am dreaming about Pahlaj Nihalani. I am actually talking to him. We are having a conversation. \u201cSir if you could produce a film with a song khada hai khada hai khada hai, why don\u2019t you like kissing anymore?\u201d I asked him a…","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vivekkaul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3990"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vivekkaul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vivekkaul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vivekkaul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vivekkaul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vivekkaul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3990\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vivekkaul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vivekkaul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vivekkaul.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}