Atif Aslam’s rendition of ‘Tajdar-E-Haram’ on season eight of Coke Studio was the first song from the music series (and the country) to cross the benchmark of 100 million views on YouTube. Viewed in 180 countries, it was meant to be a tribute to The Sabri Brothers, (the late Ghulam Farid Sabri and late Maqbool Ahmed Sabri), who composed and performed the qawwali for the first time in the seventies. The Coke Studio version was endorsed by Amjad Sabri and for Atif Aslam, to this day, performing it is akin to a spiritual experience. So, it makes one wonder why anyone would take something so sacred and use it as a soundtrack to a vigilante gone wild. But that’s exactly the case with an upcoming Bollywood film called Satyameva Jayate, which stars John Abraham as the vigilante and Manoj Bajpayee as a cop, who seems to be on the wrong side of things. Having created their own version of ‘Tajdar-e-Haram’, the music video opens first with a police officer hurting a woman in a burqa followed by a bloodied John, beating the living daylights out of that officer while stating that in this country (India) women are akin to goddesses (devi) and those who hurt them will be hurt. This monologue is followed by the actual song which is atrocious. It also serves as an inside look to the film and things just get worse from here. The track is sung by Wajid, who does a below average job as a vocalist. And though the poetry is modified, it is still pretty offensive and doesn’t help the song in any way. In the same video, we learn that Abraham’s character is essaying a Shia man and after a Shia procession, he kills a man. The sequence has landed the film in legal trouble with a complaint filed for showing what has allegedly hurt the sentiments of the Shia community. According to reports, General Secretary of the BJP Minority Front, Syed Ali Jafri, alleged that the sequence portrays the religious procession of Muharram in a bad light. “There is one shot in the trailer which shows a procession of Muharram and it depicts a scene of matam. The actor is later shown killing someone post matam. This has hurt our sentiments,” Jafri was quoted as saying. Jafri has asked the local branch of Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to transfer the complaint to their head office in Mumbai and wants the scene removed and has threatened to stage protests and not allow the film to release on August 15 if their demands are not met. Bottom line: this sacred song used in this manner should never have happened. As for the film, it comes out on 15 August and looks like a patriotic Hindi film, fueled with violence. Go figure.
