Ganesh Chaturthi is mostly a Maharashtrian festival. It was made popular by freedom fighter and social reformer, Lokmanya Tilak to unite commoners against the British oppressors. But over the last few decades, the festival has slowly become popular in other parts of India as well. The credit for this also goes to Hindi cinema.
Songs about Ganesha festival started finding a place in Hindi films, mostly from the 80s era. Few prominent ones include, ‘Deva Ho Deva’ (Humse Badhkar Kaun, 1981), ‘Ganpati Bappa Morya’ (Agneepath, 1990), ‘Laut Ke Tujhko Aana Hai’ (Don, 2006) and ‘Deva Shree Ganesha (Agneepath, 2012).
Some of these Ganesha tracks have also played a role in taking the story forward. The same was the case with the Ganesh visarjan (immersion of the idol) song in Takkar (1980). But the creativity (read: over-creativity) shown by the lyricist and director in using visarjan as an important plot point forms a benchmark here for taking creative liberties.
Imagine this – Ranjeet, the villain, wants to transfer black money from one location to another. To make sure nobody doubts him, he makes use of Ganesha idol by storing black money inside it (in the big stomach) and pretends to be a part of the visarjan. But the two heroes, Jeetendra and Sanjeev Kumar, come to know about his plan. However, they make no efforts in foiling his plan, something the heroes of masala films always jumped at whenever they got a chance.
So, what they do? They expose the villain through song and dance. The song enlightens us on how people can shake a leg even when they are angry and tense. The lyrics go like - ‘Murti Ganesh Ki, Andar Daulat Desh Ki, Logo Dekho Dhyan Se, Poochho Is Beimaan se, Kya Chakkar Hai, Aaj Humari Takkar Hai.’ Right, informing the police would have been so boring.
Watch the song:
Interestingly, despite the heroes exposing the villain publicly, thousands of people gathered around don’t give a damn whatsoever. A large group of traditional dancers continue dancing. After all, the show much go on. But it doesn’t stop here. The lyricist, Anand Bakshi, gives the third stanza to Ranjeet to rubbish off the allegations. So much for the compulsion of songs in our films. By the way, the song is sung by Kishore Kumar and Mahendra Kapoor.
However, on a serious note, looking at the song, the first thought that comes to our mind is whether it would have been allowed today by Pahlaj Nihalani led Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), which has issues for every little thing even in 2016. But more then them, what would have been the reaction of these religious fanatic groups?
We shudder to think this considering how they were up in arms against PK (2014) and, to some extent, OMG Oh My God (2012).