The sense of an ending: Twin breakup songs that give more weight to pride than scorn or self-pity-Opinion News , Firstpost

“I loved her so I let her go” is an overtly romanticised notion attached to a breakup. It sounds more like a conclusion reached after days of introspection and therapy. Or like a self-defense mechanism to make sense of an ending.

But is the experience of a breakup ever divorced with the surge in feelings that love is supposed to trump? Often, there’s hatred or discord and self-pity or insecurity. But sometimes, there’s also pride.

When pride bubbles the most in the cauldron that’s a breakup, the residue is a lasting feeling that’s somewhere between hatred and self-pity. The heat that emanates from a breakup is mostly directed towards either the other or the self. But when there’s an element of pride, there’s no wishing ill on anyone, including oneself.

However, the pride can’t instantly evolve into divine ideas of attaining liberation in surrender. It is laced with the same messiness that once made love all flesh and blood; it exhibits tinges of both hatred and self-pity, but more in the capacity of self-preservation than some cockeyed attribution of blame.

Mehdi Hassan’s ghazal ‘Mujhe Tum Nazar Se‘ is the most accurate capsule of pride in severance, and it’s also the germ of my thoughts on the matter. First used in the 1967 Pakistani film Doraha, the song was composed by Sohail Raina and written by Masroor Anwar.

When the music and lyrics meet, it makes for a combustible reaction. While the tune, especially the piano interludes, are decidedly upbeat, the lyrics have a hint of melancholy. But it’s the vocalist Hassan who serves as the peacemaker. He makes the song a celebration of the melancholy that comes with departed love. But the assurance in his voice never allows it to stoop to wallowing in one’s misery.

In the visuals of Doraha, actor Masroor Anwar, playing the piano, starts with his chin down: “Mujhe tum nazar se gira toh rahe ho,” then holds his head up high and continues, “Mujhe tum kabhi bhi bhula na sakoge.” There’s no ‘magar‘ or ‘but’ in the song: the ability to walk away and the inability to move on are not in conflict here. They’re in a symbiotic equation, in a vicious cycle.

Throughout the song, Anwar bobs his head in a knowing manner, like actors of that era used to (think Dev Anand). While he can’t see his love across the ornamental divider, he can sense her writhing in pain — pain that has shot up with the realisation that he’s acutely aware of her state. There’s a confession of one’s own pain too — “Tadapta mujhe har taraf paoge” — but the alliteration, coupled with a sharp camera shot that zooms into his weary face, again makes the line more of a friendly warning, than a spiteful remark or sadistic self-victimisation.

The song has snowballed into a cultural phenomenon. It’s been invoked at interesting junctures of subcontinental pop culture. The most filmy instance is Rekha crooning the melody in a 1986 BBC interview. During the interview, she discussed her popular rumoured affair and subsequent parting with former co-star Amitabh Bachchan, and ended the conversation with singing ‘Mujhe Tum Nazar Se.’

Eighteen years later, Rekha appeared on the chat show Rendezvous with Simi Garewal, and claimed, “If something has the ability that can move you other than self-pity, you should be grateful.” She said she never felt betrayed by Bachchan because she could always exercise ownership over him in her head, in her fantasies. She also added that she learnt how to internalise pain through her association with him.

“I’ve yet to come across a man, woman, child who can’t help but fall completely, passionately, insanely, desperately, specially hopelessly, in love with him,” Rekha said. She clarified there was never a “personal connection” with him. “You don’t have to be associated with that person personally. You don’t even have to talk to that person for you to have a major influence on your life. I’m so lucky that it’s all in my head. Then you can go crazy with your fantasies. I’m just lucky to be one of the lesser mortals to just have a whiff of him. Maybe it’s all in my imagination. But that can last me a lifetime.”

She ends the chat with another song, ‘Ye Kahan Aa Gaye Hum’ from Yash Chopra’s Silsila (1981), her final film with Bachchan. It’s poetically titled so because Rekha’s love for Bachchan has been exactly that — an enduring, endless phenomenon. It’s a fascinating choice to believe there was no breakup in the first place because the power to exercise love lies with oneself, and not with the other.

Some may call it an idea as romanticised as “letting go, out of love,” but these are just stories one tells oneself. What matters is that the overriding emotion here is that of pride, and pride not at the cost of damning the other person. In fact, by putting the other on a lofty pedestal, one is indirectly claiming that one’s attained the higher wisdom: Out of sight isn’t always out of mind.

A recent song that comes closest to this headspace is ‘Channa Mereya‘ from Karan Johar’s 2015 directorial Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. While the film goes through the entire gamut of churnings in unrequited love — of pain, power, and acceptance — it’s the song composed by Pritam, sung by Arijit Singh, and written by Irshad Kamil — that exudes pride at the altar of unrequited love.

Ranbir Kapoor’s solemn eyes make it an anthem of coping with pride in a breakup. The evolved awareness, that his love will live on in remote but accessible corners of her heart, helps him move on from the heartbreak. Self-pity or hatred don’t have a space in his head and heart, at least at that point of time. Later in the film, he veers towards both ends, which only adds a fresh layer of vulnerability to his personality. But in that moment, he’s walking on the tightrope that’s pride.

A similar Bachchan-Rekha episode happened here too, when in 2018, Kapoor’s ex Deepika Padukone appeared alongside his now-wife Alia Bhatt on Season 6 premiere of Koffee with Karan. When Johar asked Padukone to sing ‘Channa Mereya,’ she initially hesitated, but then sang the song, joined by Bhatt. While she finished the song after maintaining a straight face throughout, what followed really captured its essence. “I think you guys looked even more beautiful than how Ranbir did in the song,” Johar said, to which Padukone responded by shaking her finger: “Can’t.”

This fleeting display of fondness can be in appreciation of his craft or an expression of the love that was. Love from a former partner that’s not as scornful as Kanye West’s ‘Heartless‘ or as superficially celebratory as ‘The Breakup Song.‘ It’s also not a plea for self-pity like Ali Sethi’s ‘Ranjish Hi Sahi’ or even Miley Cyrus’ ‘Wrecking Ball.’ It doesn’t aim to settle scores like Gajendra Varma’s ‘Tera Ghata,’ nor is as overtly philosophical as Abida Parveen’s ‘Woh Humsafar Tha.’

It’s in fact in the same vein as Rekha and Bachchan greeting each other with a profound ‘namaste’ at an award function, and as a resolute Mehdi Hassan preserving his love and pride with, “Meri yaad hogi jahan jaoge tum, kabhi ban k nagma, kabhi ban k aansu.”

Listen to a rendition of ‘Mujhe Tum Nazar Se’ by Saadat Khan ( @saadat_47 ) here:

PS: Use headphones.