PUNJABI ANTENNA
Music in the air
Randeep Wadehra

Star show: Sardool Sikandar

The Punjabi television scene continues to be ruled by song and dance clips. And not all such shows are of professional quality.

Anybody who can afford to cut his or her disc is having a shot at it. Talent is no more the consideration. Bad lyrics coupled with loud music tend to jar one’s senses. Thus when one comes across quality performance, especially something new in music, there’s a sense of immense joy. According to the UK-based singer Sukhshinder Shinda (ETC Punjabi’s Dil Diyaan Gallaan), it is easy to ‘fuse’ techno with Punjabi folk if one is well versed with the basics of classical music. Well, he should know as he has done reggae, pop, techno and Punjabi folk along with – believe it or not – shabad kirtan. Shinda gives due importance to traditional Indian musical instruments like tumba, sitar etc in his compositions.

Talking of music, ETC and Alpha Punjabi telecast live the music awards show held at Jalandhar on March 6. There were awards for every possible category – choreography, sound recording, lyrics, shabad, best video, etc. Though an attempt was made to copy the Oscar/Grammy format, there were several glitches. The celebrities chosen to hand over the awards to winners preferred to give a speech on technical/ cultural/social aspects of the category for which the announcement was made. The anchors – Parmeet Sethi and Divya Dutta – had to repeat the line "And the winner is…" a couple of times before the speeches were cut short and the winners announced. And one thought that only politicians loved to give vent to hot air.

A galaxy of stars, including Pammi Bai, Sardool Sikandar and Amar Noorie, were present but award winners Hans Raj Hans and Abida Parveen were represented by their respective music companies.

One enjoyed the song and dance sequences that were presented during the award ceremony, especially Pammi Bai’s Rangla Punjab.