Aage ki soch!

Jasmine Singh

Everything changed….A thought, a soch had changed the life of many- Of the video directors, of the singer, of the lyricist, of the music composer and of the entire Punjabi music industry. Punjabi singer Hardy Sandhu’s track Soch became a rage when it hit the market in 2014, it made the lyricist of the track Jaani from Gidderbaha, Bathinda an overnight sensation. And today, the Hindi adaptation of the song, Soch Na Sake in Akshay Kumar starrer Hindi film Airlift has again touched more than 4 million views on the youtube. It is yet again a changing moment for the entire original team, but not really… “ Of course, we had given the rights of the song to them, and I had also told them that they could rehash the lyrics of Soch (Punjabi) accordingly, we would have been much happier if they had informed us before releasing the track. Just a friendly gesture,” adds Jaani the lyricist of the song who has already given the rights of his yet another popular song Jaguar to an upcoming Hindi film. 

The new Soch in Hindi, Soch na sake however is also getting a mixed response in Punjab, with people calling the original better than the Hindi version. “Originals are always good, but if they have done the best they could giving the rightful Hindi twist,” Jaani shares. The original track of Soch was composed by B Praak who seems to be slightly miffed. “I was shocked, I really had no idea that a Hindi version of our song was coming. We had worked really hard on the song, so it feels bad but we would like to ignore such things and move ahead. The rights of the song lie with T-Series, so they can use the song as they wish to. But I think, if the makers had used our version, wo isse zyada chalna tha.”

The trend of selling the rights of Punjabi music to Hindi films is not new. It is only catching up, but then it looks like the singers and makers of the Punjabi songs need to learn to deal with their thoughts!