https://youtu.be/9M2Ei9DrOSg
*This 1980 classic is certainly one of the strangest Bollywood item numbers ever. It's so unorthodox and so interesting. One can't even call this composition a "song." It's a brilliant film medley cut with action sequences.
*It's a "qawwali" in its form (sort of kind of), but it's sung during a long Indian train journey, subcontinental treks which tend by their nature to be inherently numbing and endless, much like period 1980s masala films. All sorts of multiethnic Indian characters show up inside the overcrowded train car, Indians of all religions, regions and castes – including even a portly, tone-deaf Catholic bishop (and maybe, though it's hard to tell, a foreign tourist or two). Modern, traditionalist, male, female, young, old, they are all effective stand-ins for the vast Indian film-watching public of 1980. They're all grooving right along to their terrific song medley as their train is menaced by the high-speed villains.
*The villains possess their own jittery theme music, which exists in harsh 15 second snatches. But the villains won't last, because they're never going to defeat that majestic train. The villains are outside in their horrid little cars, but the huge train has all the best music. The principals start pitching in to the chorus theme in a majorly impressive fashion – the stars are charismatic, their costumes are awesome, they are sexy, irresistible – although they've got nothing to do with the professional, sequin-costumed qawalli band that begins the song inside the train car.
*Somehow the passengers all know the qawalli song, and clap along with infectious patriotic fervor, although it's a brand-new composition for a Bollywood movie. But how, why?
*Because the train IS the film, while the film is also India. Everybody belongs. The very act of watching the film in a theater and enjoying this item number is a secular act of national integration. Everybody has something to offer. Nobody is scorned or refused, except for the villains, who are alien and wrong. Everyone else is terrific, and the less likely they seem to contribute, the more awesome it is when the suddenly integrate themselves into the hectic, menaced, but also lovable and even exalted spiritual national life on that burning train.
