Wayward Birds: Desire and Expression in Imtiaz Ali’s Rockstar
- Aditi Ponnammal
Abstract
How do we understand desire as something interwoven in the very landscape of Indian civilisation and culture—and not, as many believe, a Western ideal or “foreign conspiracy” (Menon 9) imported to it in the modern era? Scholars like Madhavi Menon and Rohit Dasgupta have written extensively on India’s long history with desire—the ‘third nature’ of men described in the Kamasutra, cross-dressing lovers and sex-changing deities, same-sex friendship and attachment as a stand-in for desire, a vast corpus of homoerotic poetry. Yet there is an increasingly puritanical narrative being woven around desire today, which is growing to become synonymous with Indian culture; as Dasgupta writes, “The anti-sex views and anxiety over non-normative sexualities espoused through colonial Puritanism had a major influence in the development of the Indian national identity” (Dasgupta 663). In this highly regulated space, how do we understand and give expression to our collective modes of desire? If there exist infinite desires in our history, there must also exist infinite ways of giving voice to them—one of which, paradoxically, might be expression through non-expression.
This essay aims to examine desire—here, romantic and sexual desire—through an analysis of Imtiaz Ali’s film Rockstar (2011) and its songs, written by Irshad Kamil and composed by A.R. Rahman. Rockstar is particularly interesting because it is equally a love story, and the coming-of-age of an artist; the film songs are therefore worthy of analysis both as vehicles of desire in the film, and as meta commentary on the nature of desire itself. I argue that desire is fundamentally multifaceted, that it defies all attempts of classification, and has an inherent ambiguity that lends itself to the plurality of our culture, for it allows various modes to coexist with one another in dynamic ways. Further, cinema occupies a unique position in South Asia as something that both reflects and regulates desire. How does cinema take up the Herculean task of introducing people to a grammar of love? How does the Hindi film song attempt to capture affect while also rejecting such attempts altogether? How do we navigate desire that is constantly under regulation? In this essay, I aim to explore these questions further, through textual, lyrical and cinematic analysis, in order to arrive at a better understanding of the capaciousness of desire in Indian civilization.
“I might be fumbling to catch an image—that fumbling itself becomes the expression.” ¹
Expressions, like emotion, are a tricky thing to pin down. One is constantly aware of the difficulty in identifying feelings, but there is also a certain difficulty in articulating them once felt. Expression then becomes a perpetual endeavour—an “ongoing event of translation” (Kothari 141). Whether to do it in the first place—for there is always the fear that language is inadequate to ‘capture’ feeling—, how to do it, and whether one can avoid it even in the act of circumvention, are all questions we must ask.
Rita Kothari, in her essay “Saying It, Not Saying It: The Hindi Film Song”, argues that Hindi songs often rely on symbolism, or “obliqueness as a refuge” (Kothari 128). Stock words like dil (heart) or aankhein (eyes) encompass far more meaning than just ‘heart’ or ‘eyes’, and become a way of expressing emotion through proxy or surrogate language—of saying it by not saying it. We, who are initiated into this “linguistic universe” (Kothari 122) and are familiar with its codes, are then able to appreciate the complexity of emotion thus portrayed.
Perhaps few films illustrate this idea better than Imtiaz Ali’s Rockstar (2011). The film follows the protagonist Janardhan “JJ” Jakhar—Jordan, as he is later called—on his journey of becoming a musician and his tumultuous love affair with Heer. Jordan is told by his mentor Khatana that as long as he never knows pain, he cannot be a true artist. He sets out to get his heart broken by Heer; though he is unsuccessful, as the two become friends, ultimately they do fall in love. But things do end in heartbreak for Jordan; Heer marries someone else and moves to Prague, and Jordan signs with a record label and travels to meet her. He and Heer briefly share a tumultuous affair, which she ends out of loyalty to her husband. Jordan becomes a hugely popular and successful musician, but also grows increasingly lonely, bitter, and violent. Eventually, the two reconnect when Heer is diagnosed with bone marrow aplasia, a terminal illness, and though they try to spend the rest of her life together, she eventually falls into a coma and later dies offscreen, leaving Jordan grief-stricken.
Narratively, this plot is interesting because it deals with several cliches: the tortured artist who is only as good as his pain, the doomed romance where the lovers are only united in death, further highlighted by the female protagonist named after the tragic heroine from the story of Heer and Ranjha. Rockstar subverts these familiar narratives—for instance, it is notable that only one of the lovers dies in the film—and sometimes suggests that characters, by playing into cliche, might seal their fate into inevitability. It is cruelly ironic that Jordan, in the end, gets exactly what he wanted—stardom born out of pain and suffering—but is eaten up by regret, longing, and emptiness. However, the image of the artist gives us another lens through which to examine the film: music. The title ‘Rockstar’ points to a certain widespread success and a larger-than-life figure in the public imagination, but throughout the film we see that the fans often know nothing about Jordan himself. The film songs, which are penned by Jordan in the movie and also act as its soundtrack, are therefore his mode of expression, but also provide us, the audience, with a cross-section of the artist himself.
The first song of the film, a montage of Jordan singing to people, is titled Jo Bhi Main, which is both about finding yourself and desiring another person. Its refrain goes, “Jo bhi main kehna chahoon / barbaad kare alfaaz mere” — Whatever I want to say, my words ruin. In placing this song at the very beginning, a tone is established for the rest of the film—this is the story of a musician, someone whose trade is to express emotions through lyric and song, yet he is still unable to do so. Rockstar is laden with songs written by Jordan; the film song therefore becomes a medium for the affective state of the hero. Simultaneously, however, it acknowledges the inadequacy of language in conveying this state. As Gulzar once said in an interview regarding the film song, it must create not exact descriptions but an “experience of feeling” (Gulzar 61). When one fumbles for expression, it is in the negative spaces of the film song that meaning resides.
Yet Rockstar does not always relegate itself to the realm of the unsaid; in fact, it often draws attention to the need for explicature. In one particularly interesting scene, Jordan approaches Heer as she gets dressed for her wedding to another man—at this point, they are friends and nothing more. She warns him, “Don’t ask me anything, or else I’ll tell the truth.” The idea that putting things into words might cause the truth to slip out, and therefore one must avoid speaking altogether, lends a compelling tension to the scene. Later, when Jordan visits Heer in Prague, he tells her, abruptly, “I think we should kiss now.” He says it is the “logical” next step, even though they have never discussed romance or love before, and she says, “It’s good that we’re talking about it. […] Let’s have a detailed discussion” (Rockstar 01:17:02-16). The words are half in jest, but what is interesting to note is that no such discussion follows. They never acknowledge their love for each other; it exists between them, conveyed only through glances, touch, and action. The work of falling in love, the discussion of it, is entirely implicit; and when desire is verbalised, it is done so matter-of-factly.
This emphasis on suggestion rather than explicature of desire becomes especially important when it comes to expressing desire in the Indian context. In India, desire, historically, is everywhere; as Madhavi Menon writes, “both the restrictions and the permissions seem to be more intense here. […] The history of desire in India reveals not purity but impurity as a way of life” (Menon 10). In a culture that is obsessed with purity, articulations of sexual desire become increasingly veiled. The song Katiya Karun, which plays when Jordan and Heer sneak out right before her wedding for a drive, is a fascinating example of this. Its chorus goes, “Saari raati katiya karun” — All night I’ll spin your cotton. The implication of sex in the lyrics is apparent; yet it remains just ambiguous enough for the song to also be read without this connotation. The song approaches sex playfully, almost winking at its audience; in a way, it is a euphemism that everyone is meant to understand. It is also frank and unabashed in its portrayal of desire, despite its obliqueness. The female narrator furthers the euphemism by describing her body as a charkha, and then says, “Hadd karoon, hadd karoon … /Yaara bulle lutiya karun” — I’ll cross all limits / Beloved, I’m enjoying myself like this. The song’s distinct folk flavour, and the fact that it is based on an old Punjabi song², reinforces Menon’s (2018) point that desire is not new to the Indian subcontinent.
“Main galat hoon toh phir kaun sahi?”³
India’s long history with desire, and changing relationship with it, suggests another fact: desire exists in, and is therefore regulated by, the realm of the social. Kothari argues that it is living through both desire and regulation that makes us resort to surrogate language (Kothari 123). We are taught to deal with desire—of all kinds, not merely romantic or sexual—in certain ways, under constant surveillance of society. This finds expression in Rockstar as well; the song right before Heer and Jordan begin their affair, Haawa Haawa, is about a queen who disobeys her king to go dance in the Underworld every night. The song expresses the queen’s desire for freedom, as in the lines “Sone ki deewarein mujhe khushi na yeh de paayein / Ae, aazadi dede mujhe” — These walls of gold cannot give me happiness / Oh, give me my freedom — and her spirit, as untameable as the wind, as in “Haawa haawa / paanv ruke na kisi ke roke / yeh toh chalenge, nach lenge” — Like the wind / nobody can stop her feet / they will keep moving, keep dancing. This clearly parallels Heer’s real-life situation: desiring something she shouldn’t, engaging in small rebellions like drinking, watching pornographic films, going to clubs and strip shows in red-light districts—all of which are considered ‘cheap’ and taboo for all women, in an attempt to sanitise female sexuality, but especially for young women from so-called ‘respectable’ families like her.
How do we navigate desire we are told is socially unacceptable? In Rockstar, Heer and Jordan’s relationship is initially illicit because of their different class backgrounds and Jordan’s apparently evident unsuitability for a girl like her, and later because of Heer’s marriage. The class difference is present in several small yet significant details; for instance, Jordan, who studies at Hindu College, is the subject of jeers for trying to pursue a girl from St. Stephens, which is considered more prestigious and refined (as well as more expensive) although both institutions are neighbouring Delhi University colleges. Jordan is the picture of a typical ‘middle-class’ Indian boy, from a large Jat family who own a transport business. He is gawky, naive, and wearing clothes that are described in one scene as “Jamna-paar”, or “from across the Yamuna”, which is shorthand for the ‘wrong’ side of the city, considered poor, working-class, and sketchy.While Heer’s relative wealthiness, on the other hand, is visible through her language, which is peppered with English phrases (most notably when she tells Jordan to “bugger off”) as well as through the car and driver who chauffeur her to and from college, the extravagance of her wedding, and her image, which, in Jordan’s own words, is “neat and clean” — refined, sophisticated, from a ‘good’ family.
Consequently, Heer’s desire is not only for Jordan but also for a ‘lowbrow’ culture that she was hitherto sheltered from, and, by extension, the sense of freedom and autonomy that she gains through accessing it. When she has no control over her life, she exercises agency through small acts of rebellion, but the naive delight this brings her is less about sexual engagement and more about the act of rebelling itself. Desire, then, is often not about the object of desire so much as the freedom to desire—something that is restricted to various degrees for various people. Ultimately, desire turns out to be the one thing truly out of Heer’s control, the “predicament that eludes individual agency and decision” (Kothari 121). When Heer confesses her infidelity to her husband, she speaks in a language that emphasises a lack of control: “I knew all along that I was doing something wrong… But I don’t know what came over me.” Kothari argues that this “non-volitional nature of love” (129) is expressed through poetic traditions that separate the ‘I’ from the dil (heart), almost outsourcing desire to absolve oneself.
Yet in Rockstar, this is not always the case. We see in two of its strongest love songs, Tum Ho and Tum Ko, sentiments like “Tum ko paa hi liya yun” — I’ve finally attained you — or “Khud ko main haar gaya tumko / Tumko main jeeta hoon” — I’ve lost myself to you / But I’ve won you” which imply a strong, active self. This purposefulness complicates our view of desire, but also our idea of the transgressive—here are two lovers who consciously go against everything society tells them because somehow their love must be worth something. Despite all their misgivings and misunderstandings, there is a sense that their restlessness, the nameless feeling that eats them up from the inside, as Jordan describes it, is only assuaged when they are together. For Heer, it is a physical effect; her illness symptoms miraculously seem to reduce when she is with Jordan. For Jordan, despite his fame, wealth and acclaim, Heer is the one thing that brings meaning and peace to his life; as he says, “Main sirf tere saath hi set hoon, yaar, itti si baat hai.” — “I’m only set when I’m with you, that’s all it is.” It is worth noting that both these two songs mentioned above play at the end of the movie, when it is implied that Jordan only ‘attains’ Heer after her death. As Menon points out, India has a historical fascination with forbidden romances where the lovers are torn apart by a cruel society and united only in death, when they are buried together to symbolise their love—Laila-Majnu, Heer-Ranjha, Mirza-Sahiban, Sohni-Mahiwal (29)—yet Rockstar subverts this by forcing Jordan to live on without Heer.
As long as we have talked about desire, we have been interested in desire that defies social mores, desire that is “set in opposition to regulating entities such as duniya or log” (Kothari 130). Narratives of transgressive desire, and our continual engagement with such ideas in the everyday milieu, is our way of navigating desire in an environment where regulations abound. Even normative and “appropriate” relations are not exempt from this; as Menon points out, “sexual repression in India has historically been foisted on hetero- rather than homo-sexuality” (10). Perhaps all desire has an element of the transgressive to it; close examinations help us see the “cracks” in which desire exists (Menon 40). Saadda Haq, an angry youth anthem, seems at first to have little to do with desire, yet it chafes against regulation and embodies many of the themes of the film; for instance, in the plaintive cry of “Mann bole mann se jeena ya marr jaana hai” — my heart says to live how I want to or die. Jordan is known as a ‘wild’ rockstar who frequently clashes with the media, police, and his record label, and is popular only in spite of his negative public image, not because of it; throughout the film, the haq he so passionately demands and claims in the same breath is the right to live as one wishes—the same desire for freedom, desire for desire, that is paralleled in Heer.
Most poignant of all, however, is a well-known Rumi quote 4 that appears at the end of the film: “Away / beyond all concepts of wrong-doing and right-doing / there is a field / I’ll meet you there.” It is significant that Jordan and Heer verbalise their love for the first time in a meadow far from the city; their desire, then, can only exist in pockets of space where right and wrong cease to have meaning. Towards the end of the movie, before Heer’s death, as they lie entwined under sheets, they create a world that is theirs alone, with “no society, no rules” (Rockstar 02:27:46-50); perhaps this is their way of finding cracks of desire in the shadows of regulation where love can exist.
“Bandishein na rahi koi baaki.” 5
Inherent to desire is a certain ambiguity. In Menon’s chapter on ‘Dargahs’, she writes, “Instead of a consolidation of desire, we get the annihilation that desire compels; instead of an identity, we get profusion; instead of stasis, we get ecstasy” (Menon 22). ‘Dargahs’ introduces the idea that romantic and spiritual love have been historically intertwined in India, something that Kothari (2022) corroborates. This is echoed in Rockstar; the widely-loved Kun Faya Kun speaks of finding solace with Hazrat Nizamuddin Awliya, of giving oneself up to him. The song first appears when Jordan is at his lowest, thrown out by his family and lacking direction, and singing at the dargah brings him peace, if only momentarily. However, its melody reappears in a later scene, when Jordan and Heer are finally reunited. “There is something else that’s bringing you and me together,” Jordan insists (Rockstar 2:04:58-05:05). “We couldn’t stay apart, could we?” This recasting of the song in a light that is explicitly romantic, and frames their love as something fated, guided by a force greater than themselves, further blurs the line between the romantic and the devotional.
Another symbol of ambiguity in the film is the idea of touch. When Jordan and Heer begin seeing each other, they only ever hug or touch each other in intimate, but non-sexual ways. Yet there is a definite sensual dimension; the fact that Jordan waits behind the house to hug Heer indicates that the physical intimate act is something to be hidden. As Kothari says about the eyes, perhaps the hug, too, “[inheres] possibilities of the sexual […] appearing innocuous but also suggestive” (Kothari 139). The song in this scene, Aur Ho, is burning, passionate, desirous: “Main hasrat mein ek uljhi dor hua / suljha de” — I’m knotted up in longing / Release me. Ambiguity—in relations, acts, meaning—thus lends a compelling depth to our idea of desire; what we see is one thing, what is implied is another. Which is true? Perhaps both.
“Woh hi hota hai agla step. Tu koi bhi picture utha ke dekh le.” 6
Cinema—and by extension the film song—often performs one of the foundational civilisational tasks of teaching people how to live. In a society where love and marriage are so heavily codified, it embeds in us a grammar of love. Songs are “unacknowledged sources of self-help” (Kothari 121), providing solace that we are not alone, and helping us hide from the collective in the singularity of our experience. They create their own language to teach us a “mode of being in this world” (Kothari 122).
Rockstar’s intertextuality demonstrates this. Every song has something to say about desire, love, life, effectively capturing the themes of the film; but in the universe of the film itself, the songs are written by Jordan to voice his own pain, and sung along by thousands who connect with them. Jordan’s own ideas of love are influenced by cinema. When he tries to charm Heer, he pursues her doggedly, almost as a caricature of a stereotypical lovelorn hero. When he tells her that they should finally kiss, his reason, as seen in the titular line of this section, is, “That’s always the next step. Just take any movie and see.” (Rockstar 01:16:47-54). The significance of the film song, of the meta visual reference to cinema as an institution, in this film is in itself a testament to the impact they have on our lives and on civilisation-building.
“Main un parindon ko dhoond raha hoon.” 7
In this essay I have endeavoured to explore ideas of desire in India through the lens of Rockstar and its film songs. Desire, I argue, is something that lurks in the unsaid and the suggested, but can also be made explicit; it is situated firmly in the social and constantly in conflict with it; it is ambiguous and multifaceted. Perhaps the only thing we can definitively say about desire is that it escapes definition. Desire, in Rockstar, is anything but straightforward; the two lovers hurt each other, don’t always say what they mean, and follow a messy trajectory that does not end in a conventional happy ending. Yet their desire is both undeniable, and undeniably complex; they yearn as much for other things—freedom, autonomy, meaning, peace, success—as they do for each other, but all these desires are inextricably bound up together. As Menon writes, “Desire travels: it cannot be contained within strict boundaries. Desire is multiple: it resists being pigeonholed into this or that thing” (Menon 17). Kothari reminds us of this when she ends her essay with a song: “Haath se chhu ke ise rishto ka ilzaam na do / Pyaar ko pyaar hi rehne do, koi naam na do” — Don’t touch it and accuse it of being a relationship / let love remain love, don’t give it a name (Kothari 142). Cinema shapes desire; it teaches us how to love, but it also shows us that there are innumerable ways of loving, and all of them have the potential to unfold either on the silver screen or in real life.
Rockstar, too, reminds us that sometimes it is better to let things exist without forcing them into neatness. In an impassioned monologue in Saadda Haq, Jordan tells his audience that long ago the city used to be a dense jungle—until everything started happening by order, tareeka. That day a flock of birds flew away, never to return. “I’m looking for those birds,” he cries. “Has anyone seen them?”
The birds that Jordan is looking for, rather than symbolising any one thing, perhaps point to a larger, existential question: is there a way of living that is not limited by preexisting frameworks that are imposed upon it? Every aspect of existence in India is heavily codified, and desire perhaps most of all; one is reminded of Arundhati Roy’s “Love Laws” (33) from The God of Small Things that dictate who gets to be loved, and how, and how much. In Rockstar, Jordan and Heer attempt to make sense of their many desires, grappling most of all for the freedom to desire, and to live as they wish; for a life that inheres the potential to unfold in infinite directions. In endeavouring to understand this rich plenitude of desires, perhaps we must also ask ourselves: what have we lost—or sacrificed—in the name of order, regulation, classification? Where have those birds of infinite possibility gone—and what would the world sound like if they were to return?
Endnotes
1. Gulzar, in an interview with Nasreen Munni Kabir (2018), as quoted in “Saying It, Not Saying It: The ‘Hindi’ Film Song” (Kothari 141).
2. Katiya Karun is an adaptation of Katain Karoon Teri Roon, sung by Punjabi singer Shamshad Begum and composed by Hansraj Behl, in Pind Di Kudi (1963), directed by Baldev R Jhingan.
3. Lyric from Saadda Haq (AR Rahman and Irshad Kamil), Rockstar (2011).
4. The more common version of the poem is “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing /
There is a field. I’ll meet you there.” as translated by Coleman Barks and John Foyne in The
Essential Rumi, 1995.
5. Lyric from Tum Ko (AR Rahman and Irshad Kamil), Rockstar (2011).
6. Dialogue from Rockstar (2011).
7. Dialogue from Rockstar (2011).
Dasgupta, Rohit K. “Queer Sexuality: A Cultural Narrative of India’s Historical Archive.” Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, vol. 3, no. 4, 2011, pp. 651-670.
Kothari, Rita. “Saying It, Not Saying It: The ‘Hindi’ Film Song.” Uneasy Translations, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022, pp. 120-42.
Menon, Madhavi. Infinite Variety: A History of Desire in India. New Delhi, Speaking Tiger, 2018.
Rockstar. Directed by Imtiaz Ali, Eros International, 2011.
Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. Penguin Random House, 1997.
Rumi. “Out Beyond Ideas of Wrongdoing and Rightdoing.” The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks and John Foyne, Harper Collins, 1995.
- Aditi Ponnammal
Aditi Ponnammal (she/her) is a first-year student of English and Creative Writing at Ashoka University. An occasional writer and a full-time AR Rahman enjoyer, she likes thinking about literature, film, music, and their relationship with complex questions of human existence.
