The Lyrical Modernity

Locating the Strain of Romance and Longing in the Select Lyrics of Gulshan Bawra

Abstract

Romantic lyrics, usually seen as signifiers of a culture that express emotional temperaments of the narrative while resonating with the collective receptivity of the listeners across linguistic and regional rupture, hold a pivotal position in the history of Bollywood cinema. Far from being mere melodic interludes, such lyrics have periodically served as mediums for speaking the unspoken that includes desire, longing, intimacy, separation, and reconciliation. In this context, the present paper seeks to explore how Gulshan Kumar Mehta, popularly known as GulshanBawra, an eminent lyricist of Bollywood movies, crafts lyrics that cut across any imitative romantic pronouncement. Offering a poetic tapestry that is both enterprising and contemplative, Bawra’s lyrics present an interesting interplay between playful imagery, romantic desire, and structural intricacy. The paper attempts to situate Bawra’s works within the ambit of Bollywood film music as an integrated form of art that creates a space that not only foregrounds storytelling but also character formation and emotional mediation. Bawra’s lyrics, as the paper would like to show, metamorphose songs into stratified narratives that transcend their given contexts and become a crucial point to understand the aesthetics of Bollywood film music.