We were just starting to miss John Abraham’s phenomenal presence on screen. With that body of his, he has taken up an entirely new avatar for the upcoming Satyameva Jayate. As the title speaks for itself, the hero is a messiah of some sort, to rescue the city of Mumbai from corruption and rising criminality. Whether his vengeful killing spree is heroic or utterly stupid, only time can tell. What we can tell now however, is that the track listing of the movie is going to be quite interesting.
The recently released Tajdar-E-Haram is from the movie Satyameva Jayate. Looks like qawwalis are making a vivid comeback. The original song had been sung way back in 1975 by the Sabri brothers. The song reeks of revenge and righteousness. The name when literally translated means “King of the holy place” and is in perfect sync with the role of messiah that John is portraying in the film. The song can be categorized as a “naat”, i.e. song sung in praise of the almighty Prophet.
In this music video, alongside John we see Manoj Bajpai as an inspector hellbent on catching this person who has decided to take the law in his own hands. We see John in a bloody apparel, rescuing innocents, fighting to cleanse the society of corruption that has also seeped to the justice keepers and the law of the country against all odds. We also see him observing the occasion of Muharram in the song, severely beating himself up as he clearly emerges as a vigilante restoring justice. The song is sung by Wajid while the famous duo Sajid-Wajid composed it. The lyrics are in Urdu and have been originally written by Danish Sabri.
A lot of people have dismissed the recreation of the tranquil qawwali as utterly noisy and completely unnecessary. Atif Aslam’s cover a couple of years back was good enough to bring back the nostalgia to a great extent. The original was a mellow plea seeking the mercy of god, the latest one is overpowered by loud vocals and instruments and extremely violent/graphic images on screen. In other words, the effect of the song can be jarring especially because Wajid’s voice fails to cut through and rise above the confusing instruments. Directed by Milap Zaveri, it is rightly set to be released on August 15th.
