What on earth do the words ‘Baliye’, ‘Mahiye’, ‘Shava’ and ‘Soniye’ mean?? I know everybody does go ‘Shava Shava’ every now and then but why?? I believe Karan Johar is single-handedly responsible for this. Apart from making his heroes dress up like mithais and discovering that the word disco has many rhyming equivalents in Hindi, he has contributed to the arrival of new minced version of Punjabi as our lingo.

And this is not Punjabi, as we know him. The Punjabi stereotype was of someone who lived life fully and made sure that we were all within earshot. The rest of India knew very little Punjabi except for the odd mention of ‘Puttar’ and ‘Balle-Balle’. Hindi film songs while drawing heavily from Urdu, didn’t considered Punjabi to be poetic enough.

But Punjabi today is revealing a new side; somewhat like a well shaven Karan Johar. It is coating its exterior with a sheen that comes with rigorous exfoliation.

Perhaps the Punjabi spirit captures who we want to be right now. Part of the reason why this is happening can be attributed to the Hindi film industry.

The lyrics of Hindi films are powerful source of reading change in India. There was a time when we didn’t understand words of songs because it belonged to the drenched-in-pain and self-pity world of Urdu poetry. After decades of rhyming izhaar with ikraar and wafa with jafa, whatever that means, we have discovered a new source of ignorance in Punjabi.
So we might as well go Shava Shava one more time. Who cares what it means, as long as I can dance to it.