Analysis of 'Dhan De Nan'

IT’S a song that captures the current Indian spirit wonderfully. The gung ho, the gassiness, the gumption, the gauche glibness. Dhen te Nan, a bouncy song in Vishal Bhardwaj’s Kaminey, is India, a brash celebration of Indian brio. Dhen te Nan is Main Street and its many rambunctious happenings. Dhen te Nan is Country Street with its seething ardour. It’s Bharat with bombast, it’s Bhart’s bravura performance. Koi good luck nikale, aaj gullak toh phode are words that resonate in the subconscious of the small town. In that line is a sizzling mixture of to-do (koi good luck to nikale) and can-do (aaj gullak to phode). More than a decade and a half into liberalisation, Dhen te Nan is a cocksure cornucopia of Indian capers. In its raucous abandon, the songs brings the bubbling wishes of Bharat to the fore. Bang it pitches them into the heart of India. Small-town aspirations, the dreams of those living on dusty roads of Indian countryside.
As villages integrate into towns and towns into cities, bringing in its wake a thousand existential questions, Dhen te Nan can act as the unifier that unhyphenates that rash relationship. Critics may carp it’s a plebeian song cocking a snook at Indian musical ethos, but Dhen te Nan encapsulates the changing mood of India and, of course, the primacy of the pleb. It’s a rallying cry for equality; it’s a motto for seamless mixing of the possessed and the dispossessed. Dhen te Nan is resilient India, confident India, inclusive India. Dhen te Nan is the voice of empowered India. It has the chutzpah to bring a cheer to even the bored in Bharat. It has the gall to take all of us gallivanting on the road to global nirvana. Like Lula’s gift of a Brazilian football team jersey to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Dhen te Nan should be the Indian gift to the world buffeted by slowdown. With Dhen te Nan and its effervescent energy, the world might get some of its bounce back.