Gangs of Wasseypur poster
Gangs of Wasseypur poster

I’m sure you must’ve heard all about the accolades this Anurag Kashyap-film raked in at the Cannes Film Festival ‒ from international film critics. I’m yet to see it; from what I’ve read so far, it sounds like an epic, in the lines of Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America. All very well, but for now I’ve been totally sucked into Wasseypur by the soundtrack! It is just so bloody compelling.

Brilliantly experimental, wonderfully raw and so charmingly folksy. Esp. the song Womaniya. I’ve been listening to it non-stop since last week. Everything about it is just so sublime… The musical arrangements… the vocals… the ambience it invokes… and the lyrics! Think a gaggle of women are having a sing-song at a mehendi/sangeet, where they’re advising the bride to not be a submissive wife, to stand up for herself and not let the husband walk all over her. Womaniya is simply a variation of the English word “woman”: there’s no such word in Bihari, but in that dialect they tend to suffix words with a “-iya”, hence “woman” became a “womaniya”. There’s a live version of the song too, even more raw and folksy ‒ and equally, if not more, enthralling. Hooked, already?

Then there’s the ever so delightful Hunter, sang in Hinglish. I love it too, slightly less than Womaniya.