Pasoori, profits and a push for original art
The new Pasoori song is a Bollywood adaptation of an indie song and is being criticized for its lack of creativity and dilution of original art.
The new Pasoori song — just like other superhit Bollywood adaptations of indie songs of yore such as Bheegi Bheegi Yaadein or Aadat or even Jugni before it — is a masterpiece. Despite the raging debate around adaptation and remixing, I say this without batting an eyelid. But to appreciate it, one must be well-versed in almost everything in the arts and aesthetic discourse. The song can even become a case study to demonstrate the theories of many philosophers — from Plato to Zizek.

Let this introduction, however, not lull you into believing that the new Bollywood version of the Ali Sethi rendition for Coke Studio Pakistan is a good work of art. It is awful and I have, let’s say, very strong reservations about it. The new Pasoori song is twice corrupted. And that’s why it is important and insufferable at the same time.
It is a truth now universally acknowledged that Coke Studio Pakistan numbers are miles ahead of anything that gets produced in industrial music setups in India. Coke Studio in the Indian subcontinent is essentially the unfortunate child of indigenous musical traditions and new-age sounds, techniques, technology, and gimmicks. And if it works, it’s due to what Russian literary critic Viktor Shklovsky describes as defamiliarisation, the art of presenting familiar things to audiences in unfamiliar ways. Most remakes of films and music operate on the same principle.
But what are makers doing when they mutilate an already corrupted piece of art? They are simply minimising their risks. And this is where Pasoori (or Jugni or Aadat or Yaadein) symbolises something more insidious than an aesthetic earsore. When a creative work is commissioned, the commissioner essentially bets on the ability and reputation of the artiste. The misfortune of our age of mechanical reproduction of art is that these bets are made only in terms of monetary profit, and not legacy value. The twin side-effects of this investment in an already successful creative work is the dilution of the latter’s legacy and invisibilisation of other artistes’ potential. This is worse than even propagating mediocrity.
The case of Pasoori is not just about the loss of nuance and symbols of resistance that are strewn everywhere in the original version’s video. It is about the creative world’s connivance in keeping creativity shackled. When an Ali Sethi or a Shae Gill – the Coke Studio version’s creators – supports an Arijit Singh, it is the label, T Series in this case, that benefits, not any of the artistes in question. Yes, we need entertainment companies to make profits so they percolate to artistes so the latter can sustain their creativity. But is this the sustainability that artistes and their audiences deserve?
Adaptations, covers, inspirations and even plagiarism can further the cause of art. A shrewd and lazy attitude cannot. Incorporation of old indie favourites into films is nothing new but does our brave new world not demand more risks in creative fields rather than elsewhere? When industry leaders choose to be risk-averse, art suffers, and so do artistes and their audiences.
The worth of industry leaders’ investment in creativity ought not only to be economic, there needs to be at least a common minimum programme for what can loosely be defined as art for art’s sake. Autonomy of art, over the profit principle, is needed today more than ever before. Because we can afford it.
It is not constructive for outraged fans of the original versions to lambast it. To erase the memory of this pastiche, there needs to be a demand for more ingenious creative production. The supply chain can only be fixed after that. If the consumers do not make their demands, the suppliers shall superimpose what they can churn with the least effort and investment. What is true of the market is true of politics, and is truer of the arts.
Nishtha Gautam is an author, academic and journalist. She’s the co-editor of In Hard Times, a Bloomsbury book on national security. The views expressed are personal
