The film, and then the whole genre

Sharaabi came out in 1984, directed by Prakash Mehra, with Amitabh Bachchan playing a rich drunk and Bappi Lahiri writing the songs. At the Filmfare awards that year every single nomination for best male playback singer went to Kishore Kumar for this one film, and he won for Manzilein Apni Jagah Hain. Bappi Lahiri won best music director, the only time he ever did. Log Kehte Hain Main Sharabi Hoon, De De Pyaar De and Inteha Ho Gayi are the other three from the same soundtrack, and between them they defined how a drunk sounds in Hindi cinema for the next thirty years.

The soundtrack works because the songs disagree with each other. Inteha Ho Gayi is comic. De De Pyaar De is flirtatious and belligerent. Log Kehte Hain is a man arguing with the entire room about whether he has a problem. Manzilein Apni Jagah Hain is the sober one, the one where it stops being funny. That range is what most modern drinking songs do not have, because they only attempt the first two.

Behind the film sits a genre that is older than it. Mujhe Duniya Walon Sharabi Na Samjho, from Leader in 1964, is Naushad's composition with Shakeel Badayuni's words, sung by Mohammed Rafi and picturised on Dilip Kumar - a sharabi song whose entire argument is that the singer is not one. Thodi Si Jo Pee Li Hai came from the same director as Sharaabi two years earlier, in Namak Halaal, again Bappi Lahiri and Kishore Kumar. The ghazal singers ran a parallel track: Pankaj Udhas built a career on it, and there is not a theka in the country that has failed to play him over an open quarter.

The new sharabi gane are Punjabi more often than Hindi now, and they are less interested in the tragedy of it. Daru Badnaam, Patiala Peg, Chhote Chhote Peg, Angreji Beat - all present, all playing here in the same shuffle as 1984. If you specifically want the drinking-alone end of this rather than the party end, the room dims for that on another page.