Biopic 'Amar Singh Chamkila' released: Meet the 'Elvis of Punjab ...

From 1979 to 1988, Chamkila ruled the music landscape in Punjab with songs that were a commentary on village life, drug abuse, guns, extra marital affairs, dowry, alcoholism and matters of Punjabi masculinity among others. This wasn’t like the spot on, in tune, polished folk of Gurdas Mann or the kind of gentle folk that Surinder Kaur and Asa Singh Mastana were propagating in the state and among the diaspora.

These songs sounded gravelly and uninhibited. But what was spot on was Chamkila’s raw yet very in tune voice. Many of Chamkila’s songs had coarse lyrics, mostly written by him. These were often bawdy and left little to imagination. At the time, many of his detractors denounced him for songs that were boorish and full of double entendre. But the numerous live shows that were followed by many albums, earned him generations of fans that still give him the legendary status.

Chamkila’s childhood and early life

Born as Dhani Ram to Kartar Kaur and Hari Singh Sandila in an impoverished Dalit family in village Dugri, which is now a suburb in Punjab’s Ludhiana, Chamkila, who sang a little bit at home as a six-year-old, aspired to be an electrician. When that did not work out, he joined a cloth mill in Ludhiana to support his family. By this time, he was 18 and already married to a woman named Gurmail Kaur. He had four children with Kaur, two of whom – daughters Amandeep and Kamaldeep (who is also a Punjabi folk musician) survived beyond infancy.

While working at the cloth mill, his childhood affection for music grew and Chamkila began to learn how to play the harmonium and dholak. He also began to meet and sit in the music sessions of local music artistes such as K Deep, the first Punjabi singer to sing famed poet Shiv Kumar Batalvi’s poetry, and Mohommad Sadiq from Sangrur, who is currently a Member of Parliament from Faridkot.

In this process he met Surinder Shinda, a noted folk artiste of the time, and became his student. Chamkila wrote numerous songs for Shinda, sang in his chorus and accompanied him on tours. But the money he managed to get, Rs 100 a month, was not enough to run the expenses of his family. Chamkila then decided to sing, so that he could support his family properly.

The rise of a star

His decision to sing gave rise to the nom de plume – Amar Singh Chamkila. Chamkila means aglow or glittery, an attempt to have a name that grabbed attention and was also aspirational personally. He joined forces with singer Surinder Sonia and managed to land his first album comprising eight songs. The album ‘Takue Te Takua Khadke’ (1979, EMI) did well, but Chamkila felt Sonia’s manager, who was also her husband, wasn’t paying him properly. He left the partnership and worked with singer Usha Kiran for a while before partnering with a singer named Amarjot Kaur, whom he later married. Amarjot, whose vocals weren’t much of a match in comparison with Chamkila, had worked with popular singer Kuldeep Manak before and had left her home and first husband to pursue her dream.

Chamkila and Amarjot. The two achieved notable success as a duo. (File)

The two sang fluently and fluidly on stage, as if having a conversation in a living room. This worked massively. Every song the two touched turned to gold. It came to a point when Chamkila’s akhadas (free, open air programmes) dominated every place in Punjab, rendering many local singers jobless. People would pile up in maidaans, climb terraces to listen to him. Many even checked Chamkila’s dates to fix a wedding in the family.

At a time when popular folk singers charged Rs 500 for a local show, Chamkila charged Rs 4,000 just for a wedding. He once performed more than 365 shows in a year, sometimes booked in different villages on the same day. He wrote cleverly and whatever he sang, holding his trademark tumbi (a single-stringed instrument), was a hit, no matter what. He also recorded for a number of Punjabi films and travelled extensively to Canada and Dubai for shows.

Amarjot and Chamkila had a son together. They called him Jaiman.

Music in the times of insurgency

The backdrop to Chamkila’s music was Punjab’s insurgency, which gained momentum in the aftermath of the 1984 Sikh riots. The Sikh separatist movement and calls for the establishment of Khalistan were marked by terrorism, assassinations, bombardments, police brutality and a number of human rights violations.

Chamkila’s lyrical content was considered vulgar by many who supported and were a part of the then terrorist organisations. He received anonymous death threats in the form of letters and would hide for days at a stretch in his friends’ homes. In fact he also stopped writing his suggestive songs for a while, but got back to work soon after.

Chamkila’s death and conspiracy theories around it

On May 8, 1988, Chamkila and Amarjot were to do an afternoon show in Mehsampur in Punjab’s Jalandhar. Just when the two got off their white ambassador, they were gunned down by three disguised men riding a motorcycle. Chamkila was 27 at the time of his death. Of their three accompanying artistes, two died on the spot. No FIR was ever registered in the case and the culprits were never caught.

The situation gave rise to a number of conspiracy theories, besides a number of films on the issue. While many think that the terrorists killed Chamkila and Amarjot at the behest of many local artistes who were jobless due to his rising popularity, there are those who call the assassination as honour killing by Amarjot’s family. Amarjot was from a higher caste and her family had issues with her marrying a member of a lower caste. This was fuelled by the fact that her family never claimed her body or the couple’s son, who was later brought up by Chamkila’s first wife, who continues to live in Dugri.

Many films were made on Chamkila’s life including Mehsampur (2018) by Kabir Singh Chowdhry and the recent film titled Jodi, starring Dosanjh and Nirmal Khaira. A book titled Awaaz Nahi Mardi by Punjabi writer Gulzar Singh Shaunki was also released in 2014.