छलिया
About this song
- Singers
- Sunidhi Chauhan, Piyush Mishra
- Lyrics
- Anvita Dutt
- Music
- Vishal-Shekhar
- On screen
- Kareena Kapoor
chhaliyaa (Hindi: छलिया, Urdu: چھلیا), "Deceiver", is a song from the 2008 Indian masala film "Tashan".
The song was composed by the Bollywood singer-composer duo Vishal-Shekhar, and the lyrics were written for the movie by the lyricist and screenwriter Anvita Dutt Guptan.
The playback singer is Sunidhi Chauhan, and, for the small male voice bridges, Piyush Mishra.
The word "Chhaliya" derives from the Hindustani word chhalii (-iyaa is a common suffix that transforms words into diminutives or endearing terms).
"Chhaliya" can be used as a noun or as an adjective, and it can apply to both male and female persons or things. As an adjective, it means "fake, deceiving, tricking", and as a noun, it mostly applies as a deceiving person; especially in a romantic sense, it denotes a teasing woman or a lover that doesn't fulfill his promises.
The actress starring in the video clip is the female movie protagonist, Pooja (Kareena Kapoor). In the movie, she is a scammer who uses her wile and beauty to deceive.
Pooja is shown in the video clip singing, dancing, tossing banknotes to the air, and living in style, against a background of beaches, yachts, and beautiful Mediterranean islands, accompanied by a troupe of all-female black dancers.
The lyrics, narrated mostly in first person, consist of a female deceiver warning about how dangerous and crafty she is.
The chorus, utilizes the phrase tuu aamNkh na laRaa which means, "don't you lock eyes". The verb laRaanaa means to engage, to cause to fight, but in the context of the eyes or the looks, it means to "lock eyes" (i.e., to fall in love).
At some point, the singer claims to be "a thought of Ghalib":
bikhre dil kaa maiN haal huuN I am in the state of a scattered heart
aur Gaalib kaa maiN xayaal huuN and I am a thought of Ghalib's\
She is referring to Mirza Ghalib (1797 –1869) an Urdu poet who wrote exquisitely about love.
To stress how dangerous is to approach her, she says:
tuu na jaanegaa kab baazii maiṁ dhoke se maar jaauuN You won't know when I shall unexpectedly win with deceit
The expression "baazii maarnaa" or "baazii maar jaanaa" means something like "to hit the jackpot", i.e. to win (in a game, a bet) heavily and unexpectedly.
At the beginning and later in the middle of the song, there is a bridge part sang by a male voice
nashiilaa, nashiilaa teraa nainaa Your intoxicating eyes
churaii le hamaaraa chainaa stole my peace
ab hamaare dil meN rahnaa now, stay in my heart!
This part has some unusual wording, deliberately used to sound vulgar and irreverent:
nainaa (eyes) is a plural, so it should have been nashiile tere nainaa churaii le is using a diminutive not translatable to English, the standard is churaa le chainaa is a diminutive for chain, peace.