Pan-Indian cinema has given us historic cross-overs and blockbusters that will be cherished, but it has also given birth to a bizarre new art form: the forcefully translated soundtrack. The Hindi album for Ram Charan’s highly anticipated action-drama Peddi is the latest casualty of this trend. On paper, the album looks like a dream. I mean, what could possibly go wrong when you have compositions by AR Rahman?
But written by Raqueeb Alam, nothing seems to settle for this album! Backing up a sports drama, this music album should have been a soulful, energetic jukebox, but probably this one has also been lost in translation!
Writing a great melody in one language and violently forcing it to fit the phonetic structure of another is an architectural nightmare. South Indian films have been witnessing this nightmare forever! Peddi proves that even an Oscar-winning maestro can be wasted when the execution goes completely wrong!
The music album has four songs, and let us dissect everything that seems wrong with them!
- Song: Chikiri Chikiri
- Singer: Mohit Chauhan
- Additional Vocals: Sarat Santhosh
The vibe of the song is foot-tapping! Having Mohit Chauhan behind the microphone for an AR Rahman composition instantly triggers nostalgia for the Rockstar and Tamasha era! In fact, even the song has a lot of Matargashti vibe! But it goes in vain when the lyrics do not fall into the meter. The song might work in Telugu, but it is an unnecessary one in the Hindi version! In fact, the Bhojpuri-inspired Hindi, or whatever we are trying to call it, is absolutely a lost opportunity! The title hook Chikiri Chikiri sounds incredibly alien in a Hindi song, making the track feel like a filler rather than an anthem.
- Song: Rai Rai Raa Raa
- Singer: Nakash Aziz
This song is clearly designed as the mass celebration anthem of the album. Nakash Aziz brings the required energy and swagger. The heavy arrangement is classic Rahman. The rhythm section is infectious. But such a song should have thousands dancing to it in theatres. But it never achieves the organic madness that great mass numbers require. Yet again, the beat works, but the language doesn’t. To match the fast-paced, syllable-heavy rhythm of the original Telugu mass beats, the Hindi lines are squeezed in so tightly that the words lose their meaning entirely.
- Song: Hellallallo
- Singer: Heer
Let’s start with the positive. Heer delivers the song with confidence and infectious energy. Rahman creates a playful romantic setup that is clearly intended to be quirky, flirtatious, and youthful. Everything falls apart the moment you start paying attention to the lyrics. Hellallallo hum dono ka chaaloo chakkar hai kar lo. I mean, I do not even know what exactly that tongue twister means.
It sounds like a Google Translate error gone outrageously wrong. Chaaloo Chakkar combined with a nonsensical gibberish prefix like Hellallallo is bizarre and not in a good way! The phrase instantly pulls you out of the song because your brain starts trying to decode the sentence instead of enjoying the music. The problem here isn’t absurdity. Hindi film music has survived happily on absurdity for decades. The problem is that the line doesn’t sound naturally absurd. It is actually forcefully absurd!
- Song: Massa Massa
- Singer: Nitesh Aher
This song understands its assignment. It wants to be loud. It wants to be energetic. It wants to be a theatre song. Yet again, the Hindi adaptation of Ram Charan‘s song refuses to cooperate. The song feels displaced. You can sense that something is getting lost between the original version and the Hindi translation. Neither the emotions survive, nor the lyrics!
If there is one thing that should be considered a criminal offense in Indian cinema, it is wasting AR Rahman . Not because Rahman is incapable of delivering a weak album. Every composer has off days. But when you bring together a composer of his stature, the bare minimum expectation is good!
What’s frustrating is that the problem isn’t always the music. It is the translation. The adaptation. There is a complete disconnect between what the songs seem to be trying to say and what they eventually communicate. The greatest tragedy of Peddi’s Hindi album is that it repeatedly mistakes translation for songwriting. When audiences listen to dubbed songs, they don’t expect word-for-word accuracy. They expect emotional accuracy. That is why classics like Chanda Re, Hamma Hamma, and the recently done Srivalli worked.
This isn’t merely Peddi’s problem. This is an industry issue! Pan-India cinema has expanded rapidly, but music adaptation hasn’t evolved at the same pace. Filmmakers invest hundreds of crores into visual scale, production design, action choreography, and marketing. Then they often treat Hindi dubbing as an afterthought. Language doesn’t work that way. Neither does music! Such a waste of a talent like AR Rahman!
Check out the entire jukebox of Peddi here.
For more music reviews, stay tuned to Koimoi.
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