A few days ago, acclaimed popular Hindi music lyricist Javed Akhtar made a pretty controversial statement about Indian rock. The statement appeared as a press release on a few news websites and newspapers. Akhtar was quoted saying,In India, rock music is a very shallow and superficial genre. They dress and style themselves like American rockers but the words and lyrics are archaic and obsolete.

Now for someone to make such a strong proclamation, one would assume there to be a significant basis for complaint and an understanding of the subject. But Akhtar went on to state, When they came to me to write lyrics for my son Farhan in 'Rock On', I wasn't really sure I could pull it off. I had never done a rock album before and I'm not familiar with the genre.

The news went away without a whimper. No one in the Indian rock community (save a couple of websites) took any notice of it and not a single protest was launched for a particularly malicious judgment. Sure 'hardcore' scenesters lambasted the film for, among other things, the lack of a bassist, the commercialization and the distance from the real scene. But at the end of the day Joe Indian came out of the theatre thinking he'd watched a movie about rock music.

Rock On!! is not a representation of the Indian rock scene. For one, the Indian rock scene doesn't really know what it is itself and therefore to create a fair representation of it, a two hour long film certainly wouldn't be enough. Let's not kid ourselves; rock music in India is only beginning to create its own, unique boundaries. Which is not to say that it needs to include tablas and sitars. We live in a globalised world and if acts from Sweden can make it big in alternative and metal without any significant 'Swedish influence', so can acts from India. But where we are right now, only a few acts can claim international quality.

For people to believe that the film depicts the scene they are familiar with (late gigs, bad sound, health hazards) would be unfair, as the film hasn't made that claim either. The jury is out though on whether the film is an adequate representation of the genre its title informs. And the question essentially comes down to what is rock music? The fact of the matter is that regardless of what definition Wikipedia gives, rock music is whatever you think it is. For some it may be Bryan Adams, while others may consider Metallica and still others may assume it to be Sanjay Dutt holding a guitar. The only constant here being the implementation of instruments, often including guitars and drums. And then there are others to whom rock music isn't music at all. Their acceptance of a particularly disruptive stereotype leads them to believe that the genre is overrun by dudes with knee length hair screaming into microphones and sounding like the groans of a cat being tortured by pitchforks. In a country like India where vast differences in economic strata means different exposure to media, this is the majority.

So when a mainstream Bollywood film features four men playing in a group using drums and guitars that can actually be heard in the soundtrack, it implies the acceptance of a different form of music; a form of music not regularly represented in popular media and melodic enough not to be jarring. If it does well, as reports indicate, it may give other producers the conviction to back further films that feature this music.

We need films with soundtracks that include audible 'rock' songs. We need films where the visibility of a band, and music involving drums and guitars is critical. We need Saif Ali Khan to pick up a guitar and play gigs with Parikrama. And we need Rock On!!, so the next time Javed Akhtar, or any other dude over 50 with any sort of Indian music cred, decides to criticize our beloved scene he'll know what he's up against.