Amar Singh Chamkila follows the titular singer and musician’s meteoric rise to success as he toured all over Punjab and beyond while grappling with brutal criticisms and threats over his risqué lyrics. The film is now streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
Amar Singh Chamkila and his wife are shot dead before they get to perform at their show. Their dead bodies are eventually taken by the singer’s music team, as the death of the couple starts making rounds on the news.
The friends begin narrating the singer’s story from rags to riches to the DSP who arrives with other constables at Chamkila’s house amid tensions and fears that fundamentalists may attack again.
Meanwhile, Chamkila’s old friend and former team member, Tikki, also narrates a story of his own to a gathered crowd at a restaurant.
Chamkila approached Tikki back in 1977, requesting the musician to hook him up with his band leader, famous singer Jatinder Jinda. He meets the singer and impresses him with his songwriting skills.
He works under him for a while until the singer’s absence during one show gives him an opportunity to keep the progressively irked and restless audience engaged.
He rouses up the crowd with his performance and it’s a hit. When Jinda eventually arrives, they don’t want him and loudly cheer on Chamkila to continue.
Later, Jinda goes on a Canada tour, leaving Tikki and his female duet singer Sonia behind. Sonia’s manager Kashmiri Lal decides to pair Sonia and Chamkila and soon, the pair becomes a hit.
However, Chamkila breaks away from Kashmiri Lal and Sonia after the manager hurls casteist slurs at him on top of hogging all the profit made from sales. Chamkila finds success on his own but struggles to find a permanent female duet partner.
He eventually finds one, in Amarjot, who is a good singer, and within no time, the practice sessions bear fruits and the pair becomes a hit. Chamkila later makes a big decision regarding his future with Amarjot.
The two go on to garner a lot of success but after the riots of 1984, religious fundamentalism increased in Punjab. Additionally, the envy that the singer’s success inspires in his friends and fellow artists, becomes a huge problem for the couple.
After record-breaking success and death threats aplenty, Chamkila makes a career shift, which comes with unprecedented success yet again. However, the noose on him and his career gets smaller and smaller.
The rise in antagonism against him reaches its peak and he and his wife have to pay the ultimate price for the ignorance, and regressive, hypocrisies of a sexually repressed and socially stunted society.
Ending explained:
Tikki’s departure
After his pivot to devotional songs, and achieving paramount success with this radical career switch-up as well, Amar Singh continues to get requests for his old, raunchy, and frivolous songs in his shows.
He also goes to Bahrain for a tour, and it is a big hit. However, after that, he and Tikki parted ways. It is not said explicitly, but Tikki’s ulterior intentions, which Chamkila had learned of, played a part in him not taking the dholak player to the Canada tour.
Tikki lashes out at him outside the office and after that, the two never work together. Tikki would go on to tell people stories of how he made the titular singer who he was, and how it was his curse that ultimately took the titan down.
The criticism
In Canada, Chamkila is summoned by the religious leaders who coerce him to make four promises.
He had vowed to the militants before that he would change his discography, which he did, but when his fans kept insisting on playing the risqué songs, he would always oblige.
While he was in Canada, his reputation was being ripped to shreds back in Punjab. The fundamentalists and people in his own industry were actively trying to get everyone to rally against the daring singer who wouldn’t stop singing “vulgar” songs.
The leaders in Canada forbade the singer from drinking, smoking, eating meat, and singing any of his old songs in his shows.
By this time, Chamkila had grown tired and numb from being grounded between the fans who vied for the brash songs, and those who opposed them brutally and staunchly.
He stopped worrying and continued singing and performing as he liked. This made others in his team scared and his childhood friend Dhakkan ended up quitting the team as well.
Chamkila’s new but close and trusted friend, Swaran Singh Sivia, tried his best to persuade him to delay his return to Punjab, suggesting a wait until the public had forgotten about the latest sentiments.
Chamkila and Amarjot’s fates
However, Chamkila didn’t want to stop now, at all, or risk any other taking his place. He was accompanied by his wife in his fearless resumption of his shows. They continued their tours for a while after returning to Punjab until their show in Mehsampur.
Just as they get out of their car to go to the stage, they are shot down by unidentified armed men. The case remained unsolved forever as many theories entered the public domain as to who could’ve killed them.
After Chamkila and Amarjot aka Babbi’s deaths, the latter’s family, rather distastefully, wastes no time to empty all of the singer’s vaults and safes.
Their dead bodies are surrounded by crowds as key figures try to pose near them, making a sore sight for the empathetic eyes. Tikki goes on to tell his stories and make claims about what happened.
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