Yo readers. I am write column.
Soup column. Flop column.
Yes, like many random Internet auteurs, I am trying to ride the wave of popularity buoying the ubiquitous Tamil-English (Tanglish?) hit ‘Why This Kolaveri Di.’ As I type out these lines, the official Youtube video of the song has recorded over 23 million views; it will likely have millions more by the time this magazine arrives in your hands. Other videos are basking in Kolaveri’s reflected glory. A version with a cute kid has 3 million views, and an English R&B version already has half a million. Print and online media are getting in on the act, too, with the Hindu, Indian Express, India Today, Tehelka and many others (even the BBC!) offering their analyses and pop sociological theories.
So I figure why not jump into the fray? I do honestly fear that this will be a flop column, in part because of the oft-quoted dictum that “writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” (The origin of this witticism is a bit uncertain. Comedian Martin Mull is the best candidate; other contenders include Steve Martin, Elvis Costello and Thelonius Monk.) Perhaps this quote points to why the literati has had relatively little to say about the actual musicality of the song, focusing instead on its cultural context, its gender and class dimensions, and its meteoric rise. Many of the press reports simply seem pleased that India now had its own viral marketing success to boast about, another sign of the country’s tech savvy.
And perhaps there’s not much to say about the music itself. It is, by all accounts, an intentionally simple song, both lyrically and compositionally. But in my mind it is a pop culture gem. Sure, I’ll probably tire of Kolaveri soon, and the song won’t win any prizes for depth or subtlety. Still, for what it is – an unabashedly popular ditty – it’s a knockout, with the hookiest of hooks. The reedy whine of the shenai, the artful plucking and bending of the guitar, the thrum of the drum, the groaning vocals, and a few grace notes from the keyboard: they all combine to create a warm, textured, folksy energy that I find irresistible. (The vocoder vocals are a bit much, but then they’re more or less unavoidable in pop songs these days.) What can I say? I’m a sucker for a breezy, catchy tune.
But one person’s catchiness is another’s inanity. Over at the excellent blog Kafila, Sunalini Kumar savages the song, calling it misogynistic, slickly produced, and ridiculously inane. (Also on Kafila, AS Ajith Kumar defends the song as the triumph of ‘low’ culture over the chaste norms upheld by classically-trained musicians, evidence that Kolaveri is gaining a foothold even in the critical realms of alternative media.) To the former Kumar, I would cede some points. Yes, it is slickly produced – but isn’t that part of what makes pop songs poppy? I’m a big fan of lo-fi and distortion, but I can also enjoy sugary sweet, heavily compressed pop candy. High production value is, in my book, more a descriptive than a prescriptive term. Kolaveri has smoothed some of the bracingly rough edges off the Ganna Pattu folk music that inspired it. The music has lost something in the process, including recognition of its marginalized originators, but it has also gained a mass audience – an ambiguous trade-off, but one I can’t see as wholly negative.
“But one person’s catchiness is another’s inanity. Over at the excellent blog Kafila, Sunalini Kumar savages the song, calling it misogynistic, slickly produced, and ridiculously inane.”
Various commentators have taken umbrage because the makers of the song and the video have worked very hard to produce something that’s seemingly spontaneous and effortless. But isn’t this part of the artifice of performance? I would take this as compliment, rather than critique. It’s hard work looking free and easy, and if the actors and singers can pull off this trick, it’s a tribute to their pop culture craft.
And yes, there is misogyny, but in the mildest of forms – “a girl left me, so I think she’s black-hearted” – a far cry from the violence-laden, sexually explicit, purely pejorative references so common in the hip-hop of my home country. More disturbing to me is the theme of a dark-skinned boy going after a light-skinned girl. After three years in India, I still find the ubiquity of light-skin bias unnerving. But this too must be seen in its context. Can one blame the dark-skinned boys who are told all their lives that they are in some way deficient, and that they should chase after something supposedly better? And would there not inevitably be some bitterness when such chasing results in failure? (There is some irony in the fact that the relatively dark-skinned, skinny Dhanush – while singing a song for his “soup boys” or failed lovers – is married to Rajnikanth’s “fair and lovely” daughter.)
And perhaps the song is inane, but for me, it’s a joyful inanity. The most charming part of the song, brought out in the video, is the enthusiasm and delight with which Dhanush croons. Hipper cats than me have suggested that Dhanush is really just making fun of working-class Tamilians who can’t manage ‘proper’ English, and that people outside of south India enjoy the cruel joke even more, as they can paint the whole region in one stereotyped brush. But Dhanush has the looks (not to mention the admiration) of the proletariat, who he is supposedly mocking. And if there is some gentle mocking, it is overshadowed by Dhanush’s evident love of Madras slang. He seems to be truly embracing his Tanglish; the video’s subtitles bring out its idiosyncrasies by adding the “-u” even when it’s not clearly pronounced. It’s a refreshing celebration of hybridity, far preferable to both nativism and anxious aspirations to ‘proper’ English.
Perhaps this is the perspective of a naïve outsider, but many of my friends – both Indian and foreign – have enjoyed this song without a hint of derision. Now if you’ll excuse, I need to spend four minutes and nine seconds on Youtube.
