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Kolaveri Di
Why this Kolaveri Di? This Tamil-Indian song has garnered a still snowballing 5.5 million hits in less than a week of release on 17th November 2011.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR12Z8f1Dh8
The funny thing about a viral is that – like news, it is time-bound, and after the initial buzz, fizzles so completely that you later wonder what it was about.
Kolaveri is relatable by all – and yet not quite one's own lingo. Most of it is understood yet leaves something incomplete to the Indian imagination.
Tamil is the not-quite-other 'other' to the rest of India. A Dravidian language spoken in the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Tamil, and its brethren Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada form the base of the regional film industry. With a glancing acquaintance with Northern India's Bollywood, the two worlds rarely come together or collide. They could belong to different planets – going by the stars, sets, stories, music and fans.
Until Kolaveri Di.
The seamless social network and the vast Indian demographic dividend of the 65% less-than-35-years youth segment have finally made out with one another, cutting across regions.
In the Indian world mediated as it is by twenty two official languages, Kolaveri uses 'only English' – in Tamil. And this is the patois spoken in more urban homes today. Where the nouns and adjectives, in English, are strung together by the grammatical 'if’, ‘but’, ‘the’, ‘and’ and ‘is' in the tongue spoken by the parents. ‘Windanu shudda kar de’ (‘shut the window’ – in Punjabi), ‘Moonu-white-u’ (‘the moon is white’ – in Tamil), ‘Bread-e butter dao’ (‘give me buttered bread’ – in Bengali) is what the nextgen feels totally at home in.
Kolaveri sublimates and air-conditions the stereotypical broken heart, moon, holy cow, white girl with black heart – in Tamlish, and hits the sweet spot at multiple points. Why has this Kolaveri Kolaveri Kolaveri di exploded as an anthem of a cynical youth-gen fed 24/7 through dozens of channels and the internet on an over abundant supply of West and East – Lady Gaga, Bieber, Antabella, and the now jaded Rahman, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, Pritam, and worse, Punjabi Bollywood?
Dhanush has given multiple interviews in the last few days expressing surprise at the song's success because he says he is not actually a singer (he is a Tamil film actor and son-in-law of the Tamil super-god-star Rajnikanth). My dad, a Hindustani classical musician, laughs this off. After I got him to hear Kolaveri, (he enjoyed it), he said do not underestimate a South Indian's command over 'sur' (melody) and 'taal' (rhythm). One more of those wonderful beliefs we all live with, north of the Sahyadris.
The entire filming of the video is as if in the studio – right out of the reality show genre. The expression on the face of the music cast is poker-faced and vacant, not unlike the faces of the artists, waiting in the wings to go on stage of a highly theatrical and impassioned drama.
For now, let us leave the ensemble reveling in the encore.
Pa pa pa ppan, pa pa pa ppan, pa pa ppan ppan pa pa ppan
© Piyul Mukherjee 2011
16 March 2012 at 8:27 pm
Shalu Sharma says:
Amazing video, I really liked it. What made it a huge success was its simplicity, its almost an urban song.
5 December 2011 at 8:45 am
Caroline says:
I do love this song – though I still don’t quite know why! I think the mix of Tamil and English was a clever move as this mix of mother tongue and English is how many young (and old) Indians, both in India and abroad speak. Indeed many second and third generation Indian’s born in UK, USA etc, grow up with and speak with this mixture of languages.
The song does seem to have more relevance than the indeed ‘jaded Rahman’ and the truly hideousness of ‘Punjabi Bollywood’ (aka Akshay Kumar making a fool of himself again). When Bollywood tries to make a pastiche of one the many Indian cultures and languages it becomes a ridiculing rather than embracing the variety of talent and stars that exist in India’s regional film industries.
Perhaps Kolaveri Di in its very unassuming way can force Bollywood to reassess what is required to produce a national – and global – hit.
5 December 2011 at 8:01 am
Louise says:
Both the song and the video also seem really low-key compared to typical Bollywood fare – e.g. the studio setting that you comment on, Piyul, and the lack of glitz and glamour.
There’s a new film out which might be relevant here – ‘The Dirty Picture’ which is a Bollywood bio-pic of a southern film star, Silk, known for her raunchy look and style. It’s been released both in Hindi and Telugu. Obviously it will show the south through a Bollywood lens, but maybe it shows the south is gaining cultural visibility at the moment.
1 December 2011 at 11:15 pm
Malcolm Evans says:
I’m getting mega-enthusiastic feedback about this piece and the link from all over. What a great song. Nothing like this musically and lyrically in UK since everybody over the age of 3 was singing ‘Crazy’ by Gnarls Barkley one summer 5 or 6 years ago. Dear semionauts, please share the music that’s currently getting under people’s skin and into their brains and bodies wherever you are. And give us some of the story as Piyul has done with such poise and fun and brilliance here!