"If music be the language of
love, sing on in English" will be how Shakespeare would have framed his
famous quote if he were alive today! In the age of globalisation and social web,
English seems to have acquired the status of a global currency, in which you
can trade your emotions without losing your identity.
Jayalalitha, the chief minister
of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, whose delirium tremens and
tantrums have become a part of the new
X
factor politics destroying India, has issued in true Taliban
style,
a
diktat that all children in her state must learn Tamil!
You can't blame her! The poor
soul, despite her 65 years on earth probably has never heard of
Shakespeare let alone realise how the world has changed with globalisation, and
social web, how regional language no more is an essential element of regional
culture.
For Jayalalitha, a film actress of yester years whose mother tongue
is not Tamil but Kannada of the neighbouring state of Karnataka where she was
borne and brought up, evoking chauvinistic emotions has nothing but political
expediency.
For millions of Tamil speaking people, who have wasted
hours staring at Jayalalitha on the silver screen, movie after movie,
because of a complex and weakness they have for her
fair skin, however,
"Kolaveri
Di" is the new sound of Tamil music which makes them proud rather
than her sermon on the virtue of Tamil.
“Kolaveri Di” is a Tamil
song video created in English, which went viral on the social web scoring 150 million
hits and was parodied in numerous languages, all because people everywhere
could relate to its real music content and simple lyrics about the throngs
of love as they were penned in English of a sort.
In fact the song dominated the
media for better part of past three months since its release, invoking such
universal enthusiasm which provoked the youth from Tokyo
to The Hague to burst out in
spontaneous song and dance sequences of Kolaveri Di in public and private
venues.
Doing the whole video in a
universal language has no way taken away anything ‘Tamil’ from the wonderful
production which is nothing but an expression of genuine creativity. If
anything, it has only helped to introduce Tamil along with its creator
Dhanush and his team to the
whole world.
This is not the only example why
language shouldn’t matter for true understanding and harmony between cultures.
A similar video production created a few months earlier by the popular American
artist Akon with a team from Mumbai also bear proof that power of music as food
of love has not changed from the days when the Bard of Avon proclaimed it.
Through a song titled “
Chammak
Challo” created for an Indian film of
Sharukh Khan, a famous
Indian screen actor, the American singer and rapper Akon has proved the point.
Akon, with very little effort and time,
managed to muster the few Hindi words in the lyrics written in English and
managed to sing the song to music composed of elements from the middle east,
all to enchant and capture the hearts of an Indian audience.
As it turned out, the song and
its video recording turned a viral hit on the internet proving yet again that,
when it comes to music as food for love, cultural assimilation happen pretty
fast and the social web is the modern platform where it happens.
It is really amazing that two
productions which as music or artistic expressions of young artists have
nothing much to write about, have become phenomenal success with an
international audience in such a short time. Then isn't that the case with most
of the hits with pop music?
One can hope that this is a trend which will catch up and
bring more of such unifying efforts from all languages and culture on to the
social web.
It looks like at least on the
social web no one really cares what language people communicate with as long as
it is English. As in the real world, real talent not ethnicity or cultural
background which matters. As far as the language of love is concerned, it looks
like the easiest way to some one’s
heart is just saying
‘I
love you’ rather than ‘J
e t'aime’
or ‘Ya tebya lyublyu’
