Why this kolaveri di? is a song that went viral and captured the imagination of the populace in India and beyond. This essay is a playful analysis of the lyrics and its performance that explains the ways in which a YouTube video from Chennai, bridged many differences and connected the world in song.^[1]

What was all the fuss about? Both CNN and BBC appear mystified by the same question. CNN’s Erin Burnett nominated it as ‘the top song of 2011’ overtaking luminaries such as Adele, Pitbull or Justin Bieber and ‘taking the world by storm’!^[2] It would be instructive at this point for readers to view the entire YouTube video:

Note the elements of its performance: the vernacular idioms, the shifts between front stage and backstage, which deliberately and self-consciously draw attention to the fabricated character of the video, as well as the performance of masculinity as presented in the clip. I also want to draw attention to the extent to which the lyrics and the kinesic codes of the performance are embedded within the cultural grammar of the South Indian context, marking the distinct ethnic niche that it occupies, which sets it apart from the more familiar and omnipresent Bollywood varieties of performance with its global following of devotees.^[3]

What does that phrase “Kolaveri di” mean? ‘Kola’ means to kill, and ‘veri’ is rage, so ‘kolaveri’ translates to ‘killer rage or murderous rage.” As explained by the BBC Radio commentators, the song is “all about the common man, singing in the bathroom, saying, look, you have broken my heart, you’ve imposed your rage on me and I am dying.”^[4]

A cursory search on YouTube confirms the BBC’s mention of the extent of its spread and reach, spawning numerous new versions but also quite clever responses to the original song. One such performance, which was available on YouTube until recently, enacts a rock performance set outdoors on wooded grounds in the USA, by four males of South Asian origin. Constructed as a response to the query from the original song, the four young men give voice to their yearning to have it all, a ‘six-pack’ body, Goldman Sachs accounts, a Kardashian or Shruti Hasan on either arm, yet remain au fait with the fine points of a Mysore Pak.^[5]

There is a feminist counter-part which presents a rejoinder to the question of ‘Why this Kolaveri Di?’ while simultaneously mobilising the much better-known Bollywood-Bhangra^[6] repertoire of movements to their performance within the confined space of a car.^[7]

Many readers are likely to be well aware of the impeccable credentials and the stellar cast of Kollywood first families brought together in the production of this video and its associated film 3, Moonru. ^[8] The BBC clip has already alluded to the links to Tamil cinema actor Rajnikant and the cult following that he enjoys as far as Japan. Dhanush, the singer, is Rajnikant’s son-in-law, married to Aishwarya, the director of the film. Shruti Hasan, who stars with Dhanush in Moonru and features in the YouTube video, is the daughter of Kamal Hasan, another Kollywood celebrity. Like his contemporary Rajnikant, Kamal Hasan also made successful forays into Bollywood. Dhanush, in his own right, is an award winning actor and lyricist, well connected through his own natal familial linkages to the world of Tamil cinema.

Let us now assemble what I have selected as some of the key elements from the video for discussion. First, note the language, the combination of Tamil and English in this song referred to as Tamlish, just as there are varieties of Hindlish, Benglish etc., signalling the regional parlance in currency. Across multilingual India, speakers seamlessly switch between one and more of that vernacular. It is particularly noticeable in the current generations who inhabit that subcontinent, as do most of the first generation Indian diaspora. What is striking in this instance is that for the first time, the rest of the country exuberantly embraces a vernacular from southern India. Note also the clever use of the ‘di,’ which is the equivalent of the ‘tu-toi’ of French and denotes a similar range of connotations from endearment, intimacy, camaraderie to social status in relation to the addressee. Di and its male equivalent da characterise everyday colloquial speech in Tamil Nadu. It rhymes with the ‘ji’ of north India, but while the ‘ji’ denotes deference and respect, the ‘di’ as I have indicated has a wider range of connotations.

The extended vowels that follow the enunciation of every utterance in English in the song, characterises both the Indian accent and marks the wider region of South Asia. In India, such an enunciation positions the speaker in terms of their schooling and educational background and therefore their socio-economic location. The intonation distinguishes the vast majority of the inhabitants of India as they navigate the English language and render it in their own idiom.

I want to focus now on one word on which to my mind, the entire song hinges, the word ‘Love.’ The usual palato-dental delivery of that sound in English transforms into a deep, guttural yowl in its usage here, uttered straight from the belly. It embodies a world of yearning for the white girl who becomes the index for a form of imagined modernity, desired but elusive and always out of reach.

The performance of masculinity as rendered visible in this song can be considered characteristic of the South Indian male, bears the traces of the colonised subject who has been denigrated as weak and effeminate, unlike the other valorised ‘martial warrior types’ found elsewhere in India.^[9]

What is so delightful in the rendering of masculinity in the video is the self-deprecating, and humorous performance of desire, rejection, and yearning in the persona, the voice and the idiom of the vast majority of young men whose own desirability remains under question. In my view, this is the reason why the song has resonated to the extent that it has across the country and beyond, conferring to it the plasticity that enables it to be recast and reassembled for an array of different performances.

However, I want to posit more provocatively that there is also a darker side to such a persona, where the desire, yearning and the lack of opportunities to fulfil them can channel anger, then rage accompanied by violence. “The ‘we don’t have choice,’ that Dhanush bemoans, can become the fuel that has on occasion triggered performances of violence by a populace in India who have embraced this song because it sings in their voice. The greater the distance from all the elements that constitute desire, the six packs, the Goldman Sachs accounts or the Shruti Hasans and Kardashians, the greater the simmering anger that is available for mobilization to the ends of electoral politics or other triggers.

In a testament to the song’s plasticity is a final clip, an irreverent and clever Pakistani version that skilfully hones in on the political dilemmas of that besieged nation, while also demonstrating that the political lies lurking just below the lyric and melodic:^[10]

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