Caveat: The subject of this post necessitates sexually explicit references for which I am truly sorry.
A mouldy man in a mouldy chair in a mouldy room. He sits slouched in his lungi, his legs spread apart, his belly overflowing onto his bits, his head thrown back with his mouth agape like that of a temporarily stunned goldfish, his hands stuck deep into his slick, greasy hair. Two feet away a boy of 15 stands alert, holding a pad and a pen poised to write. Music, of an unexpected beauty, plays from an old-fashioned cassette player on the table. A melodious Carnatic raagam in pleasing fusion with a jazz trumpet, that breaks up a peppy song from the Colonial Cousins. This is the twentieth time this interlude has been played, and like it did the last nineteen times, it evokes in the boy a vision of a singer in an ancient temple against a backdrop of lush fields, palm trees and low green hills. Also, like the last nineteen times, as this brief 15 second interlude draws to a close, the boy shudders quietly in fear at the thought of what is to come.
He is jerked out of his reverie by a guttural “Aaaannhh.” from the man in the lungi. “Write!” the man says, in Tamil. Tamil - the language of an ancient people, of poets above par, of kings and priests, language of the Bhakti movement, an outpouring of devotion to the lord of the cosmos. The boy stands ready, a mild expression of pain on his face, the interlude still ringing in his ears. The man dictates (in Tamil):
“On whose lips is the smell of a rose most intense, my lover?
Where on my body are a woman’s erogenous zones, my lover?”
As the boy writes this down, he feels an overwhelming sensation of guilt. A guilt comparable to what he would feel if he were to spray paint a donkey’s arse on a Ravi Verma painting of Goddess Saraswati. He sheds a quiet tear and consoles himself with the thought that he is merely the pen. “How was that? Wonderful, eh?” muses the man in the lungi rhetorically. He doesn’t need to hear the boy’s answer. He knows he is the bard, the poet laureate of Tamil filmdom. He is not so vain as to proclaim himself the King of Poets. Oh no. He has accepted these titles in all humility from his millions of adulating fans. The bard carries on,
“Oh, man who has studied the Kamasutra!
If I show you where, will you take me to Heaven?”
The pen writes, the boy furiously hoping he could fast forward to the three seconds of a deliciously wordless guitar interlude, before the next deluge of filth. One thing the boy knows for certain. He will not watch the visualisation of this song – there is only so much swine mulch one can dig through when seeking pearls.
Tamil film music composers from the 80s to the present are some of the most unfortunate talents in cinema. Unfortunate to have several of their compositions cast to such lyrics and displayed on screen some unbelievably shady visualisations. Take Ilaiyaraaja, for instance. In no conceivable situation would the music of a supremely talented composer, played by talented Carnatic, western classical and jazz musicians, deserve to be placed as the background to visuals of a lecherous 30 year old man ogling and groping a 16 year old girl, let alone, set to lyrics about “consuming the sweat and heat of a woman in the throes of youthful passion.” This peppy song, for example, is a lovely combination of Carnatic vocal, flute and guitar, interludes with delicious counterpoints that mix elements of jazz and electronic music ; an eclectic mix of multiple genres, tamed into a single song that is classic Ilaiyaraaja, you might say. The song itself which was possibly (hopefully) meant as a song of two lovers celebrating their love for each other is transformed into an unapologetically explicit description of two bodies in heat:
“The growing youthful night, the blissful moment of the pleasurable touch of a finger,
The unparalleled smell of manhood, (repeat),
Oh honey, the honeybee of desire makes your insides churn.”
What makes it truly painful is that a lot of these compositions are grounded in classical music. Close your eyes for a few seconds and imagine a Mozart or Bach symphony being set to such lyrics. And it is not just Ilaiyaraaja. I am a die-hard fan of A.R. Rahman’s diverse, wonderfully foot-tapping music. One of my all-time favourites, a classical tune with a racy beat, punctuated by lovely interludes of piano, string and flute arrangements, that brings to mind the pining of two lovers for one another in a doomed love-story does not deserve this:
“Oh girl! Without waiting on the gentle breeze, you must open your flower.
Without exploring the flower-basket, you must enjoy its honey.”
To be fair, the rest of the lyrics to this song are passable. I also think the visuals to this song were rescued to a large extent by Prabhu Deva and Kajol’s praise-worthy choreography, some relatively refined sensibilities when directing the shoot for the song, and by the sheer absence of 30+ year olds leching at teenage girls. Another racy ARR song is similarly defaced by lyrics that go:
“A gentle embrace, like a gentle breeze that rustles a flower, is chaste.
Grabbing you by your chest, like a storm that tears a flower from its roots, is lustful.
Which one are you girl, or are you a bit of both?”
“But these are few and far between! He has produced several gems!”, one may protest. Unfortunately this is not the case. These examples, though tending towards his more explicit, are just the tip of the mulch-pit of unsubtle sexual euphemisms, repeated memes involving bodily fluids and explicit descriptions of the female body - always the female body. Not to mention the consequent, almost total, ruination of beautiful music for the hapless person that cannot tune the words out and understands just enough of the language to be repelled by them.
“But this is art!” you may say. True, erotic prose and poetry is an entire literary field in itself. I would have no problem if the bard had proclaimed himself an erotic poet, packaged his work as such, and been judged as such. But to piggy-back on another medium, to sell and propagate this as an inseparable but entirely asynchronous part of a musical experience, is nothing short of a crime.
“All this was par for the course!” one may protest. “Why single him out?”. The answer to this is where my biggest issue with him lies: all these lyrics are a living example of the most despicable and insidious form of female objectification that exists in Indian cinema, outside of the porn industry. For instance the exquisite voice of K.J. Yesudas, in another Ilaiyaraaja masterpiece, brings to life this (un)metaphorical lyrical gem from the same pen, urging a bride to perform what’s expected of her:
“The cradle will not rock without the bed being shaken.
Oh maiden! Rid yourself of your shyness.”
The song doesn’t stop with that but is in fact a step-by-step crash course in baby-making . And all of this penned by someone who declares himself a progressive thinker. And making all this worse is the fact that these lyrics are celebrated as an outpouring of creativity and held up as proof of the beauty of the language.
Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine!
P.S. Credit to my musically-educated friend for editing the descriptions of the songs and providing help with some of the more esoteric lyrics.
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