Leave the President Alone!

Audience: Tamil movie-goers, Tamil music-listeners.

Do you remember the lyrics of the song " Mercury Mele Medai Idu" from the movie "Majnu". It went like this " Mercury mele medai idu, Pudu century raagam paadi vidu....Vajpayee varatum paatu ezhutha, Bill Clintonai kupidu isai amaikka, Vandu Saddam Hussein paadal paadatum....". Listening to these lines made me cringe. Maybe some or many of you felt the same. Eager to listen to Harris Jayaraj's next offering it was kind of a letdown to listen to this song with such lame lyrics. Though the "charanam" had a decent tune the "pallavi" was unbearable to listen to with lyrics such as these.

Then came the song from the movie "Boys" - and the lyrics of which goes like this "Maro Maro....Abdul Kalam kaiyyal virudugal vangalam...".

What is with lyricists these days? Why are the names of political figures overused in their songs to an extent where it has become stale and nauseating.

Then to cap it all came the infamous report on BBC's news website of an Indian boy who passed the very competitive NASA International Scientist Discovery examination. Subsequently he was to meet the President at the latter's residence . In this report BBC had also indicated that Mr. Abdul Kalam was the only other Indian to have passed this examination besides Kalpana Chawla. However NASA has emphatically denied that no such examination has ever been conducted by them. I haven't been able to locate this report on BBC's archives. Maybe it was removed because BBC might have realized by now that the news about the examination was false. However the news of the hoax can be found on their site at the following address: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4283733.stm

It is anybody's guess these days when one receives e-mails asking to name the person who passed this-or-that competitive exam or developed a certain technology. The correct answer? President Abdul Kalam of course! It suddenly seems that our President has passed every concievable exam and has had a hand in all of our Government's science and technology projects.

And then comes the killer. A couple of weeks ago the movie "Ullam Ketkume" is released. There is a song in the film that goes like this. "Kanavugal....kanavugal kaana...Sir Abdul Kalam.. pole kanavukal kanbom nanba..." This is the LIMIT. Lyricists, Musicians, give our President a break.