Why this instant rage?

What does it take for a song to become an instant rage?

Some murderous rage, it seems. So when, debutant music director Anirudh Ravichander’s song, ‘Why this Kolaveri Di’ got leaked, it instantly went viral.

And surprise surprise!

This song from Dhanush’s upcoming movie 3, has found more fans up north than in Tamil Nadu.

One such fan is Amitabh Bachchan who managed to find time to tweet about it amidst celebrations of becoming a grandfather.

It’s not as if for the first time the non-Tamil speaking crowd has taken a liking to a song originating in this southernmost state of India. The 1990’s saw people all over India crooning and tapping their feet to Tamil songs thanks to AR Rahman’s enchanting music and Prabhu Deva’s unconventional choreography. However, most of these songs became popular after their translation for the Hindi-speaking audiences.

Even ‘Why this Kolaveri Di’ has been able to achieve this feat because of its Tanglish (read Tamil-English) lyrics. If reports are to be believed, Dhanush came up with it in less than 20 minutes. The song has surpassed the popularity of another quirky export from Tamil Nadu in recent times, Wilbur Sargunaraj, whose music single ‘Love Marriage’ became a huge hit last year.

With nearly three million views of its official video on Youtube within just a week, it has surprised everyone. While it is trending on Twitter, the Facebook walls are full of status messages about it; some raving it while others wondering the reason behind this sudden craze. Nonetheless, each ‘share’ on these social networking sites is adding to the song's popularity.

To a puritan the lyrics might sound as a concoction of some English words stringed together with a Tamil accent but for the fans this very experiment is the USP of the song.

And that’s how Dhanush, who is also the enthralling voice behind the song, has unknowingly hit the bull’s eye.

He calls it a ‘soup song’ dedicated to all men rebuffed in love. In the song, a rejected suitor is asking his ladylove the reason behind her ‘murderous rage’ upon being proposed.

But rather than this empathising theme, it is the catchy tune of the song that is making the listeners hum it non-stop. For this the credit goes to 21-year old Anirudh. The use of varied instruments, like shehnai, acoustic guitar, drums, dhol and trumpet, makes it even more foot-tapping.

In a very short time, the song has attained a near-cult status. So next time Jayalalithaa ditches some project initiated by DMK government, don’t be surprised to hear Karunanidhi crooning, “Why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di…. Pa pa pa ppaan pa pa pa ppaan!”

-Vipul Grover