Saturday, June 18, 2011

Shame Shame M.G. Shame!!


cartoon courtesy: http://www.wittygraphy.com/blog/show/1005126/m-g-sreekumar-2009




The scene is a star award night of a Malayalam TV Channel in the newly found Kodambakkam of Kerala- Kochi. The persistent super stars Mammooty and Mohanlal, the real super star of India, Amitabh Bachchan, a host of other stars from Kerala and Tamilnadu and the thousands of fans thronged the stadium where the function was held. In the middle of the program, all of a sudden, the 54 year old M.G.Sreekumar, the singer-music director, emerges from the fourth or fifth row, wearing a shirt printed with bright color flowers, gallops to the front row like newly born mule, shaking his pot belly and lands in front of none other than the great Amitabh Bachchan. Mr. Bachchan looks at the middle aged man dressed almost like a joker, with sense of bewilderment.  Sreekumar pulls up a dirty piece of torn paper from his trouser pocket and starts singing, looking at Mr.Bachchan and pointing his palm towards the star. It was the first line of the famous song from the 70’s Bollywood super hit “Lawaris” in which Amitabh himself portrayed the title role. The actual words in the first line of the song is thus- “Mere angane mein tumhara kya kaam hai”? And what we heard from the Kerala singer was- “ Mere angaane mem tumara ka kaam hai?”  He repeated the same line quite a few times and one could see a lot of embarrassed faces around.  Amitabh Bachchan gave a bigger bewildered look as if thinking who was this thick skinned crank distorting his famous song. Mr.Bachchan would have never ever turned up for this program if he had expected a  dim-witted oddball shamelessly coming to him and singing, distorting the lyrics and the music of a famous song of his!

Dear SREEKUTTAN-  you could have rehearsed the song and checked the pronunciation of the words in the lyrics before you had started singing it in front of Amitabh Bachchan , the thousands of the audience present at the venue and the millions of TV viewers.  Shame on you M.G. Sreekumar!!  All I can do is pray  -God save Malayalam cinema from these gobbledygooks  …