INDIE
REVIEWS
SHREYA BOSE
MAIN KAUN HOON
(KETAN MOHITE):
The most oft repeated artistic themes are the ones that sink their teeth in the deepest.
How often have you heard, in song or poem, “Who am I?” In a world in which salaries
keep getting fatter, and our time keeps getting parcelled out in exchange, the question
goes from a whisper in our sleep to an unceasing drone invading every waking hour.
You’d think that after all this time, Ketan Mohite wouldn’t have to ask this question.
But he does, and in sufficiently pleasant fashion. There isn’t anything particularly
remarkable, but you agree with everything being crooned. The video utilises familiar
tropes of about-to-die-but-not-yet romance, freedom from corporate drudgery and
abandoning oneself to a life of altruism to drive home an idea that everyone is aware of
and does not pay attention to.
The song is an adequate debut, and one can hope that Mohite will continue to keep at
representing undismissable truths, but perhaps with more to keep them memorable.
GOTTA SAY THE NEWS
(PURPLE PENCHANT):
A man wearing a cringe-and-terror
inducing baby mask sprints around
India, blinding people and turning them
into white-eyed zombies, by virtue of his
pointedly phallic pichkari.
This effective dystopia is built in less than
5 minutes by Avik Roy under the nom de
plume Purple Penchant. He bares fangs
at the Indian mainstream media, at it's
worship of the eye-ball grabbing headlines,
and it's lack of concern for the suffering of
the disenfranchised.
The lyrical content reads more like slam
poetry, and takes precedence over the
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musical arrangement. It satirises the state
of Indian journalism, which is represented
as little more than a sardonic chuckle. The
impossibility of pursuing the once revered
purpose of journalism with any honesty
is touted, with non-negotiable emphasis
being placed on counting coins instead of
representing human life.
Purple Penchant definitely portrays
the potential to become a strident voice
of dissent, which is always a welcome
addition to the artistic repertoire of any
democracy. There is much to untangle in
his rhetoric, and one can only hope to hear
more often from this incipient firebrand.