While the entire nation is reeling under the imposition of Hindi, Indians living in London, UK, seem to have taken the language battles to another new level!
Oscar-award winning composer AR Rahman and his team, including sisters AR Reihana, Isshrathquadhre, as well as singers Benny Dayal, Haricharan, Jonita Gandhi, and Neeti Mohan performed at the ‘Netru Indru Naalai’ concert last week at the SSE arena in Wembley, London.
ARR sharing the stage with the organisers.
Indians, especially from the North, were seemingly dissatisfied with the songs that were performed at the do. Several put up hate tweets against ARR about giving more importance to Tamil songs — and not Hindi, which is the language a majority of Indians living in London speak.
When the organisers of the show tried to prove by posting the track list, the controversy was blown out of proportion. With social media arguments breaking out left, right and centre, several celebs and singers (especially from Kollywood) from the industry have also gotten involved in the debate and voiced their opinions on language politics. DC talks to the organisers of the event, few of the concert attendees and singers to delve more into this issue...
Keshini with AR Rahman
One of the organisers of the event, on the condition of anonymity, says, “We carefully curated the track list with 16 Hindi songs and 14 Tamil songs. Even while performing in Chennai, AR Rahman sir performs in a similar style. He did the same at Wembley as well! He is a universal hero and doesn’t have any language barriers. I’ve organised a lot of concerts earlier; during one that happened in O2, it courted controversy in a similar fashion. People tried to push this concert as a Hindi event for some reason. There is no language specification — it is an Indian show and he is an Indian musician.”
Gautam Vaidya, a software engineer, brought up in the UK, was caught in the turmoil when he expressed his dissatisfaction online. Explaining his position, Gautam elaborates, “I didn’t expect my tweet to go international with over 10,000 impressions on Twitter. It was put up in the heat of the moment and my intent is not to involve in Indian politics. I am tired of the abuse and ashamed of my fellow Indians for their behaviour.”
Singer Nikhita Gandhi, who has sung a handful of songs under ARR’s composition, says she doesn’t see a reason as to why people had to walk out of Rahman’s concert — “I don’t really agree to both the sides. Of course, people have the right to walk out of a concert, but I don’t really understand the reason behind it. With Rahman sir starting his journey in Tamil, many Hindi songs are the remakes of his works from Tamil. I kind of admire the people behind this controversy, but I hope their effort is directed towards something meaningful. People should relax and enjoy the music,” she sighs.
Gautam also feels that the goof-up may have been due to poor advertising. “The posters shown around UK were in English with the title being ‘Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow’. Even the media outlets advertised in Hindi and English, which catered to a large group of people. Only the south Indian outlets promoted the show as ‘Netru Indru Naalai’. I only heard that phrase in replies on Twitter after the event. If they had kept the original Tamil name, we would have known straightaway,” he shares.
On the other hand, another attendee Keshini Turairaj reveals that when AR Rahman held a concert in 2015, he sang more Hindi songs than Tamil! “In 2015, when he went to O2, he sang only four Tamil hits to be precise — but that never became an issue within the Tamil people; they didn’t walk out!” she adds.
Singer Chinmayi Sripada also voiced her opinion on social media against those who walked out of the concert.
“It is shameful that Indians would walk out of a concert because the entire concert didn’t have Hindi. Let us remember that music needs no language. I guess the identity of language (also caste / community) doesn’t leave the average Indian even as he chases the American / European/ British dream, (sic)” she had written.
