IPL Jeeteyenge Kochi Tuskers

A peppy song by Malayalam playback singer Anitha Shaiq has been a hit on You Tube

By Shevlin Sebastian

“Ah, ah, IPL Jeeteyenge Kochi Tuskers Kerala,” sings Anitha Shaiq, as she dances in the sunlight, wearing sunshades, jeans and bright red sneakers, and is backed by a group of male dancers.

It is a peppy number and, mimicking the trademark MTV style, the images flash by in seconds. A double-decker bus goes past, a Kings XI Punjab batsman hits a ball, S. Sreesanth bowls a yorker, while a group of young motorcycle riders hold aloft orange Kochi Tusker team flags.

Anita has uploaded this video on You Tube and in the past few days it has received a few thousand hits. Type ‘IPL Jeeteyenge Kochi Tuskers + Anitha’ to see it.

The idea came to her when Anitha, a keen cricket fan, went to the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium at Kochi for the Tuskers’ first match on April 9 and was disappointed by the meagre turnout. “That was when I decided to do a song, to encourage the team,” she says. Anitha came home, wrote the lyrics, in a mix of Hindi, English, and Malayalam words, so that the song could be appreciated by a wider audience, and set the music.

“It has a fast beat, and I have incorporated the chenda (Kerala drums), Western instruments, like the guitar, and rap music,” she says.

Incidentally, Anitha is no rookie. She is an established Malayalam playback singer with numerous hits like ‘Oh Mama Chandamama’ in the movie, ‘Rock 'n Roll’, and ‘When I am with you, I lose my heart’ from ‘2 Harihar Nagar’. So far, she has sung in 40 films.

But she might continue to sing songs of her own. “In the Tuskers song I was able to express my creativity,” she says. “In playback singing, we have to follow what the music director says.”

(The New Indian Express, Cheenai and Delhi)