Brimful Youtubology, the Fatboy Slimification Version

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One of the difficulties in being a non-Christian in a predominantly Christian country is the relentless onslaught of Christmas jingles you hear around this time of the year. The latest culprit in my mindspace is the JCPenney’s ad featuring Bing Crosby’s voice and Fatboy Slim’s beats, which makes for a ridiculously catchy breakbeat version of “Here Comes Santa Claus” (via Tamasha). Earlier, we talked about “Songs for the Sleepless”; this is more like “songs for the hyper-caffeinated.”

The “original” video to the Fatboy Slim song is here, but it’s so bad I actually prefer this Youtube-ified anime remake.

Speaking of Youtube and Fatboy Slim, I was reading a Jon Pareles article about the phenomenon over the weekend, and thinking about the possible desi connections. The paragraph that stood out to me was this one:

In the process, another thing users generate is back talk. Surfing YouTube can be a survey of individual reactions to pop culture: movie and television characters transplanted out of their original plots or synched to improbable songs, pop hits revamped as comedy or attached to new, unauthorized imagery. (Try searching for Justin Timberlake on YouTube to see all the variations, loving and snide, on his single “Sexyback.”) (link)

While Youtube has millions of teenagers doing dance karaoke with varying levels of skill, as far as I can tell the current younger generation of desis hasn’t really taken advantage of it as much as one might expect. Part of the problem, of course, is that there aren’t really very many iconic desi figures to “personalize” (or travesty) to begin with. Probably the biggest mainstream western pop hit by any desi artist, ever, was Cornershop’s “Brimful of Asha.” Though it’s now been nearly a decade since it came out, the song even holds up today, though admittedly the upbeat Fatboy Slim version of it is superior to the original mix of the song. Just as one would expect with any pop song, there are quite a number of personalized karaoke versions of “Brimful of Asha” up at Youtube. My “favorites”:

What strikes me about these and the others I’ve seen is the fact that they’re basically all white kids (and some parents), and as far as I can tell there’s no awareness of the significance of the song, its subject (i.e., Asha Bhosle), or the idea of second generation nostalgia for classic Hindi film music. (Here is a nice old blog post on the song lyrics at Kuro5hin)

All of which is really too bad, because in a way, the song itself, “Brimful of Asha,” is a rock n roll version of exactly the kind of thing Jon Pareles is talking about, albeit in a different medium: it’s an individual reaction to a pop phenomenon, which itself became a pop phenomenon. “She’s the one that keeps the dream alive,/ From the morning, past the evening, till the end of the light.” It was filmi music that kept the dream alive for lots of people during the rough times back in the 1970s, and this catchy guitar pop song — which is not even remotely filmi — is an idiosyncratic attempt to celebrate it.

So here’s what we need: really good Youtube video versions of desi pop artifacts that suggest that the people doing nutty things in front of a camera actually understand the music they’re having fun with. (Perhaps it’s out there already — readers, do enlighten.)

76 thoughts on “Brimful Youtubology, the Fatboy Slimification Version”

  1. Hmm, I found a really funny parody ofsome song with a bunch of desi kids, making gentle fun of parents etc, while searching for Bollywood songs on Youtube. Can’t find it again. Anyone else know what I’m talking about?

  2. This isn’t a threadjack b/c you already started talking about this, so….

    “Christmas” as it’s practiced in the United States is about the least “Christian” thing you could possibly imagine. Nearly everything we associate with it was lifted wholesale from European polytheistic traditions that may themselves have been influenced by Hinduism. Santa Claus particularly. A magical being that brings material wealth and auspiciousness to people who do good? Tell me that doesn’t sound more like Hinduism than Christianity.

    But on top of that you get all sorts of animistic nature worship. Mistletoe, wreaths, and especially the Christmas tree (and what is “decorating the Christmas tree” if not puja?) all come from these old polytheistic traditions.

    None of this is meant to rag on Christmas at all. If anything it makes me love it even more 🙂

    O-of course all this is cold comfort if you’re not Hindu either…

  3. Oh, sorry, what I was thinking with the previous comment is not iconic so much, as the whole parent thing.

  4. The two that come to mind are

    Curry N rice girl (hollaback girl) The ladoo shop (a take on 50 cents candy shop)

  5. Curry N Rice girl…that’s it. It’s better done than the average, “here I am dancing to Bollywood/whatever” song you see on youtube. Ugh.

  7. Hmm, I found a really funny parody ofsome song with a bunch of desi kids, making gentle fun of parents etc, while searching for Bollywood songs on Youtube. Can’t find it again.

    For shame MD. You should be discovering this stuff on SM.

  9. Ohhh, maybe I saw it here first. I’m getting sort of Alzheimerish in my pre-middle age…and no, that’s not the reason I lean right, okay, abhi?

  11. There are 2 different versions of christmas. One is the commercialized version that includes santa and trees and gift giving. The other is the religious one where I get dragged off to church for a three hour service (I’m too scared to tell my family I’m not Christian).

  12. Amardeep -taz had done a story on the hundreds of versions from all over the world of the officially recognized internet phenomenon Tunak Tunak Tun by Daler Mehndi. For some reason, there are quite a lot of Brazilian home videos of people dancing to that song. There are a few desi versions too.

    There is the very popular Mile Sur Mera Tumhara MIT version.

  13. Last week’s “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” had very smart and funny anti-Christmas/Christmas theme running through it, spoken mainly through the voice of a small group of very sceptical writers. (And comments from the cast member played by D.L. Hughley about why did Jesus always get painted so he looked like a Bee Gee or Doug Henning, priceless.) It was most excellent.

  14. Neal/Razib,

    Christmas is a Christianized pagan holiday but the extent of which it has been Christianized suffices to let it simply be called Christian. When people can convert and carry a bit of their “old faith” along, it’s not surprising to see their old customs undergo a bit of conversion itself. Christmas is a palimpsest, the legible portion being Christian but, yes, there is the faint outline of pagan writing beneath. Calling Christmas pagan, however, is disingenuous. It was pagan, long ago, and carries some vestige of such a past, but it is, for intents and purposes, Christian. Not that I oppose non-Christians celebrating Christmas, but I think it makes sense for such people who celebrate it to be honest enough and say that their faith is a smorgesboard of their parents’ faith and western Christianity.

  16. Neal/Razib,

    I should probably follow-up by saying that I do not believe Christmas will stay Christian. Attempts at commercializing and secularizing it are strong and someday will succeed, but that future is distant.

  17. In the States, the “pagan” parts have crowded out nearly all the religious significance. This is part of why I find the whole “Happy Holidays”/”War on Christmas” brouhaha so hilarious. There is very little in modern Christmas celebrations that particularly feels like an endorsement of the faith.

    Christian leaders themselves used to freak out when people would celebrate this way. The Puritans, with their shari’a style view of Christianity, were particularly hostile to it. It’s only been since Victorian times that “respectable” people would do any of this stuff.

  18. Christmas is a palimpsest, the legible portion being Christian but, yes, there is the faint outline of pagan writing beneath. Calling Christmas pagan, however, is disingenuous. It was pagan, long ago, and carries some vestige of such a past, but it is, for intents and purposes, Christian.

    faint?

    the date is that of natalis sol invictus, the birth of the invincible sun, so declared by the emperor aurelian in the late 3rd century. the yule log? nordic phallicism. xmas cookies & gift exchange? these were common practices throughout europe, but both were banned by the medieval church because of their pagan origins. the look of the american santa claus with his reindeer? clearly a nordic god, perhaps a garbling of odin? the ribaldry and merry-making? they were there with solstice and saturnalia. the christmas tree?

    the reality is that christians have long had issues with xmas. the puritans banned it because of its pagan nature. but xmas is celebrated in japan. it is celebrated with gusto in the ‘post-christian’ europe. which christians object to christmas? the most radical and fundamentalist sects who consider it unscriptural (it is).

    yes, it is true that it was accepted that christmas is a celebration of the birth of the christ. christians will admit that the date is made up (it was placed on the 25th to co-opt natalis sol invictus), fundamentally it is a holiday which they imbued with christian essence. why can’t non-christians do the same and turn it into a communal holiday?

  19. Attempts at commercializing and secularizing it are strong and someday will succeed, but that future is distant.

    ? where do you live? where isn’t it commercialized and secularized?

  20. oh, and this part: it is celebrated with gusto in the ‘post-christian’ europe. why is this? because national european cultures poured into xmas their local mid-winter traditions. once christian declined that didn’t mean that they would ditch the pagan custom and rite which forms the heard of xmas practice.

  21. Just to be clear, I don’t think this is a bad thing. Christianity has always impressed me because of its ability to roll with indigenous ideas. As long as practicing people feel fulfilled, I don’t particularly care. But I don’t see Santa Claus and think I should convert either.

  25. We had a Christmas tree with presents and “Santa” until we were “old enough to understand,” and then we stopped. I think I was ten or something. But then, my parents are, and were, pretty laid back about religion. My mother is the most devoutly Hindu and I think the rest of us are ‘culturally’ Hindu, as it were.

    I wonder how many non-Christian desi kids in the West had Christmas trees?

  27. And here‘s the Santa-Claus-look-was-the-result-of-some-marketing-guy-at-Coca Cola legend debunked, with a lot of history….

    In Ireland when I was a kid, he was always a skinny anemic-looking guy in a long, hooded white-trimmed red robe.

  28. Yesterday morning in my subway station, on my commute to work, I saw a woman holding a placard saying “Christ-mas is Devils-mas!” as she sermonized about the ills of the holiday. I really need to carry my camera around daily.

    ALERT! ALERT! PAGING BRIMFUL!

  29. razib_the_atheist @18: excellent history of the absorption of pagan practices by Christian religion. A ton of detail about similar absorption of pagan practices can be found in Robert Graves “The Greek Myths”. Probably you could go back and even see this happen with Hindu tradition, although it gets murky with Aryans coopting Dravidian practices (yep, there was a good deal of animal sacrifice etc.. in TamilNadu way way back). I do have a quibble with “why can’t non-christians do the same and turn it into a communal holiday?”. It seems to say that they are not doing so. Actually, I would argue that non-christians use Christmas to turn it into exactly that. Perhaps the only issue with slow adoption is that the size of a non-christian family (at least in the U.S) in the first generation tends to be relatively small and hence it may not be celebrated with as much fervor. However it seems inevitable that as immigrant families acquire two to three generations worth of baggage, Christmas would become the accepted time during which everyone gets together to have Coffee and Idli (my tradition, maybe not yours) in the morning after a late night hangover from consuming too much Chivas (still, by far the most popular whisky amongst the – hey, i dont know what to call my generation!).

  30. Quizman, I have to say I’m not that excited about the Tunak Tunak mania, mainly for the reason that for the most part the song is meaningless and the comedy people base on it isn’t driven by understanding…

    And on the MC Vikram/Laddoo Shop/Curry n Rice girl phenomenon, it’s also a bit of a letdown. While the Daler Mehndi fad is driven by non-desis mimicking the manic energy of songs like Tunak Tunak, the “FOB” hip hop remixes are driven by a certain kind of self-hatred. (I generally can’t get too excited by ABCDs making fun of Indian accents)

    I like Cornershop better, because at least there’s a sense of dignity there…

  31. I wonder how many non-Christian desi kids in the West had Christmas trees?

    I always thought it was funny when my Jewish friends said “Merry Christmas” to me before the holidays, but I responded “Happy Chanukkah” to them even though saying Merry Christmas to them would have been no less incongrous than them saying it to me. I mean, why didn’t they just wish me a Happy Chanukkah too?

    I’ve always had a Christmas tree until I married my Jewish husband. It’s much more important to Jews to not assimilate by celebrating Christmas than it is to Hindus, I think. We didn’t have a Christmas tree when we lived in India, but we did do presents and a stocking when I was little, mostly I think because we had moved from England and my parents were trying to ease the culture shock. All my desi friends in the US get very into Christmas and usually have a tree.

  32. All my desi friends in the US get very into Christmas and usually have a tree.

    I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood, so I didn’t 😉 That and my parents were thrifty 🙂

  33. “Christmas” as it’s practiced in the United States is about the least “Christian” thing you could possibly imagine.

    Doesn’t every holiday get influenced by the local traditions? America worships consumerism like no other so why expect it to be “Christian”? Whatever that means!

    Almost all the Christian holidays have their roots in pagan culture. Most of the old testament stories are derived from pagan myths of the ancient Mesopotamian cultures. There is no reason for the current traditions live up to some arcane standards.

  34. There is no reason for the current traditions live up to some arcane standards.

    there is a reason if you follow particular religions. as an atheist without religion i don’t have much of an issue of bowing before strange gods or whatever. it’s all show to me. on the other hand, if you are of religious tradition x, you might define your own identity as being exclusive of other traditions. jews do not worship other gods. christmas stinks of that. same for muslims.

    i think it is fine and understandable for religious people to stay away from christmas because of its associations with christianity. my only point is that this is not something where there is yet an established consensus in our society. to some jesus is the reason for the season. for others, not at all. for some the fact that jesus is the reason is a problem, for others, even if they don’t believe in jesus, not at all. what’s in a name? a lot if you think it is the name of god i suppose.

  35. there is a reason if you follow particular religions.

    hehe.. I will have resist temptation to bash religion.. move away from the computer…..

  36. Quizman, one other thing — I just watched the MIT version of Mile Sur and I agree there’s something cool about it. Indian patriotism meets campus pride in Cambridge… interesting.

  37. I just watched the MIT version of Mile Sur and I agree there’s something cool about it. Indian patriotism meets campus pride in Cambridge… interesting.

    that was cool stuff…thanks Amardeep!

  38. If we lose the war on terror, we will be subjected to permanent dhimmitude where Christmas would be banned!

    Ok back to the topic,

    My favorite Christmas song is ’12 days of Christmas’. This Indian version documented before on SM is especially masterful.

  39. Amardeep, how about this?

    I think it qualifies as “Youtube video versions of desi pop artifacts that suggest that the people doing nutty things in front of a camera actually understand the music theyÂ’re having fun with.”

  40. It’s much more important to Jews to not assimilate by celebrating Christmas than it is to Hindus

    In my experience, Jews and Muslims are the only religious minority groups in the US(and perhaps elsewhere) who don’t decorate their house during Christmas/exchange gifts/etc etc. (Secular Jews are an exception). Most Hindus/Jains/Sikhs/Buddhists celebrate it with joy – as they should.

    M. Nam

  41. Channel V used to make great AV mashups in 90s. The lip-synching was scarily perfect. The best one was 2pac singing Hum Kale hai to kya hua dilwale hai (Mehmood / Rafi song). I wish some enterprising soul would put them all on Youtube.

  42. deshishika,

    It’s much more important to Jews to not assimilate by celebrating Christmas than it is to Hindus, I think.

    It’s important to anyone who emulates their parents’ lifestyles. Jews tend to inherit their lifestyle better than 1st gen’ers or immigrants. Immigrants and their progeny are notorious for abdicating “old world” practices, and this is largely due to the large amount of personal transformation needed to succeed in a new country. Alongside the transformation that is necessary often comes transformation that is wanted but not needed. On the other hand, some in India already mingled with highly westernized and staunchly Christian communities (esp. the upper-middle class and upper-class Indians during British rule) and their lineage who migrated here to the U.S. did so without much difficulty or transformation, and their practices as a result did not undergo any voluntary transformation either. I think this is universal, irrespective of motherland. This is partly the reason why 5th generation descendants of wealthy Europeans who move to the U.S. keep non-Anglo names like “Paaveli” whereas their counterparts whose money could not buy assimilation have descendants with indistinguishable Anglo names like “Christine”. Mandatory transformation begets voluntary transformation, at least Ataturk believed so.

  44. Jews tend to inherit their lifestyle better than 1st gen’ers or immigrants.

    there are two points i would like to add to this

    1) there was an enormous change in lifestyle for eastern european jews who arrived in the USA insofar as they transitioned between the two dominant forms of european judaism, frum ‘orthodox’ religiosity and the secular Zeitgeist, toward the more ‘christianized’ reform and conservative sects of american judaism, which allowed one to be non-secular & non-orthodox. this suggests that the resilience of american judaism is in part a function of its evolution in the american matrix.

    2) the outmarriage rates for jews is conservatively estimated to be 30%, and perhaps as much as 50%, today. in the early 1960s it was 10%. so the past generation has witnessed an enormous transformation in the american jewry because of the frequency of exogamy. 1st generation immigrants usually have lower rates of exogamy if their numbers are great. the data from american born south asians suggests really high rates of exogamy for such a new community, the rates that took eastern european jews to hit in 3 generations the gen-2 have already hit. we’ll see if the younger set who aren’t the offspring of the 1965-1980 cohort are different.

  45. Great Ganesha, you’re right — the IITK song is pretty decent. And the images of the campus are interesting to look at.

    It’s intriguing that these “earnest” music videos are made either by students in India or international students at U.S. campuses. Second genners seem to mainly make ironic music or remixes.

    BTW, the first minute of this Penn Masala video is pretty decent.

  48. It’s important to anyone who emulates their parents’ lifestyles. Jews tend to inherit their lifestyle better than 1st gen’ers or immigrants.

    Yes, but for Hindus, having a Christmas tree doesn’t necessarily equate to assimilation, perhaps because of their polytheistic beliefs. Most of the Christmas tree decorating Hindus I know are quite Indian-ified and don’t plan on marrying a non-Hindu, unlike my husband who married me.

    so the past generation has witnessed an enormous transformation in the american jewry because of the frequency of exogamy.

    Razib I wish you wouldn’t keep supporting the notion that exogamy is to blame for the “enormous transformation in the american jewry”. Maybe they married exogamously because they were already assimilated. It’s that idea that causes jews who intermarry to move further away from their religion–they’ve already been written off and feel excluded from the fold so they might as well celebrate Christmas, name their kids Christopher and Christine, and eat pork. It’s a chicken and the egg issue, and I don’t understand why you have the same take as Orthodox and Conservative Jews. If exogamy is such a big deal then there needs to be an acceptance of it so it doesn’t lead to people becoming areligious. “The marriage between a Jew and non-Jew is not a celebration for the Jewish community”, is a statement made by the Conservative MovementÂ’s Joint Commission on Response to Intermarriage. This is directly related to the idea that intermarriage results in the loss of cultural/relgious identity, but I don’t think you can prove that it’s not the other way around, i.e., people losing their cultural/religous identity are intermarrying. Personally, I don’t think it’s either.

  50. “Yes, but for Hindus, having a Christmas tree doesn’t necessarily equate to assimilation, perhaps because of their polytheistic beliefs. Most of the Christmas tree decorating Hindus I know are quite Indian-ified and don’t plan on marrying a non-Hindu, unlike my husband who married me.”

    absolutely. if you ask a Hindu whether decorating a tree with ornaments equates to being a Christian, they would likely look at you like you dont understand. It is precisely because of their polytheistic beliefs that Hindus – to use the right word – are so accepting (not assimilate). That is not germane to ones plans on marrying a non-hindu. It is perfectly plausible that the issues of life after death or fire and brimstone have to be dealt with when one is cozily in the urn, but the reality is that the same issues have to be dealt with on a day to day basis right here on planet earth. There are some who like to negotiate every implicit assumption and those who would prefer not to – whether they think of it that way or not. The obvious risk in marrying outside between equals is exactly the same as marrying within. Unless there is flexibility and compromise there is little chance for success.

    “If exogamy is such a big deal then there needs to be an acceptance of it so it doesn’t lead to people becoming areligious.” Not that there is anything wrong with that. The Hindus have their backs up against the wall primarily because of multi-pronged siege by other religions. You will find a number of Hindus who can easily separate in their mind the “religious” aspect from the “way of life” aspect. It is when their religion comes under attack that they push back, just as any other religious order would. Unlike most other religions though, the Hindu religion does not seek to control its followers or force itself down their throat. I am, naturally, thankful for that huge and glaring weakness in it, even knowing full well the painful history we have had to undergo because of this polytheistic tolerance.