BY CLARA A RODRIGUES | NT NETWORK
What was originally intended to be a jilted lover’s lament, Kolaveri Di is turning out to be an anthem of political parties across Goa. Kolaveri in Tamil means murderous rage.

With each party adding, its own variant twist, the song has undergone a change in musical configuration and lyrics. But, the distinct flavour of the original remains.
Sidhanath Buyao, who has released a CD of songs with political themes, says that the ‘Why worry, don’t worry, vote tuzo … di’ was written while he was recording his music album in Mumbai. Saiesh Panandikar, the lyricist of the song, says, “We had some time before we could record the next song for the album. That is when we thought of singing a song for our friend who is aspiring for the Fatorda Congress ticket. After recording it, we uploaded it on Facebook and got a good response.”
For Sidhanath, this is not the first time he has composed songs on a political theme. A recent CD of his ‘Udargaticho hatt’ is being played at campaigns. Two of the songs are arranged in the ‘kantar’ styles, of all the songs, he calls ‘Jai ho Digambar’ to be the catchier of the lot.
“Music is an effective medium to convey a message. Music has been a common feature of all revolutions that have taken place around the world. People like it better than a speech,” maintains Saiesh.
Not far behind is the BJP, who have also come with their variant called ‘Kamlavarak di’. The aberration goes like this:
‘Mining colour red red
Corruption bad bad
Government not bothered
Goan people sad sad’
The spokesperson for the BJP, Mr Vishnu Surya Wagh says “I always like to experiment. This song had mass appeal, especially with the youngsters. Our version got a tremendous response from all.” The song highlights the various problems besieging Goans.
Alongside ‘Kamlavarak di’, Mr Wagh has also released a multi-lingual CD in Konkani, Marathi, English and Hindi which has also a ‘kantar’ ‘Nit Montin dor, Mhojea mogall Goenkara’ in it.
For the party song writers, riding on the popularity of songs does not give rise to issues of copyright violation. Mr Wagh says, “We have not done this for a professional purpose or gain. It’s mainly to carry a message. A copyright violation takes places if you copy the exact lyrics, same chords and music set-up. Ours is different, in fact, we have used different instruments like the tabla and clarinet in the song.”
Dhanush’s ‘Kolaveri Di’, may be a rant of baloney, with only a few syllabic coherent lines, but political parties have managed to give it some meaning by injecting it with jibes at their political opponents.