Sunday 15 June 2014

WORLDCUP, SONGWRITING & OTHER MADNESS


As soon as I decide "Susan Sajan, it's high time that you put all your focus into your studies", the whole universe starts its conspiracy toward Mission-Distracting-Susan. And it happens every single time, without fail. Recently about 3 months ago, after spending the appropriate number of days mourning over my results I'd made such a decision and to give my studies a kick start I went and joined a crash-course at Ernakulam. The plan was to put my most serious face forward, keep a low profile, attend it with utmost sincerity and return home with one subject less to prepare. And then the conspiracy hit me in the form of one Pramod and one Midhun. Till then everything was going on as per my plan i.e. I was able to follow most of what the faculty was teaching, my note taking was quite satisfactory and somehow suprisingly my usual tendency to sleep during the most important areas of the lecture was gone too and now and then, when I did get a little bored, before I could start the cycle of shitbored-chronicyawning-can'tstopfallingdeadonthedeskasleep, Jithu my old friend would make some wise crack about something and I'd get all fresh and back to being all attentive.


During one such self assumed minibreak of Jithu and mine, these two kids P & M who were at that time sitting in the row right in front of us, turned backwards and started talking to me unpromted. P started introducing himself and his friend M
"Hello, I am...blah blah blah.. we co-founded Creative Articles...blah blah blah... I overheard you people discuss about some blog...So you write right?"
I wasn't sure how to respond to them so I just raised my eyebrows and gave them my signature blank stare. Coz not only were these two interfereing in our private chat, they were facing backwards, showing a blatant disregard for the poor faculty standing in the front straining his throat trying to simplify negative list (service tax) for us. But these fellows, totally ignoring my disinterest to continue with the conversation in the middle of the lecture went on...
"We were thinking of doing a World Cup Anthem, you do know about the World Cup coming up in June right?"
I nodded.
"But we aren't very good with words and was trying to get someone to do the lyrics for us, will you consider doing it?"
I felt it all a bit too much to ask of a stranger, so I politely refused saying I was neither a huge World Cup fan nor a poet/lyricist and ended it with a polite half smile. They acknowledged my disinterest this time, accepted my refusal, returned my half smile and turned forward once again. Then we all went back to attending to the class and  I resumed to taking notes thinking I'd successfully shooed away the distractions coming in the way of my understanding the negative list.

Later, when we were out having lunch at McD, Jithu briefed me about this "Creative Articles" and those two fellows P & M and their background, like their short film on Auditing Standards, Maveli video etc. He assured me they were just two harmless kids and that I looked stupid trying to scare them off with my shade throwing. So from then on I eased up on them a bit and soon we were getting along well. They checked up my blogs and I in turn watched their kolaveri video the theme of which was similar to this post of mine. Despite the initial hiccup there was something spontaneous about this new friendship there is no denying that. But I continued attending classes my style and they continued in their style, making a lot of hulabula in their huge gang and snacking during the class. On the last day alone I let myself get a bit distracted to give some small inputs for the farewell song they were writing for the faculty. After that we all wished each other the best for the coming exams and did byebyes and I came back home and thought that was that.

I was wrong I don't how I didn't see it coming. Few weeks later when Pitbull n JLo released their FIFA world cup video they messaged me about it asking me to check it out. I did. Then they again asked me whether I'd reconsider doing the lyrics. They didn't seem to care for the reasons I already gave them. Infact they made it quite clear that they were desperate and it didn't matter what nonsense I wrote as long as it rhymed, coz they just couldn't find anybody else to write for them. So I gave it a second thought. Football... hmm... Appa was a great footballer in his good old days, but he'd twisted his ankle and lay bedridden for 4-5months playing in an inter-university game. I myself had upon playing ball in mud and water during the rains, got nasty looking rashes on my legs which had stayed on stubbornly for quite a while. So naturally I had this feeling that football and I weren't meant to be. But they weren't ready to accept my refusal this time, stubborn fellows, wouldn't give me any piece of mind. And thus I sat down and came up with some sloppy lines for the song. I messaged it to them. They were happy. Now that I'd given them what they wanted, they'd leave me alone for the next few months till my exams that was our agreement, the thought of being left alone made me happy.

Flash forward, as soon as our exams got over they along with their team Creative Articles composed and recorded the song, made a video and put it on youtube. (check it out here) As the recording and all the major work were done at Thrissur I missed out on all the fun part as I was sitting at home watching the world cup on tv and only getting an occassional update of their progress with the song.

As it stands P, M and team Creative Articles think of me as godsent. I don't know, wrong time wrong place I'd say. There was some upside to all this madness, I wont deny that. I got the tag of 'desi-football-song girl' in my friends circle, some newspaper articles, fm interviews and two really stubborn self imposing awesome new friends. But sometimes I wonder what they would have to say if they knew that I was actually thinking about my exams and preparation while writing those lyrics and just put words like football and stadium to make it sound more footballey!

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