OPINION: A song that burns, a society that sinks

Last Updated on Tuesday, 13 May 2025, 21:41 by Writer

by GHK Lall

I am often amazed at some of the things that come out of some people’s heads. It might be quite accurate to say that I have this in the wrong order. Because it is what goes into people’s heads, takes root in their minds, and then finds life outside of those poisoned realms. Of the jolting and obscene, about which anyone in his or her right mind has to know will not go down well. In this instance, it is a song, the lyrics of which are insulting to a senior Hindu deity, Lakshmi. It is starting off on the wrong foot, with the wrong ideas, and ending up in the worst of places – a zone that is the home of the dead or, worse yet, the living dead: the deranged.

Even in the most incorrect of times, the loosest of times, to write lines that blight another man’s God or goddess is falling off the deep end, a sure way to prompt a world of anger to erupt. It brings the proverbial ton of bricks down on one’s head. What else can it bring? Surely, not applause? What does that sell, or is hoped to sell? It takes an extraordinarily negligent composer to venture where that song did. Maybe, negligent is being too charitable, too much out-of-place kindness that doesn’t help in any way, but hurts in more ways. Of a thousand dreams and inspirations for the words of a song, it had to be one that attempted to drag a deity down to a tawdry level. Something is missing here. I would venture more than a few screws need adjusting.

The license of an artist, one that is usually self-ascribed? Or the licentiousness of a mind that is obsessed with what titillates the flesh? Was it the flair of a showman, or one showing that there is no care, no readiness to be respectful of what is off-limits, and that there are certain places, and certain issues that are sacred? Meaning, there was the haste to kick at the iconic, so as to generate a groundswell of controversial interest. How could the words written not rise to the level of the controversial, the distasteful, the unacceptable, the utterly vulgar? Surely, for an artist, there can’t be that level of unconsciousness, that absence of social awareness, which in this instance crossed a fateful line, and profaned the inviolable. What will the authorities do? Can they do anything in this instance? But if there is going after a man for a song that definitely offends, then what about those who offend the dignity and peace of women? Much has been made of this lyricist, and rightly so, but Guyanese cannot be so one-eyed, and one eared, in that they see what they want to see, and hear what they want to hear.

There must have been some madness stirring inside that convinced that whatever comes, it is going to be worth it. Yet, there seems to be more than a moment of temporary insanity in this mixture of words and sounds. I am still trying to wrap my arms around how and from what roots. But life in more recent times has provided more than ample opportunity that emphasizes and reemphasizes a curious condition. It is incomprehensible to me, but there are too many these days that want that kind of attention, and are very eager to instigate it, so that they can revel in it. Not surprisingly, there are those who would feel good to do anything (no matter what is required) so that they can collect money from their sleaze-filled handiwork, such output of the mind that the world now looks upon as sick. Writers do it, so it is not such a stretch for songwriters to experiment with their mind and their pen. It is a sickness of some strange sort, with some stranger, rarer, virus that just cannot be resisted. My hope is that that virus is not contagious, has run its course. And if not, that it charts a course that is distant from where I stand.

This is what Guyanese, particularly those in the Hindu community must now come to grips with, wonder about its origins, cast their mind and ask themselves what could be next. A song for a pocketful of sixpence, or otherwise. Could there be more in the making, that’s more of a concern, and less a question? Who is so sickly, so mentally unhinged, to craft such things, then to be thrilled by it? I hesitate to condemn for taint comes. For through such action, there is risk of getting too close to what’s putrefying. But condemn I must, and in the strongest, most unambiguous terms. Some things just cannot be allowed to pass by unattended or unaddressed. There is that duty that must not be shirked, regardless of who is involved, what results. In a society that is hanging together by the slenderest of strings, the last development that it needs is the straw of another controversy. A vile one to add to all the vile ones that have been experienced before, some old, some new. Guyana can ill-afford developments of this nature. Hopefully sober heads, cleaner minds, will command the days ahead.