It
started as a joke. A bad joke. The kind you make when you’re an Indian American
kid and you hear the Hindi word mehboob and giggle.
I
wasn’t even sure how to explain the Westernization of a Tamil song until I
came across this word: mondegreen – the
misinterpretation of a line or lyric due to homophony (like-sounding words).
A
modern mondegreen – Benny Lava is what happens when a bored teenager comes
across Kollywood stars Prabhu Deva (Sundaram) and Jaya Sheel dancing on a hill, and then decides to
interpret the scene. The result oscillates somewhere between
“This
is not a translation,” warns You Tube user Buffalax in the video. “This is what
I believe the song sounds like in English.”
Caution: The video is not politically correct, it isn’t PG rated, and it absolutely makes fun of Indian song and dance. But it is hilarious.
Watch.
More
than 10,612,623 views later--more than twice as many as Obama's race speech, and about the same number as Lil Wayne's Lollipop--the Benny Lava You Tube video is a pop-culture
reference, a Facebook phenomenon, a household stay-in-your-head-all-day tune. It's quite possibly one of the most popular bits of "Indian" film culture to have crossed over into the West.
The
love song, originally called “Kalluri Vaanil,” is now simply “Crazy Indian Song.”
Prabhu Deva’s sweet nothings have been transformed into “My loony bin is fine, Benny
Lava,” “Someday I sell DNA,” and my personal favorite: “I put papaya there.”
The popularity catapulted beyond the original Buffalax post and into blogs, ring tones, Web sites and other mondegreen-ed songs.
Benny
Lava is now its own Web site. Dozens have analyzed
lyrics, translations and the stars of the actual song. Andrew Sullivan blogged it at The Atlantic. New
attempts with Hindi and Telugu songs have popped up on You Tube, usually
subjected to criticism and a “this is a poor man’s Benny Lava” reaction.
Any doubters of Benny Lava’s success should be directed to Benny Lava’s fan apparel, an array of clothes, house wares and intimate apparel. Who wouldn’t want a t-shirt that asks “Who put the goat in there?”
Earlier on SAJAforum:
