‘Why this Kolaveri Di' goes Arabic

Dubai/Chennai: From Tokyo to Auckland and Punjab to Pakistan, the multilingual phenomenon Why This Kolaveri Di has inspired dozens of versions outside its homeland India. Picking up the baton in the region is Faez Zahoor Choudhary, whose Saudi version of the hit song has already been heard 829,903 times on YouTube.

A Pakistani from Lahore based in Riyadh, Choudhary uploaded his rendition on December 21. His version, unlike the original which is about failed love, is based on sponsorship issues faced by expatriates.

The original song, the soundtrack of the Tamil film 3, is sung in Tanglish (a portmanteau of Indian regional language Tamil and English) by South Indian actor Dhanush and composed by Anirudh Ravichander.

"I am blessed that my debut song has gone global and feel privileged to be a part of this phenomenon called Kolaveri," Anirudh told Gulf News yesterday.

"In fact I like many of the other versions more than the original now," he said, stressing: "I don't make any money out of the different versions [but] I don't feel bad about it because this song has taken me places."

Mythily Ramachandran is a Chennai-based journalist.