Absurd Lagelu

Albert Camus asked why a man might choose to end his life. Pawan Singh answered: because she looked too damn good.

In The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus posits that there is only one true human conundrum, and that is suicide. All other questions are superficial. Many years later, the Bhojpuri philosopher Pawan Singh, in his sublime song Lollipop Lagelu, ponders the same question but in a more playful way when his protagonist sings: “Design dekh ke mann karata ki, chapakal mein kud ke jaan de dihi.”

For the philistines who don’t understand the finest language created to express human thoughts, that translates to: “Looking at your outfit, I feel like jumping into the shallow-bore water pump and giving up my life.”

So while Camus wondered what could drive a man to voluntarily shuffle off his mortal coil, Singh posits that true love is so beautiful that it’s like crossing the bridge between life and death.

Sadly, while Camus is celebrated for his intellect and heaped with Nobels and such, Pawan Singh is relegated to the dustbins of intellect, not even worthy of a BJP ticket.

It is a reminder of how the post-colonial world order continues to crush the subaltern for using a medium that doesn’t have the highbrow intellectual’s affection to express philosophical ideas. Worse still, the deep subversive symbolism of Singh’s work is lost on those jacked into the post-colonial simulacra. Take the chorus line — “Arrah heele, Chapra heele, lagelu tu lipstick”.

To the untrained ear, this might sound like rustic erotica. But in truth, it is a tribute to Galileo, who, after being forced to recant the truth under duress, is said to have muttered: “E pur si muove” — “And yet it moves.” Singh too, under censorship and class contempt, whispers the same thing: Arrah moves. Chapra moves. And so does truth.