A Malayalam song-and-dance item that went viral to earn no less than 800 lakh hits worldwide is suddenly off the YouTube, though the video-sharing website continues to carry a handful of unofficial versions of the hit number that gives a funnily new-age touch to Kerala’s folk song culture.
Jimikki-Kammal, as the 3.15-minute clip that largely shows young women and men clapping hands and frolicking in rhythm is known, has been removed from YouTube following copyrights issues, media reports said on Friday. The 2017 ditty was conceived as a promotional video for a Malayalam movie and was released on August 16, a fortnight ahead of the Mohanlal-starrer hit the theatres.
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The 160-minute film Velipadinte Pusthakam did well by grossing Rs 3.72 crore on the opening day at the Kerala box office, but it is the introductory adjunct Jimikki Kammal thatwent on to conquer global fame. Within a month after its upload on YouTube, the video began topping the charts and earning fans in the faraway coast of Japan, Africa and America among non-Indian populations as well. This week, buffs found the official version of Jimikki Kammal having been removed from YouTube.
The Malayalam media subsequently reported the reason: a private television channel owns the copyright for the movie, while the song had been uploaded on to YouTube by another private company. As the TV channel filed a complaint, Jimikki Kammal was pulled off its platform.
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An unofficial version of Jimikki Kammal
From the country’s south, Jimikki Kammal has been a global hit after the 2012 Tamil song Kolaveri. Sung by actor-director Dhanush, the official video of that four-minute soundtrack for a psychological thriller has clocked 1,530 lakh views till date.
Jimikki Kammal, too, sticks to a medium pace, keeping its music simple. Rendered by actor Vineeth Srinivasan along with singer Ranjith Unni, Jimikki Kammal is composed by Shaan Rahman who has been in the field of 12 years now.
In the official video, the song features college students dancing in their classroom and corridors, much to the amusement of the onlookers and to the irritation of the vice-principal (actor Salimkumar) seen walking past in a hurry. While most of the men in shirts wear pants, the others are seen with the ethnic mundu tied round their waist. The mostly churidar-clad women are in equal participation in the frenzy, as the camera also pans out to the broader campus and its leafy pockets. In between are scenes of men engaging in what potentially look like both the start of a clash but soon end up as happy pranks played against each other. Towards the end of the fun song is seen Mohanlal, riding into the campus on a bicycle. The superstar is their new vice-principal.
Jimikki Kammal spawned quite a few videos that used its engaging music and beats. The lyrics revel in mundaneness, opening with lines that mean “My pop stole my mom’s earrings; my mom drank his bottle of brandy”. The most striking among the imitational videos turned out to be one led by a young teacher of a Kochi college. Sheril G. Kadavn, who trains students in accounting at the Indian School of Commerce in the state’s biggest city, has her version beginning with boys sitting in rows and tapping on the chairs, while facing the women doing the jig. The women uniformly wear off-white sarees but have their blouses worn in different colours, while for the men in shirts it’s the mundu that has various shades.
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In a week, the Sheril video alone got 80 lakh views on the Internet.
