T-Series just released Masakali 2.0; but why? Why ruin another classic AR Rahman song?

While the original song, penned by Prasoon Joshi, plays on the metaphor of a carefree pigeon of the same name whilst drawing parallels with Sonam Kapoor's chirpy Bittu from Delhi-6 (2009), this disgraceful rehash titled Masakali 2.0 cares about no metaphor and openly flaunts it's ambition to get views on the back of the original's popularity.

What's more enraging is that butcher Bagchi has even done away with the old lyrics and decided to pen some himself. Being the poet that he is, he must've thought the beats created by the carefully chosen words in the original doesn't make sense for the clubs and party-crowd (the question is which club is open and how is anybody partying during a nationwide lockdown), so it appears he googled "what Hindi/Urdu words end with -ali?" and came up with this celebral hook:   

Masakali masakali tu kahan chali kahan chali 
Masakali masakali kahan teri gali teri gali 

Main masakali, masakali 
Main chali chali chali chali  
Main masakali, masakali 
Main chali chali chali chali

But this is hardly half the story. The song clearly exists to serve the music video. The all-important video has Student of the Year alumni and once-rumoured beaus Siddharth Malhotra and Tara Sutaria intentionally resemble their insufferable characters from the outrageous 'Marjaavaan'. 

The reason why anybody would invoke that assault-on-the-senses masqueraded as a feature film is beyond us, but since it has happened in this music video, we have to live with the consequences. 

To be honest the video lives up to the legacy of 'Marjaavaan' by looking like deleted footage from the film, while the film itself "plays out like an an assembly line of NG takes from unreleased Sanjay Gupta shorts," as critic Rahul Desai had remarked. 

On a serious note, Masakali 2.0 marks another entry in the current trend of disgusting music videos made to milk the popularity of classic songs. If you play this video simultaneously with the 'Urvashi' remix by Yo Yo Honey Singh or Tanish Bagchi's slaughter of another AR Rahman classic 'Humma Humma', you will feel that you're listening to one song. 

T-Series' formula of making hit videos: 

1. Hire Tanishq Bagchi (won't be surprised if he is on their payroll by now).
2. Add unnecessary beats to a classic song.
3. Make sure he tampers the song just enough so you can use the title of the old song and add a '2.0'
4. Hire struggling but hot stars like Siddharth Malhotra, Jacqueline Fernandez, Aditya Roy Kapoor or Kiara Advani to feature in the video
5. Use the same sets as 'Humma Humma' remix from 'OK Jaanu', and change the lighting 
6. Put a bed as part of the set to imply intercourse and keep the audience hooked. 
7. Put out a teaser, so people can prepare their ears for the impending assault
8. Release the video with apparently 'trending' buzzwords like 'Quaranlove' (like quarantine, sillly)
9. Use the articles and tweets by the enraged fans to garner more views and keep PewDiePie away from the YouTube crown
10. Voila! You've got your latest moneygrab.

Though the video has already amassed more than 461,000 views on YouTube, going by social media reaction, it has not sat well with the fans. 

Here are some reactions: