Gaana artists on a song, lens on crime they trigger

Yet, these are not regular Gaana songs; and the visuals and lyrics normalise crimes such as drug abuse, snatchings, murders and criminal assaults. The Mittai Song for instance (Mittai means drug here) has a whopping 2.3 crore views.

Greater Chennai Police have cracked down and blocked 100 such songs on YouTube, but there are still many online. Madhavaram Deputy Commissioner E Sundaravathanam says these songs are repeatedly watched by youth who in turn get misled to commit crimes. “Most of the songs have got 3-4 lakh views and some even over one crore. For want of more revenue, these gaana singers come up with more such songs without realising the harm caused to society,” says the officer.

While the song Moolaiya Mayakkun Dammu normalises smoking ganja, the other song Sana Pudicha Kathi romanticises murder with gory visuals of slitting one’s throat with sharp machetes. The Mittai song shows how to buy tablets for drug abuse and indulge in snatching to get money to buy drugs. There is another song titled ‘75 vs 307’ portraying the enmity between small-time offenders and assault accused. If you wonder what the title means, the small-time offenders are booked under Section 75 of the City Police Act, while accused in major assault cases are booked for attempted murder, usually Section 307 of IPC.

Some of the words used in the song may not make sense to commoners since they are the slang among the offenders. Mittai means tablets, while periya-dum or keerai or potlam refer to ganja. Kissa means stupor, ice is the term for cool lip, Simili is for pipe and thadi is used to refer to police. Atti is known as hangout spots, while bommai, porul, kokki and saaman refer to weapons.

Police unearthed the ‘creative’ side of the crime world after many crime suspects arrested in various cases had such songs on their phone and as Instagram reels and WhatsApp status messages. On further investigation they were shocked to find hundreds of such songs on YouTube with a strong viewership.

The Madhavaram Deputy Commissioner recently held a meeting with all the gaana singers and popular gaana singer Gaana Bala counselled them that such songs would portray the gaana culture in a bad light. “Many agreed to remove the content. We are planning to initiate action against others,” says the officer.

“They do not know anything about the gaana culture. About 75 per cent of the gaana songs are about death and only the remaining songs are about life and other experiences. Those who gained popularity on social media are poisoning society in the name of gaana songs,” says Gaana Bala, known for his songs in Pizza, Atta Kathi and Vada Chennai movies.