Yesterday, a grimy video with a bling-free indian rapper became one of the most watched music videos on YouTube in india. kaisa mera desh that markets itself as the 'unofficial CWG ANTHEM' says there's nothing to be happy about

While music composer AR Rahman's Commonwealth theme song took a nosedive in the thick of scandals and controversy, a little known music artiste's creation hit popularity charts yesterday on YouTube, gradually gaining mileage as the 'unofficial Commonwealth Games anthem'.

City-based rapper Young Prozpekt slams the CWG in his Hindi song

Yeh kaisa mera desh jisme garibi ka boj, yeh kaisa mera desh jisme mar rahein hai log? asks 23 year-old Mumbai-based rapper Krishna Kaul (he likes to be known as Young Prozpekt). He says the song serves to "vent frustration and embarrassment that we Indians have been subjected to in the last few weeks."

Shot in the bylanes of Dharavi, the grubby, but slick video has Kaul rap in between flashes of men lazily brushing their teeth in chawl balconies. "The idea came to me after the television coverage I watched over the last month on the CWG. It left me frustrated and shaken up," he says in a telephonic interview to The GUIDE.
"It's such a big joke! And then the authorities want to pep us up with anthems and helium balloons. So, I decided to write a song that talks about reality, instead."

Although you won't find more than a line in the song referring to the games (they say the games were failing coz it was really raining! Yea right!), the angst-ridden lyrics make a generous dig at dirty politics, corruption, an indifferent youth community and rampant poverty.

"CWG was only an impetus. The song speaks of most issues that plague our country, issues that are far bigger than this one scandal," says Kaul. Donning the atypical rapper cap and hooded jacket (minus the bling), Kaul raps in Hindi, making Kaisa Mera Desh a recipe for reaching out to a larger audience. "What's the point of singing if you reach out to just a slice?" says Kaul, who first started rapping when he a 14 year-old teenager in London.
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He admits it was a move to help him find acceptance among teenagers there. He 'made the switch' from English to Hindi four years ago. Although this is the first song that comes with a social message, you can expect one on the Kashmir situation soon. "Though I have never lived in Kashmir, I am a Kashmiri Pandit. I want the song, however, to beu00a0 a positive one," says the rapper who works in the marketing division of a record label.