For me, looking for and listening to different kinds of music became a weekly activity in 2002-2006. I had just started my first job, and that meant that on the 1st of every month, I would run to Planet M and buy first, cassettes, and later, CDs. But there was no similar strain in the music that I heard. I was grooving to pop like Boyzone, alternative like Fiona Apple, rock like Collective Soul, and grunge like the band Hole. But now, if I listen to Olivia Dean, the streaming platform lines up more music by artists like Olivia Dean. It’s all somewhat the same, and well, then you feel the same. And though Dean is a fine artist, she too got famous when her songs went viral on Reels. And that’s fine with me. That’s the world we live in.

But then, one day, you hear a song like Guru Randhawa’s Fine Shyt. You don’t even have a choice not to listen to it — it’s everywhere on social media. And then, I ask why that song has even been released, and promoted, and that too with an atrocious misogynistic video?