A couple of days ago, a video surfaced on the internet which took the entire sane humankind by surprise. Around 500 men or say ‘supporters of Aunty Ki Ghanti’ gathered at Connaught Place of New Delhi to shout ‘Bol Na Aunty Aun Kya’. With mere these lines, you can smell misogyny and sexism emanating from the so-called rap. In case you missed the whole Omprakash Mishra-drama, let us give you a brief backgrounder.
In late 2015, the self-proclaimed Omprakash Mishra came up with Bol Na Aunty Aau Kya rap which is nothing but a cacophony laced in lyrics that celebrate rape, misogyny and sexual harassment. The song, which seems by the lyrics, is about a boy who’s eyeing on an aunty for sexual advances. This song has gradually become the millennial anthem of the year.
The video had more than 3,000,000 hits, 30,000 likes and 60,000 likes before it was taken down by YouTube over copyright issues. But the humour pages on Facebook are openly circulating the song on social media just for ‘fun’.
Sanity went through several deaths when hundreds of strangers gather in Delhi’s CP on September 11, 2017 after a Facebook page ‘Shit Indians Say’ created an event to invite people to shout ‘Bol Na Aunty Aao Kya’. The admin of the page say that they meant the event only for humour and they didn’t know that hundreds of people would actually turn up at the event.
“It was supposed to be sarcastic. But 100 people turned up, and when they started chanting and walking around Connaught Place, other people joined them and the numbers increased to 500. I never thought so many would actually turn up,” Kyle Fernandes, the 19-year-old co-founder of the page told Mid Day
“People need to take this in good humour, have a broad mind and not take it literally. We listen to songs by Kendrick Lamar and Eminem and worship them; this was supposed to be fun too. But now that I know the power of the page, I will organise a charity event instead, and not pick such a topic again,” he added.
Similar events surfaced in Maharashtra and Karnataka. Although, host of the Mumbai event cancelled it after Bengaluru police denied permission for the rapper to perform in the city.
“It was supposed to be a spoof page, like the ‘Everybody Point their Fans at the Hurricane to Blow it Away’ event. It was meant to be for laughs, even the first few people who ticked ‘Going’ for the page, did it for fun. We thought just a few would get together just for laughs. The rapper Omprakash Mishra also called and said he is coming. Once we realised that so many people might actually turn up, like in Delhi, we cancelled the event,” Shah, who works for the comedy group ‘AIB’, told Mid Day.
Bengaluru Police is hostile towards the event for the obvious reasons.
“We will not encourage a Facebook event which includes sexist lyrics. So far we have not been approached by the organisers seeking permission for the event… If the organisers go ahead with the event we will take legal action,” Bengaluru city police commissioner T Suneel Kumar told the Deccan Herald.
Many media houses came against the misogynist rap and lashed out at the supporters of Omprakash Mishra. A popular daily posted a video urging the viewers to report Mishra’s offensive rap on YouTube so that the video is removed. The video faced a huge backlash from the blinded Omprakash Mishra’s supporters. The hooliganism went to such an extent that a Facebook page invited its followers to shout ‘Bol Na Aunty Aao Kya’ at the leading daily’s office. Mishra himself asked his followers to report the daily’s official page on Facebook.
The journalist who featured in the video received death threats from Mishra’s supporters. Some nasty texts even warned her of dire consequences, reminding her of Gauri Lankesh, a senior journalist murdered outside her residence in Bengaluru. Apart from the death threats, the journo also received rape threats on Facebook.
Consequently, the publication has to file a complaint against the people who were sending her rape threats.
If you’re still trying to figure out the misogyny in the song, try going over the lyrics again and you’ll find everything that damns consent and modesty of a woman in the most outrageous form. With Omprakash Mishra’s followers trolling and bashing the saner section of society, the self-proclaimed rapper has proved that the internet is indeed, a never-ending tunnel of grossness and stupidity.
Cringe-pop has recently become a thing in India. With the overnight insurgence of Dhinchak Pooja songs on social media, it is evident that one needs only a smartphone and internet connection to become a sensation. Even though Dhinchak Pooja’s song was totally baseless, but they were tolerable to sane levels.
Omprakash Mishra’s grotesque rap not only normalises the sexual offence but glorifies it as if it is the noblest thing to do. The collective consequence of the rap can be more hazardous beyond our imagination.
It is really appalling to see how a rap belittling a woman’s consent and so sexually offensive has become a youth anthem. It reflects utter badly about our generation. It’s time to grow up and stop accepting everything that’s viral on the internet. And the entertainment pages should be a little more mindful before granting overnight success to people like Mr Mishra.
