Two comedians from Bengaluru have taken a chartbuster and turned it into a viral exam anthem
Sanjay Manaktala and Varun Agarwal
The video was shot on a helipad, using a drone and camera phone
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It's a video shot at sunset. Two men, scruffily dressed in matching suits and glares, are moving about on a helipad. They are singing into a drone camera that pans, going higher up in the sky to give a bird's eye view of the city.
You could be forgiven for thinking this is a boy band video from the '90s. It is actually what they call an exam anthem - a parody of the chart-topper Closer by EDM duo The Chainsmokers. The singers here are actually comedians - Varun Agarwal and Sanjay Manaktala - and the lyrics are their own. "We really hate Closer and decided to do a parody to make it worse. Then we started writing and realised it is so easy to write lyrics because the actual ones are so bad, you can write anything over them," says Agarwal, author and co-founder of comedy channel, The Enthu Cutlets.
Sanjay Manaktala and Varun Agarwal
The song is dedicated to the upcoming exam season. The video, a collaboration between The Enthu Cutlets and learning platform Unacademy, released last Thursday and has already racked up five lakh views and 15,000 shares, just on Facebook. "Our target is school and college kids who are in the process of, or will be appearing for exams soon. Although the popularity of the video could mean that instead of studying, they're on social media," he laughs.
The video was shot using a camera phone and a drone, on a non-functioning helipad in Bengaluru. The comedians want to take you back to the days of '90s Pop and wannabe cool singers. "I'm a '90s kid and we grew up watching these boys breaking out their random dance moves, singing into a camera," adds Agarwal.
The lyrics dwell on pop culture, TV shows and social issues. Sample these lines: I know nothing am I Jon Snow?/ I think I'll be sitting right behind you and cheat my way through/ Why study organic chemistry, I drink alcohol, not make any/ Losing sleep over calculus and Julius Caesar/ What's the point of all this Maths, when we split the bill nothing adds'.
"We are really happy with the traction we've got. People are connecting with it. One group of kids downloaded the song, learned it and sang it at their school assembly; another group sings it before and after coming out of their exam halls," adds Agarwal.
Agarwal was certain he wanted to give the parody an education slant. "We initially thought of making the lyrics controversial, touching on the propaganda that has seeped into the education system and the irrelevant subjects we learn. You are learning history and civics but don't know your basic rights; you learn geography but don't know the different Indian cultures," says Agarwal. "But since kids are already worried about exams, we decided to stick to comedy."
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