Feature

A Generation Full of Akon Love!

Sajeda Tamanna Hussain

‘The sun's in my heart, And I'm ready for love, Let the stormy clouds chase, Everyone from the place, Come on with the rain, I've a smile on my face, I walk down the lane, With a happy refrain, Just singin', Singin' in the rain' My father still sways to the melodious tunes of this song! I still remember asking him one day at the dining table during lunch, about his all time favorite love song. Neither mum, nor I were surprised at the 'oh so obvious' reply of dad, 'It has to be “Singing in the Rain”. To me, it is one of the most beautiful love songs ever written and trust me, nobody could have sung it any better than Gene Kelly!'

That very same day, I somehow ended up asking the same question to one of my sister's friends. He enlightened me about his taste in music and love songs, which seemed a bit 'unconventional', if that really is the suitable word for the given situation. He mentioned a song called 'I Wanna Love You' by a Black American RnB artist called Akon. When I heard the title, it seemed pretty much of a romantic number. But the sooner had I acquainted myself to the lyrics, two questions leaped to the forefront of my mind, as suddenly as a tawny lion leaping out from behind long grasses in the African Savanna. Now, the point is what would my readers be too curious about? The lyrics or the questions? I'll start with the lyrics!

'Convict...Music...and you know we up front, I see you windin' and grindin' up on the floor, I know you see me lookin' at you and you already know, I wanna love you, you already know, I wanna love you, you already know!' This was only a sample from the entire LOVE SONG that so many people from Generation Y, are in LOVE with! And now, time for my questions! Question one: was that particular guy joking with me about his favorite love song? Question 2: Or is this genuinely how love is perceived in these days? My first question was automatically asked to the boy in concern, when I appeared to have golf balls for eyes and a golf hole for a mouth. 'No, I seriously mean it. It is really a good love song! When I sang this to my girl friend on Valentine's Day, she was very touched!' After I heard this, I instantly left his company before my golf hole revealed an entire golf course inside!

On a much serious note, this entire discussion ultimately leads to the second, more unnerving question. So, do they really perceive love like this? The easiest way to find out was to act Sherlock Holmes! Dear old Watson, as always appeared in my best friend and advisor, Ridwan! We started by asking fifty random people, between the age of 13 and 31, in various locations around the city, if they were engaged in any sort of relationships of love. One would be surprised to hear that 48 of them were actually, in their language, 'going-out' with people of the opposite sex. Out of this 48, 22 are not sure whether they love or like their partners; 10 like their partners and are letting time make the decisions for them; 4 are quite sure that they are just passing their time with a pretty girl or handsome boy waiting only till they feel the partner in concern is not their cup of tea anymore; 4 want to spend the rest of their life with their respective partners and have hence concluded they are in love; and the rest were just so confused and baffled by my sudden torrent of questions, that it was almost impossible to categorize them according to their answers.

Moving onto stage II, a research on the media, helped quite a lot in understanding this generation's perception of love. By media, I refer to a few of those modes of communication that expose us to the world outside. This includes my dadi's most hated shoitaner baksho itself- the television and its most recent partner in crime, the internet. Starting from Indian to English channels, sports to music channels, the most abundant form of entertainment that lies in all this is exposure of the human body accompanied by deformed values of love! In fact, love is so much misunderstood in the world today that the mere uttering of the word leads the mind to walk on the completely wrong tracks! You say 'love', and the next thing they understand is love between two people of the opposite sexes. Long gone are the days when 'love' referred to love for parents, for siblings, for friends, for your country, for nature! There is so much to love then why has the definition been narrowed down to such great extents? Even when this generation talks about love between the opposite sexes, what they call 'love' is more about a physical interaction than either mental or spiritual! The acts of showing love nowadays are merely shallow acts of a superficial mind, e.g. holding hands, going on a date, sharing a kiss or gifts, inclination towards making a public demonstration of admiration and so many others! I am not saying any of this is wrong or immoral but why should the divine feeling of love be confined to such human behavior? Why should a boy in fifth grade call his crush a 'babe' just because his older brother calls his girlfriend so? Why should feeling deeply for someone be made so cheap that you find it scribbled inside bathroom walls in university?

People have as if forgotten how to love! Had that not happened, youngsters would not talk back to their parents on every issue. People would not be mugged in every nook and cranny of the city. We would not be responsible for global problems like deforestation. TV shows would not display physically attracted people in the name of love. Television and movies existed even in the 60s and 70s. Ei Poth Jodi Na Shesh Hoy was still a beautifully portrayed love song, and nowhere in the movie Saptapadi do I for once recall seeing Uttam Kumar and Shuchitra Sen appearing to be engrossed in anything but purely love! What appears to be love in most mainstream movies today is the display of an ample amount of flesh.

Well, it is all a matter of perspective right? I'm sure to face tons who would disagree with me, but at the end of the day, I would be glad to be proved wrong. It is only love that triggers survival and as long as we share it in the right places at the right time, all it stimulates is life!

(Student of North South University)