On the occasion of Independence Day, Mumbai-based funk rock and Hindi R&B duo MAFAKA released their three-months-in-the-making music video #377Teri on YouTube. The five-minute long video is a comment on the archaic section 377 of the IPC that deems carnal intercourse as an unnatural offence.
Team Gaysi chats up with the team behind this fantastic initiative. [Images provided by MAFAKA]
Wanting to make a difference : MAFAKA
Q. Surely you get this a lot, what does MAFAKA mean? Tell us a little about yourself.
Mafaka is a self-deprecating use of the Indian pidgin word for the popular expletive motherfucker. Since our lyrical content aspires to be both colloquial and reactionary in nature it felt appropriate. Our band comprises of poet Ramneek Singh and guitarist Josh Thomas. We met participating at Culture Shoq’s open mics and felt an alignment of purpose, in the kind of subjects we wanted to tackle lyrically and musically.
Q. Why #377Teri?
Ramneek’s poem Samvidhaan on Section 377 formed the initial foundation for the song, but having performed and been a part of the QFest (a monthly day long LGBT programme at HIVE) for the past year, it really inspired us to try and create something around the topic that might resonate with people. Whether we have achieved that is yet to be seen, but if it does do well, we hope it changes attitudes because our intention is not solely preaching to the choir.
Q. #377Teri video is dark yet very funky, was MAFAKA behind the concept as well? What was the shooting process like?
We’d been discussing the way forward as far as the visuals go with the director, Rohan Sabharwal, for a while. Rohan believed that the message was powerful enough not to be shot at different locations. We brainstormed through a lot of ideas, but thought we should keep it simple. Also, since we had a shoe string budget and we wanted to use music and dance as the medium, we decided to do away with just about everything that could serve as a distraction from what we wanted to convey through the song.
We simply just let a few of our friends identifying with various sexual leanings and some, with no particular sexual leaning, dance to it and express to it.
Q. What differentiates MAFAKA from other Hindi rock bands currently out there?
We don’t really consider ourselves a rock band (because our influences are varied), but we hope to be subversive with our music.
Q. Any other projects in the pipeline for this year?
We have couple of songs in the pipeline which will be out soon. The one we are right now working on is about Godmen and false prophets.