Mangaluru: A song ‘Dengue..Dengue’ produced for the purpose of creating awareness among the public on dengue has gone viral on social media.
Though the duration of this song is only 1.15 minutes, it has served its purpose. This song was sung by Vismaya Vinayak, a comedy artist of Tulu film industry. It can be noted that Vinayak’s song ‘Premanathe Pass Aathe’, which he had sung for Tulu film ‘Rang’ too was a massive hit.
While ‘Premanathe Pass Aaathe’ was written by artist and advocate Shashiraj Kavoor, ‘Dengue..Dengue’ has been sung and written by Vismaya Vinayak. Through his lyrics, Vinayak has stressed on how Dengue is dangerous and what would be the impact, if one would ignore stagnant water and allow mosquitoes to breed. At the end of the song, there is a strong message to the public that if we fail to kill mosquitoes, it will kill us!
As this song has received a good response from the public, a local television channel has come out with a video for the same song, using graphics, which has also received good response from the public. Two other television channels of the city are now preparing their own video for this song, in order to create awareness among public. Several ‘tik-tok’ artists are also uploading videos on this song. It can be noted when students of Srinivas College organised ‘flash mob’ programme in City Centre mall in city to create awareness on Dengue on Sunday, July 28, they too used this song.
What led Vinayak to write and sing this song?
It is evident that Deputy Commissioner Sasikanth Senthil has been taking all precautionary measures to prevent dengue disease, after its sudden spurt in Dakshina Kannada district. Senthil has become more alert when the same disease claimed the lives of four people including a video-journalist. In order to create awareness among the public, Senthil asked Panambur Beach Development Project CEO Yathish Baikampady, who is also the president of disaster management sub-committee of Red Cross, to prepare song with the help of Tulu film and theatre artists.
As some of the prominent Tulu film artists including Naveen D Padil were busy with their schedule, Yathish Baikampady approached Vismaya Vinayak. Vinayak took it as a challenge. Lyrics for the song and recording was done within a day. When DC Sasikanth Senthil listened to the song, he was pleased and appreciated the work, recalls Yathish Baikampady.
Speaking to newksarnataka.com Yathish Baikampady informed that as the DC asked to prepare a song, we had to prepare it as fast as possible. “Hence, we could not produce video for our song. Though local channels have come out with videos for the song after receiving our permission, we will launch a video for this song which would be officially released soon”, he said.
Being an actor and director, Vinayak is busy with his Tulu films. His maiden film as a director ‘2 acre’ will be releasing in the month of October, 2019. Besides that, he is acting in four Tulu films, which is yet to be released. When Newskarnataka.com called him he was busy dubbing for his movie.
“I never thought that it would be a hit in such a big way. I will be happy if the song succeeds to create awareness among the public and prevents them from falling victims to the deadly dengue”, Vinayak added.
