SATIRE AS CRITIQUE OF CONTEMPORARY VALUES: READING SPATIO-TEMPORALITY IN SELECT LYRICS OF THE BENGALI MUSIC BAND CHANDRABINDU

Abstract:
Satire in literature, from the time of its origin in ancient Greece, has played an important role as an upholder of human and social values. Satire performs this function by directing the tropes of ridicule and mockery towards those who fail to live up to the standard or those who deviate from the normative ideals either unwittingly or by choice. The lyrics of the songs of ‘Chandrabindu’, a contemporary Bengali music band, might be said to follow this age-old tradition of satire. Their lyrics stand apart from that of their contemporaries not only by the sheer intensity of satiric tone but also by the range of their inter-textuality. The lyrics of ‘Chandrabindu’ critique contemporary values by employing maneuvered ‘shifts’ in space and time in the course of their narratives. With unexpected temporal distortions and diverse juxtaposition of physical, mythological and literary spaces, the construction of their lyrics becomes postmodern pastiches. This paper intends to undertake a reading of select lyrics of Chandrabindu to understand how the dynamics of shift in time and space produce a satirical critique of contemporary values.

Keywords: contemporary, critique, satire, space, time, values

https://doi.org/10.37948/ensemble-2020-0201-a022