Vairamuthu, the lyricist and poet who has been accused of sexually assaulting women in the wake of the Me Too movement, announced that he will be launching a project to restore the pride of Tamil songs. According to a report by The Hindu, the lyricist, who has predominantly worked in the Tamil film industry felt that this project will raise the standards of songs in Tamil films.
The report said that Vairamuthu had claimed in a statement: “I am belling the cat. I intend to open diligently a new royal road for Tamil. A generation can travel on this.”
He said that the number of good Tamil film songs have drastically reduced in the last couple of years and blamed music directors, lyricists and directors for the current state of music.
“The violence of noise in the name of music, the molestation of language with discordant music, the artistes that are ignorant of what is happening in a song, and the meaningless lip-sync of the actresses have left lyricists like me in bewilderment, wondering if some songs need any language at all,” he said in the statement.
Reacting to The Hindu report, singer Chinmayi Sripada wondered on Twitter when he would apologise to the women that he had sexually assaulted.
Also Vairamuthu Saar’s maelaana karuthu on ‘meaningless lip sync of actresses’ leading to the ruin of the language in film songs.
Wonder when he’ll actually agree to what he did and apologise for his actions that includes threatening and molestation. pic.twitter.com/M80rRFXKJj
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— Chinmayi Sripaada (@Chinmayi) December 26, 2020
In October 2018, Vairamuthu was accused of sexually harassing multiple women in the music industry at a hostel that he ran in the Kodambakkam area in Chennai. Chinmayi had also come out and recounted her experiences with the poet and extended her support to his other victims. Since then, she has been vocal in support of the Me Too Movement.
However, Vairamuthu had denied the allegations and said that he would pursue legal action. Despite, the allegations, the poet has continued to find support and work in the Tamil film industry.