By Madan Lamsal

Gangnam Baburam Style

The only person who has turned absolutely jealous over the viral fever like spread of popularity of the Gangnam Style dance of South Korean pop star Park Jae-sang, popularly known as Psy, is our own Prime Minister Dr BRB. BRB’s impatience and anger have doubled since he heard that British Prime Minster Cameroon too has learnt these 1X1X2=1X3 dance steps, and the Gangnam video broke all previous records with close to 900 million views on YouTube by November end.

In fact, the Nepali PM and Korean Pop star have many similarities. To increase viewership, as Psy appears on TV shows worldwide, our BRB stages TV shows like address to the nation very often and his efficient private secretariat makes sure that every move of him is recorded and posted to media. As the short form of Psy of Korea, people have started to call the pop star ‘Psy-Ko’, whereas BRB is already recognized at home as a ‘Psycho’ for his weird manners, permanent wear of anger on his face and schizophrenic self-righteousness. Perhaps the most notable similarity between Psy-Ko and Psycho is in their perspectives to view capitalists. While the Psy-Ko has made mockery of the hypocrisy of Gangnam aristocrats of Korea presenting them as riding on an non-existent horse, through dance metaphor, BRB back home has murdered many who he thought were capitalists. Who knows what he exactly plans next in this particular regard!  

Despite so many similarities, it is truly unfair for BRB to go the opposite direction of Psy’s popularity chart. It truly warrants a deeper inquiry into such debacle of BRB’s popularity. Zoologists who know which creature is worth what and Hindu mythologists who know who should ride what animal as bahan (carrier) agree here that, this difference in popularity could have been caused by their difference in selecting the creature as means of their respective message carriers. Psy-Ko has chosen an imaginary horse and his every dance step represents how he is holding the reigns of a galloping horse, at different movements and speeds. Instead, our BRB for long has chosen a frog, leaping stochastically, which he can neither ride nor reign in.  

If BRB is really dying for a Psy like popularity and his permanent anger is due to his failure to achieve this, he actually can work on it. First, he does not need to limit himself to politics and the country’s prime minister. He can officially handover all those responsibilities to his wife Hisila, as he has already done so unofficially. The advantage is that, at present there is no constitutional restriction in doing so in the present day Nepal as there is no effective constitution in place. Therefore, it is an opportune moment for this transfer of power as well. Then, he should be able to devote more time for brand endorsement as Psy-Ko is reportedly endorsing new models of Samsung’s range of Kim-chi refrigerators.

BRB just has to consolidate what he has already begun as the brand ambassador of Mustang four-wheelers immediately after he became prime minister. He can well be the brand ambassador of Samsung products in Nepal; as the franchisee of the brand here is the same business house that produces Mustang.

The reason for the popularity of the Gangnam Style is not the fact that the Western world understood the meaning and the language of the song that implicitly ridicules the western-style consumerism. The truth is that the world just danced to its tune, without any idea about what that song is all about. On this count, BRB seems to have understood the underlying message clearly. So he is singing anti-capitalist and anti-democratic rap in a way that the West does not understand at all, but the tune that goes with the song is so hypnotizing for them that they are all dancing to BRB’s tune as well.

More interestingly, even the Nepali people are dancing to BRB’s tune despite the fact that they understand the terrifying message of benevolent dictatorship inherent in these songs. The music that goes along is such that it makes them oblivious of the message that BRB has artfully weaved in his rap. So, BRB can now smile on this count of success, at least.