Controversy’s favourite child, Simbu is once again under the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. This time, he has company, in popular music composer Anirudh Ravichander for the apparently leaked ‘beep’ song.

The song was privately jammed by the duo for fun a few years back. It was neither set for release nor was it a part of any album, but it did not go down well with certain sections of the society for the use of extremely obscene language in the lyrics.

District Secretary of All India Women’s Association, A. Radhika, who filed a complaint against Simbu and Anirudh at the Commissioner’s Office in Coimbatore yesterday under Section 67 of the IT Act (punishment for publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form), said that she has nothing personal against them, but she cannot accept the way he insults and mocks at women in most of his songs.

She goes on to say that he was setting a negative example to all those youngsters who idolize him.

Many of the children who participate in talent shows on TV mouth such lyrics without even knowing their meanings. If they were to sing a song like the ‘beep’ song and they learn the meaning of each word of the song, imagine the psychological effect it would have on their minds at such young age, she says.

Simbu however claims that the song violated his privacy as it was stolen from his phone. He also complains that it was not fair to judge his character by invading his privacy. Furthermore, he says that he neither owes an explanation, nor is he answerable to anyone in this issue.

Sukanya Suresh, assistant producer of a leading media channel, says that mocking and insulting women have been going on for quite some time now, but the trend slowly beginning to fade. She nevertheless blames the public for creating hype around such controversies. “If such stunts fail to draw attention, people will stop composing such songs,” she says.

Composing songs with vulgar, offensive, and cuss lyrics has now become the ‘in’ thing. Instead of showing their mettle in a positive manner, artists come up with compositions that land them in controversy, and bring them lot of negative publicity.

But then, like they say, negative publicity is better than no publicity at all!