Music jingle create awareness about wearing face masks

“The usage of face masks by people in Chennai and Tamil Nadu is just 65 to 70 per cent. We wanted more people to wear masks. Even those who use masks are not wearing them properly — we have seen people wearing the mask on their chin or covering eyes. When we were discussing how to create awareness on this, Kishore Manohar came up with the idea of a campaign,” says Siddarth Ganeriwala of Chennai Tri-colour Initiative.

The video was created by a Chennai-based creative agency called Crazy Pencilz in just a few hours because the team wanted to influence people who would come out to celebrate after election results. The music was done by Aravind-Shankar. “Everyone has their opinion when it comes to wearing masks and it is a delicate topic when you ask someone to wear their mask properly. We don’t know how the other person is going to react and we don’t want to get into a tricky situation. This is a light-hearted way of reminding the public to wear masks,” Kishore Manohar tells DT Next.

The video was shot at important landmarks of Chennai. “Vaaya moodu is a common Chennai slang and if you are saying it with the backing of a music video where it is explained in the context, people will understand it and pull up their masks. We don’t want to hurt any feelings but at the same time, want to convey the message. The public should understand that COVID is an air-borne disease and wearing masks is very important to control the spread. And not just putting the masks on the face, one should wear it correctly too,” mentions Siddarth.

The team wants people to take up the jingle and create videos using it. “The public can use the #MaskPodu jingle and make interesting videos conveying the same message,” the duo concludes.