MUMBAI, SEPT 27: International singer Eric Clapton's classic song `Cocaine' may be sweet music to many, but it struck a jarring note with the anti-drugs crusaders when it was played on All India Radio's FM channel recently.At a time when the union minister of information and broadcasting, Sushma Swaraj, is going all out to dryclean the media, the song which was played on FM's Golden Classics programme on September 25 raised many eyebrows. Complaints have already been dashed off to AIR, Sushma Swaraj and also the narcotics cell of the Mumbai police.``When we are fighting tooth and nail to eradicate the stigma of drugs, it is surprising how a national medium like the AIR happens to have a care-a-damn attitude towards the contents of its programmes,'' reads the complaint written by Vineet Kanchan, a member of the Citizens Organisation for Public Opinion (COPO).He has further reasoned that the lyrics of the song mislead the younger generation - which is supposed to be the target audience for suchrequest radio programmes - into believing that doing cocaine is cool. Enclosing the lyrics of Clapton's famed number, COPO has demanded immediate withdrawal of all such songs from AIR.When contacted on Saturday, AIR's station director, C Rajgopal, said he was unaware of the song as well as the complaint. ``I am going to thoroughly examine the matter and take action by Monday,'' he said. He was, however, unable to answer how such a song was cleared in the first place. The only explanation he had was that probably one of the disc jockeys played the song on his own.Officials at Channel [V] said that they usually refrain from playing songs like `Cocaine'. ``Many classic songs from the 70s era were written under the influence of drugs. But since Channel [V] is actively campaigning against AIDS, Drugs and Pollution, we generally would not like to air the music videos of such songs,'' said the Channel [V] Communications Manager, Rachna Chhachhi.However, the rival music channel MTV did not wish toimmediately comment on the matter since their main spokesperson Mishaal Verma was out of India.Rohinton Poonawala, who along with Farhad Wadia recently organised the Independence Rock, however, defended the song. ``Although the number `Cocaine' was not played during our recent rock show, I don't think that the song promotes drugs. If I'm not mistaken, there is a sad story behind how the number was created. In the past whenever this song was played at rock shows there used to be an announcement that drugs should be avoided,'' said Rohinton.However, Kanchan said that most of the youngsters think that the song glorifies the drug going by the same name. ``Whatever the history of the song may be, the lyrics are vague and only the word cocaine is asserted over ten times in the song,'' he reasoned.The city based anti-drugs crusader, Dr Yusuf Merchant, too is of the same opinion. ``Great musicians like Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin died due to substance abuse. The government should thereforeban Clapton's `Cocaine' with immediate effect.''Ironically, Eric Clapton, a self-confessed addict, did not go the Jim, Jimi and Janis way. He eventually went through a drug rehabilitation programme to come out clean. and a multi-millionaire.
