Why Chris Martin shooting a holi video in Mumbai is just another cliché

Chris Martin, he of Coldplay, does an impromptu gig in Delhi. Twitter goes berserk. Mumbai shoots hate mails at the capital. Vishal Dadlani, who spent the entire time video-recording the event instead of paying an iota of attention to the songs that Martin actually sings at the inn, breaks the internet as he releases those rare gems into the social media. Which promptly proves to be an unsocial media.

Everyone loves Chris Martin. He can, you know, "Fix you". He's the Scientist and his favourite colour is Yellow.

So far, so mellow.

Then Chris Martin, the hot star of Coldplay, lands up in Mumbai and shoots a Holi-ish video for his next album A Head Full Of Dreams. Ostensibly with Sonam Kapoor. Mumbai chawls are in the backdrop. Martin is colour-coded: his white-pink skin gleams from behind a smorgasbord of pigments. Pinker. Yellower. Redder.   

While the British rock band is busy posing with brown backgrounders of Mumbai, we wonder if anyone's asked if it's a Danny Boyle redux all over again! I can distinctly hear Salim telling Jamal: "Brother. I give you Mumbai. Centre of the world." Slumdogs-turned-millionaires clap every time that scene comes on TV. Even the slumdogs who don't turn millionaires.

THIS HAPPENED TODAY! (bad quality cuz no one was allowed to click) Can't stop a fan ????! #Coldplay #ChrisMartin ???????????????? pic.twitter.com/DOXORue8Ou

— JS (@Sharmanator__) September 9, 2015

Mumbai does that to you, I guess. But Martin, with his head full of dreams, could have fared better. A Holi-themed video? Seriously? Now, when the city is reeling under a horde of bans, meat being the topmost among them! No, certainly not suggesting that Martin should have planned his musical itinerary according to the whims and fancies of the city's municipal corporation, but a splash of colour from the city of curbs seems a little unseemly at the moment.

We don't expect Martin to listen or appreciate Shashi Tharoor's Oxford Union speech and render songwise an estimation of Britain's colonial debt, but what we can expect from this incredibly famous and undoubtedly cerebral artiste is a shrivel of historical and visual sensitivity.

One music video showing a rash of colours turns India into a contextless, formless stage prop.

Woah. Chris Martin is India. This time Mumbai, with the rest of Coldplay, to shoot a video. http://t.co/UwmALPl5nh pic.twitter.com/ATIcyKLLnr

— Nigel Britto (@NigelBritto) September 10, 2015

Beatles, despite their "Jai Guru Deva" phase, mingled and absorbed Indian chords and faux spirituality a wee bit more than what Martin is willing to settle for. Maybe he just doesn't have time. Maybe he does, but his producers, who are only interested in the hype that Martin's presence generates in this Queen's English loving country, don't give a damn. Maybe for them, certainly for them, India, particularly Mumbai, is quick bucks and an orgy of poverty-laced pigments.  

As always, for the Brits, every season is just an endless Indian Summer.