Carry on doctor
At 65, Dr K Chaudhry, a retired medical practitioner spends 17 hours in front of his computer screen. Over 1400 videos old, 2.2 million views famous and a fan base of hundreds of subscribers from Pakistan, USA, Canada and the UK within 18 months, this bespectacled grandfather of four is India’s YouTube singing sensation. In August, this year, he was missed after he pulled a Houdini and deleted his account, but he’s back, Karaoke system in place and mike in hand singing Justin Timberlake, Cliff Richards and Madonna for his fans. His repertoire is as wide as a violin’s pitch and even consists of Hindi versions of songs, most popular being Michael Jackson’s Beat It sung as Peeto Peeto.
It all started a few years ago, when the male nightingale from Paschim Vihar started uploading his videos in cyber space as a “humming non-singer’’. The response was extraordinary. On one hand obscene abuses cluttered his inbox and would have sufficed to break the spirit of any novice singer. On the contrary Chaudhry felt elated that people had made time to post comments because real-time responses from around the world proved to him that he was a singer, good or bad and people were not ignoring him. Some said he sounded like a braying donkey while others said he deserved a music ratna from the government. “Praises please me, abuses amuse me. I feel indebted to every one of you for time spent by you in assessing me as good or bad,’’ he writes in order to allay his fans, some of whom have gone to the extent of forming fan clubs and theme evenings in honour of him and his special talent. They call themselves devotees of the man and currently there are seven fan clubs spread across the world including two in the US with medical doctors for members and an all-pilot group from Singapore. Imitating the video legend, his fans pay tribute at dinner parties and sing James Blunt’s ‘You’re beautiful’ Chaudhry style. He describes his relationship with his USA fan club with 310-strong members as, “This is a carry forward relationship from some past lives. I remained away from you for 63 years. Now we shall remain together until we live together,’’ he writes in response to a video.
But closest to his heart are his fans from Pakistan who first admired his talent. “We Pakistanis are in shock. We used to pride ourselves that we had Ghulam Ali Mehdi Hassan, Noor Jehan, Reshman, and Nusrat Fateh Ali but now we are dumb and speechless,’’ reads a comment on Youtube from across the border. “With the advent of Dr Chaudhry, you Indians have left? us, far behind. We will never catch up, we stand defeated.” But offers to appear for live concerts in Lahore have been dismissed. “I cannot perform without lyrics and a computer screen,’’ he says.
At first glance, one would think, that here is another bathroom singer nodding away but his eyes are wide open behind spectacles that reflect the bright computer screen as he swivels in his chair. An almost ethereal experience grips the viewer as he elegantly pulls off a spoof of Avril Lavigne’s Skater Boy, his personal chartbuster. “I prefer singing songs by female artists,’’ says the Bryan Adams and Mohammed Rafi fan. His grandchildren perch themselves on their silver-haired prodigy, singing along blissfully unaware of the world watching them. They just enjoy the moment.
Fate can do strange things when people’s actions are not governed by financial constraints. An epitome of self-proclaimed “genius’’, this dotard continues to zoom higher up the popularity snorkel. Today, his Internet biodata boasts not only of 30 years of medical practice but also credits him with the creation of a horoscope software, laboratory equipment, a billion webpages and the title of a work addict. Carry on doctor.
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