Shaan shoots music video in support of anti-tobacco campaign

When a popular NGO’s survey revealed that singer Shaan Mukerji was the most popular singer among city children, they immediately decided to rope him as a social ambassador against tobacco. The singer is now working on composing a special song to serve the purpose for the NGO, Salaam Bombay.

The song, titled 'Life Se Pangaa Mat Le Yaar', is a soft casual song in Shaan’s characteristic dulcet tone. The singer has not only composed the song but will be seen in the video as well. “It is an aspirational video; the language is colloquial keeping in mind that it doesn’t become too high brow for any ordinary kid to understand.”

The video, that is already up on Youtube depicts a school boy addicted to smokes. “Every kid is a dreamer. This chap who’s smoking cigarettes thinks he’s a cool dude and the other guys are quite scared of him. But when he sees his father succumb to the malaise of tobacco, he realises how dangerous it can be. This kid wants to be a musician and that’s when I come to the basti and we sing,” explains Shaan.

The singer asserts that before he was approached to do this music video, he wasn’t aware of the variants of tobacco. “I always thought it’s just cigarettes… but I discovered things like gutka, pan masala, sheesha, hookah, etc. I was very surprised as I didn’t know about these at all.”

Perhaps, being a father to two young boys made Shaan feel the importance of keeping kids from taking to tobacco, and help them make correct choices. “As a kid I wanted to get into politics! But growing up I realised that it is a bad world,” he laughs.

Shaan, who has become actively involved with the cause is now planning to visit various schools in the city and counsel the kids in person. Also, a recent tweet by Shaan read, “Hey Guys… Now that I’m officially the Social Ambassador against Tobacco, you are going to get a lot of anti-tobacco messaging... Beware.”