Saturday, May 8, 2010

It happens only in India.....

For those who don't know DAVV there are three fruit juices thelas just outside DAVV campus to the right side of the gate while coming out from the campus.. today to feed our hungry tummy and have a momentary escape from the scorching heat VD and I were having juice.
Being a jovial chap VD is plus a regular among those three fruit juice shops VD knows that they all are from the districts around Lucknow in UP. So here VD was telling me how they were from in and around his native land and I am also interested in UP folks as back home in Bhilai almost every chat wala is from UP.
While having this conversation my curiosity piqued and I asked VD "Do you know where they live???" A real ogreish voice said Navlakha some thing Makan no. 5 both of us turned back and saw a man. he told us that he has the remote control of all these juice vendors right form Regal to Asaram Square also he told us that he was a Mahrastrian. A Mahrastrian abusing folks from UP and Bihar is nothing new to our nation.
Also the way he told us things it became evident to me and VD that above mentioned person was using all these people as cheap labour and we were discussing the hapless state the poor juice vendors must be in under this hoodlum. While serving our juice that person told us that he had to take control of the situation as the poor juice vendors were daily extorted and beaten by local gundas for money at time their juicers were snatched off them. Then he told us how one of those three juice vendors came in contact with him and seek asylum under him. Not only that he was honest enough to accept that he helps them for his profits and broke a hoodlums head when he tried to rough a juice vendor up.

While we were imagining Thackreys in the Marathi Manoos , this Marathi Manoos was really a Manoos to the core I give a shit as he beats other folks up and is giving rise to anarchy I mean hello everyone is an extortionist here the Mafia nexus being the official, cops the govermental representative, press human right every one does the same but what made me Glad was a Mahrashtrian saving a Bhaiyaji and taking him under his wings and giving him shelter.What i saw was brotherhood among Indians and with things like this my heart tilts a bit towards the old USP of INDIA "UNITY IN DIVERSITY," and gives me a faint hope that all is not that bad as I thought and for the moment I am very happy to cling on to it

Friday, May 7, 2010

Hypocrisy..... it's An Asian thing

While I am having a really nice conversation with an acquaintance of mine, I promised myself to write this eccentric but a justified thought that my mind stumbled upon.

So here I was driving today to Bengali Square and out of no where I start singing "Duur" an old number by a very famous Asian Band Strings .... to introduce you all ignoring kinds. Strings is a rock band from across the borders.. yea you guessed it right It's from PAKISTAN!!!

Oye stop raising those eyebrows!!! We Indians love arts and really don't let our bias for Pakistan come in between the music and the arts. Strings well what to say about them a really nice band they touch everything from love to love lost to the glorification of women folk and most importantly some of their songs even talk about the sadness in fighting each other and that we all have the same almighty up above. However their music is very unique it has this very fresh appeal to it at times its very minimal and the String guys abstain from being boastful in their music and though their Vocalist Bilaal has a strong resemblance to Bono and the music at times seems rip off of U2 OK more than at times..... Sorry I forgot to add IMHO(In my humble opinion) prior to my last statement . Anyway I was talking about the hypocrisy being an Asian thing to start it of I would also like to mention this is what I have noticed and may not be true but still I am willing to generalize it.. the folks across the borders they have this huge attitude towards music and feel that it is their birth right to discard antything that is Indian and just highlight Indians love for the Music and Art across the border and dismiss anything Indian what they fail to accept is they make the shittiest movies ever and thrive on the shittiest Indian movies. This is called hypocrisy in my language but I just wanted to throw a light on it.

Coming back to the Indian side of earth. Don't you think we have too much obsession of liking artists from across the borders more because they are from across the borders and less because they are good at least I feel so. Agreed Ghulam Ali is still magnificent but so is Pankaj Udhas and the magnificent Jagjeet Singh. I feel many of our biased love for Pakistani artists have made our own artist who were equally good sleep empty stomach. Bringing this theory of hypocrisy in today's context how us Indians love Aatif Aslam, Jal and Strings. I have already told how Strings is a U2 Rip off, Jal is an averagely talented band with nice makeup kit n better saloon I guess. Aatif Aslam is a diffferent case he has this really great voice I mean how talented he is can only be heard singing some high notes in the voice of a donkey!! Indians idolize him. More of it can be seen in the Indian media and the reality shows, all of a sudden we are not able to find a single singing talent in our country we look across the border make them larger than life. The airplay that Strings Aatif and Jal receives is second to none actually. When an Indian band goes to those channel head they say this form of music doesn't sell like String ain't rock and its not in Hindi like Raghu Dixit, Swarathma and Indian Ocean are in Latin!! Surely this is Hypocrisy!!

What is depressing is that a number of quality Indian bands have never been featured in Indian Television. I as a music enthusiast feels let down and disheartened that bands Like TAAQ, ZERO, JYG and Soulmate haven't been featured in Indian Television and by the look of it wont be featured any real time soon. Though there is Launchpad but the sad realities behind launchpad you can ask to Reverse Polarity!!

I don't know how to end this train of thoughts except saying that Hypocrisy is an Asian Thing!!