I lay, thinking deep, thoughts meandering and playing randomly in my mind. The thoughts which refused to let me take those sweet moments of snoredom, and tied me in a never ending journey of musings. They played on my mind, in so haphazard a manner, I could not pinpoint, the one which concerned me the most.
I lay, sleep eluding me all night, wondering if there was a light at the end of the tunnel. The gloom which threatened to shroud my moments of happiness and memories of joy gone by. The thoughts ranged from the present to the past, and settled into the future. What does future hold for me?
I lay, thinking further, entangled beyond disentanglement, at the predicament, of not able to close my eyes in peace. I was in an uneasy trance, accentuated by the eagerness to get up and do something, to break this train of inundating thoughts.
I lay, the deluge of thoughts never ceasing to disturb me, my mind going hither and thither, pleading my brain to break this shackle. When I did, it was with something unthinkable, which would induce a further sense of awakening, the dreaded coffee beckoned.
I lay, after a cup, dreaming when this would end. It was not long back, when I tried to break such a trend, singing and humming well past midnight. Madness, one might think, neither slept, nor did I blink. A break I wished, would wring in the calm. It never happened, and I lay disturbed.
I lay, thinking over, switching on the droning music for a change. Thinking over and over, this to be the balm, for the uneasy calm. If ever one was fatigued by uneasiness and thinking why sleep is deprived, then this was the time, this was the night. It seemed in the morning, how it might be tonight ?
One of the things I like about blogging is that it allows you to exercise your freedom of speech (to the extent you have it).
There is an old joke from the Cold War era where an American tells a Russian, “You know, I can stand in front of the White House and hold up a placard that says ‘The President of the United States is a complete idiot’”. The Russian replies, “Big deal. Even I can stand in front of the Kremlin and hold up a placard that says ‘The President of the United States is a complete idiot’”.
There are places in the world where there is absolute freedom of speech. There are places where there is absolutely no freedom of speech. There are places where there is absolute freedom of speech so long as your speech is not about that place itself and there are places where freedom of speech is curtailed, to ensure that nothing is said that may be ‘offensive’ and cause social disturbance.
It is interesting to examine what is ‘offensive’ and what is not. I am mainly looking at expressions of opinion and not referring to factually incorrect statements or libelous material. Most of the time, it is easy to distinguish between an expressed opinion and libel. “Aditya is a lousy writer” is an opinion. “Aditya had a roaring affair with Anna Kournikova” would be libel. (Against Anna).
At an individual level, there are many things that people may find offensive, depending on their own points of view and the extent of their own sensitivity. Comments against their dress, criticism of their work or even an opinion against the football team they support may be considered offensive. Generally, we would advise individuals to dispassionately see if there is any merit to a statement they find offensive. If there is, accept it. If not, disregard it or take other appropriate action.
I find that, at a personal level, we tend to get most offended when someone says something about us that we feel may be true but have not fully admitted to ourselves. If we have accepted it or are comfortable with it, we do not feel so offended. If we know for sure that it is not true, it is also easy to dismiss.
And then there are statements that we may find personally offensive that are also generically considered as offensive by most people. For example, derogatory comments on race, sex, physical disability or sexual orientation would be considered offensive in most civil societies.
I am not sure if anyone has carried out any analysis to determine why comments on race, sex, physical disability or sexual orientation are considered offensive. My own opinion is that they are classified as offensive because the underlying factors are all factors over which no individual has control. We do not choose our race or our sex at birth. We do not choose to be born with a physical or mental disability or choose to have accidents that cause them. Modern scientific opinion is that sexual orientation is also a function of the way an individual is wired from a biological point of view. Since these are not matters of choice, most people would agree that it is unfair to discriminate against any individual on these grounds. Therefore, there is general agreement on what is considered to be ‘politically correct’.
Most people also extend this ‘political correctness’ to religion. That is where I have a different opinion.
Unlike race, sex, physical disability or sexual orientation, religion is entirely a matter of choice. Let us not forget that all children are born atheists. It is the adults who bring up children who indoctrinate them with religion. It is possible that a child may be brought up by someone other than its biological parents and ends up following their religion. It is also possible that a child may not be made to follow any religion at all. The possibility that a child can be brought up without religion may not even occur to many people. Those who find the concept hard to visualize only need to look at China, where they will find a billion living examples of people who have been raised without any religion.
Since the religion a child is made to follow is purely a function of the actions of the adults who raise the child, it is, as Richard Dawkins says, meaningless to refer to a child as a “Christian child” or a “Jewish child”. That would be just like referring to a child as a “capitalist child” or a “Republican child”.
Therefore, given that religion is something that adults choose to follow or choose to indoctrinate their children with, I believe it is fair game for open discussion. An opinion based on religion is just like any other opinion that a person may have. If I disagree with the political views an individual expresses or an economic view he expresses or even an opinion on a sportsman or sports team, I am allowed to argue with that individual and express my own opinion. Why, then, is it considered politically incorrect to argue with an individual over an opinion he holds on religious grounds?
I find it hard to accept the reticence on the part of most people to have frank discussions on the subject of religion, especially because many actions taken (or not taken) on religious grounds have a significant impact on the day to day lives not just of the followers of a particular religion but also on the rest of the world.
Refusal to practice birth-control on religious grounds leads to over-population which is a threat to the whole planet. Refusal to use condoms on religious grounds increases the risk of spreading disease and endangers large sections of society. There are places where there is open discrimination on religious grounds against fifty percent of the population (women). And, of course, there are many instances of violence that are linked to religion.
There are religious texts that are considered by believers to be inerrant wherein Paragraph D says “Do X” and Paragraph P says “Do Y” and, on plain reading, an overwhelming majority of human beings would find Y to be the exact opposite of X and would also find Y to be socially unacceptable. It is possible that someone with a PhD in Theology may have some convoluted interpretation that attempts to reconcile the paragraphs that most people would agree are contradictory. Frankly, the interpretation of the guy with the PhD does not matter. What matters is the interpretation of the priests on the streets who are preaching to the masses. If many of them are urging their followers to simply “Do Y”, the world has a problem.
Handling such issues with kid gloves will only perpetuate and aggravate the problems. What is needed is frank and open dialogue and not ‘political correctness’ that sweeps such issues under the carpet or fails to confront them directly. We cannot hope to bring about the reform that the world desperately needs by holding back our comments on religion just to avoid causing offence.
P.S: Those who are interested can also read this article on the evolution of religion.
Too many of us are operating out of a certain need despite believing we are acting in our best interest. A need for comfort, a need for achievement, a need for social acceptance, a need for a partner, and so on.
As human beings we do continually create situations through our desires, which ultimately manifests and brings us temporary joy. We then move on to the next something, furthering our perceived upward movement toward accomplishing our next "x"--whatever "x" means to you. Then we reach these goals and still, many remain unhappy.
Many more truly have given up on this "illusive notion" and claim they don't believe it's possible. How many people do you know, and including you, after having reached these goals, met their needs, fulfill their desires still remain unhappy? Their intentions were there right from the start, and the process was set in motion until they achieved.
What went wrong? Why are so many people depressed, or stressed out these days? Where is the happiness? Not the short term excitement, but enthusiasm coated with pure happiness. What's the secret?
When we respond to the world around us from our true self, who we are, what we are, and accepting what is, only then can one experience not only self-love but also happiness.
It maybe cliché to add but it is a fact: Loving yourself, for who and what you are, only then can you come to love others and share with others. Otherwise, like an empty vessel, one is limited to their desires, impulses, and false intentions. How straight are you about you? What kind of mask(s) do you wear for the world to see?
A victim mask, (trying to put the blame on others) or maybe a workaholic mask (trying to justify your time to avoid something else in life) .. they are so many mask
When you wear these masks, you repress who you really are and with it comes a price--there is always a price. For many it's unhappiness with a seam made of frustration, resentment, jealousy, anger, depression and so on. In addition, acting from falsehood makes you want to escape from this world to rejuvenate, to recoup, because of exhaustion. It does take a lot of energy when we are playing a certain role, performing under the mask, escaping pain. How can this process of being result in happiness?
These are just some examples of how we push away true happiness melted between unresolved pains. How can there be any hope for happiness when one is living this type of existence?
The path to happiness is truly living your life from the real core, the real center, your heart, the real you. Dropping masks, accepting unalterable realities, stop trying to control situations/people or their reactions to you and stop seeking or expecting approval. These factors will take you off the path of experiencing true happiness. If you think you can't live differently, the real you knows better!
Are we but grains of sand,
Upon the beach of life,
With the ever moving,
Menace of destiny,
To snatch us from our strife.
Are we but corn in a field,
Lost in the summer heat,
With the ever present,
Harvest time,
To make us into wheat.
Are we but souls upon the earth,
Struggling for a worth,
With the ever looming,
Time of death,
To take away our birth.
Empirical observations from New York...
...on the basis of walking around midtown and downtown Manhattan.
At a reasonably brisk pace of walking, one sees
a. A Dunkin Donuts every 14 minutes
b. A McDonalds every 10 minutes
c. A Starbucks every 5 minutes
d. A Japanese tourist clicking photos of everything that moves (and most things that don't) every 2 minutes.
Other observations/musings:
a. Nothing seems to have changed since I was here 5 years ago. Except for the fact that every second person has an Apple product in his pocket, on his palm, or in his ear.
b. Manhattan is a very very easy place to be a tourist and/or explorer on foot. The fact that lower midtown and northwards is laid out in simple rectangular grids makes it idiot-proof, and hence ideal for me.
c. Italian food in New York is probably second only to Italian food in Italy(I am guessing!)
d. Times Square is simply waaaaay too loud and bright. The screens light up the damn place like it's daytime. Nice if you like that kind of burning-the-eyeballs intensity. I'm sure with this kind of energy consumption, Times Square alone must be a major contributor to global warming. Any thoughts, Mr Gore? On the other hand, I must admit the sheer vitality of the place is simply mindblowing. And very very seductive.
d. Blueberry Cake Donuts in NYC rock. Big time. And I will brook no argument whatsoever on this point. (anyone who dares suggest such a thing will have to deal with a fist that has grown 150% in 14 days from all the eating and being lazy! vacation it is!.)
I give you… my top 5 hindi songs of 2009
#5. Dhan Te Nan from Kaminey.
Remember that first promo of Kaminey? The one that instantly made Kaminey the most awaited movie of the year for everyone? Well, it worked for a lot of reasons, specially the dialogue – “तीन फ़ाल फ़े… फ़कल भी नहीं देखी मैंने उफ़्की”, “अब कहाँ गयी तुम्हारी स…. स…. साइंस! होम साइंस!”, “तो क्या rape किया मैंने तुम्हारा?!!”, “मैं फ़ को फ़ बोलता हूँ…”, “अबे फ़ को फ़ नहीं तो क्या ल बोलेगा?” – but not the least of those reasons was the PulpFictionesque trumpet in the background that explodes at the perfect moment with the song that must surely be a shoo-in for the most popular song of the year!
What an idea it was to take that quintessential bollywood action movie sound “Dhan Te Nan” and turn it into such a wonderful song for the dance floor! And, with Kaminey, it goes without saying (I’ll say it nevertheless :P ) that the way it is used in the movie is purrrrfect! High on drugs and anticipation of a gloriously fun-filled life ahead, celebrating the biggest success of their lives on a dance floor, what will the two friends sing BUT “Dhan Te Nan!” :)
Sukhwinder does what he normally does with such songs, but he actually doesn’t get into the mood nearly as well as Vishal Dadlani does! As for lyrics, Gulzar does his usual Gulzargiri, of course..
“आजा आजा दिल निचोडें
रात की मटकी तोडें
कोई goodluck निकालें
आज गुल्लक तो फोडें!”
“कोई चाल ऐसी चलो यार अबके,
समंदर भी पुल पे चले
फिर तू चले उसपे, या मैं चलूँ,
शहर हो अपने पैरों तले!
कहीं खबरें हैं, कहीं कबरें हैं,
जो भी सोये हैं कबरों में, उनको जगाना नहीं”
All I can say is that Gulzar only needs to be kept away from Subhash Ghai! He writes some of the most enjoyable lyrics in hindi movies almost effortlessly.
#4. Paayaliya from Dev.D
Dev.D isn’t an easy album to like on the first hearing. A lot of the songs are just so unlike “movie songs” that one gets a little uneasy listening to the first 4-5 songs of the album. And then comes “Paayaliya”. You don’t know what to make of it what with all the “अरज अरज करी, करज करजवा को करे हर पल बेचैन”, “नींदें बिसर कर दे” etc lyrics and the voice that sings the first line giving it a rustic feeling, yet the instruments and the actual singing voice and style (not to speak of the backing vocals saying “By God” etc) make it sound so modern. And yet, nothing really sounds ‘inconsistent’. You might not know what to make of it, but you like it nevertheless. This is one song where lyrics just don’t matter to me at all! She could’ve sung this in aramaic and I’d still have liked it! Amit Trivedi got everyone’s attention with Aamir last year and amazed people with the sheer range of music in Dev.D, but it took THIS song to convince me that we really are looking at someone special. The songs starts well, but it is really the tune of the stanzas that make me love this song so much. I mean the tunes for “अरज अरज करी, करज करजवा को करे हर पल बेचैन” and then later for “हो! जिया पे छाये, जिया पे छाये, छाये छाये छाये छाये रे!” The lyrics, as I said, are there just as convenient space-fillers. The might mean something, but honestly, I really never feel like thinking about them when the song is going on. And if I try to think about the lyrics later, I invariably get sucked into listening to the voice in my head that is singing the song and forget all about the lyrics again! What a song! :)
#3) Rehna Tu from Delhi-6.
ARR seems to always keep the best (or one of the best) song of the album for himself to sing, doesn’t he? :) Or perhaps it is something to do with the combination of his singing AND the genre of songs that he sings that just makes me love them.
It is a sign of a great album that your favorite song of the album keeps changing for a long time before possibly settling in on one (sometimes that stage never arrives. Every time I listen to a song from Dil Se, THAT song suddenly seems to be the best in the album). Delhi-6 is one of ARR’s better albums of last 5-6 years, and yet, it took me a long time to look beyond ‘Rehna Tu’ when I thought about my favorite song of the album. ARR’s soothing vocals, SUCH a nice melodious tune and Prasoon Joshi’s romantic lyrics, wow! All we needed was a great video to go with it, but Rakesh Mehra let us down. :( I think they were going for the same thing that they did with Rang De Basanti – using the songs in completely unexpected places (no one would’ve expected Luka Chhupi and Roobaroo to be used the way they were). It sort of worked for a lot of people in RDB (Roobaroo didn’t work for me though… I mean the picturization, not the song), but it just didn’t work at ALL for Rehna Tu and Dil Gira Dafatan here. We can keep listening to the song and try to keep the accompanying visuals away from our mind. That isn’t all that difficult actually. Specially when the song ends with that long continuum keyboard piece, one doesn’t think of any visual at all, and just listens! If I had to choose one piece of instrumental magic for this year, it has got the be the last 1 min of Rehna Tu!
Which brings us to my two songs of 2009!
#1-2. Arziyaan from Delhi-6 and Iktaara from Wake Up Sid.
Last year all year-end reports mentioned Benny Dayal as the newcomer singer of the year, whereas the REAL find was the voice of Javed Ali. Smooth as – pardon the cliché – silk. Had you asked me before I listened to ‘Arziyaan’ whether a song of qawwali/sufi genre would suit Kailash Kher’s voice or Javed Ali’s I’d have chosen Kher. Yet, every time I hear any part of this unusually long song in my mind, it is ALWAYS in Javed Ali’s voice, not Kailash Kher’s. Not to say that Kher doesn’t do justice to his lines. Just that Javed Ali absolutely OWNS this song.
Did I say Javed Ali owns this song? That’s just in terms of singing, of course. As for the rest, I don’t think I even need to talk about ARR here because, after all, we anyway expect him to do wonders in this genre. Forget doing wonders, has anyone else even composed anything similar in last 5-10 years? The fast paced, dance floor friendly qawwali songs, yes, but not anything with a slow, soothing, sufi touch.
So, there you go, Rahman did what Rahman does – be a genius. Nothing new there. Actually, it is Prasoon Joshi who REALLY owns the song. This is a long song and the lyrics are good throughout, but seriously speaking he didn’t really need to write anything beyond “दरारें दरारें हैं माथे पे मौला, मरम्मत मुकद्दर की कर दो मौला ” and I’d have been sold anyway.
“प्यास लेके आया था, दरिया वो भर लाया,
नूर की बारिश में भीगता सा तर आया “
“एक खुशबू आती थी, मैं भटकता जाता था,
रेशमी सी माया थी, और मैं तकता जाता था….
जब तेरी गली आया, सच तभी नज़र आया,
मुझमें ही वो खुशबू थी, जिससे तूने मिलवाया…”
As I mentioned, it was actually ‘Rehna Tu’ that was my favorite song of the album for the longest time and while that song didn’t go down in my estimation over time, Arziyaan went through all the familiar stages of those songs of ARR that stay with you the longest. From “hmm… nice sounding song, but perhaps a bit too generic” to “hmmm.. this is actually pretty nice.. Javed Ali sounds so good!” to “that maula-maula bit is pretty addictive, though perhaps the song goes on for too long” to “WOW! what lyrics! marammat muqaddar ki and all!!” to, finally, “too long? I could listen to this for hours!!! How long have I been continuously singing this for, again? 2 days perhaps!” :) Song of the year, without doubt.
IKTARA
It’s that voice. Kavita Seth’s voice has something in it that gives Iktaara that extra punch. From the first line of the song “ओ रे मनवा तू तो बांवरा है… तू ही जाने तू क्या सोचता है, बाँवरे” to the way she pronounces बूँद-बूँद and मूँद-मूँद… she just elevates the song so much!
As for the song itself, Amit Trivedi has outdone himself here! He thought of this song for a background piece in the movie?! THIS song?? It carries the whole album! In an year when Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy were particularly lacking in inspiration, I’m sure this song from Amit Trivedi got played more times than all S-E-L songs from this year, let along from this whole album. I think I’ll wait for one more album from Amit Trivedi, and if it is nearly as good as Aamir, Dev.D or this song, I’ll probably start saying that he is to hindi film music what Vishal Bhardwaj and Raju Hirani are to hindi films! :) Meaning, I’ll wait for every album by Amit Trivedi as much as I now wait for Vishal’s and Hirani’s movies. There is always the danger of a new composer running out of all of the great songs in his mind after the first few albums, but we shall keep hoping.
Looking forward to such amazing music again in 2k10! :)
Oh by the way, Happy new Year Everybody!
Dear Sachin,
I started watching cricket in 1989 or thereabouts - the buzz was around this young boy - a few years older than me, but certainly a contemporary, who was already been touted as the "One to watch".
And for almost twenty years, the world has watched - poetry in motion, the cricketing God, the one-only-next to Bradman - the praises have been so many and yet, none enough to describe who you are and what you mean to the ordinary joe or jane in the street.
You have stood for hope, when the country had nothing much to look forward to. You have stood for purity and what is right and pristine in a chaotic time. You have stood for passion in a country starved for heroes. You have stood for perfection in an imperfect world.
I have felt so many emotions watching you over the years - heady exhiliration at a sweetly timed cover drive, I have wept tears of joy when you led India to yet another victory, heartbreak and anguish when you were caught behind, and vitriolic anger against the umpire who dared give you a dodgy lbw. But I have never felt the exasperation which say a Dravid used to occasionally elicit ( though I am a big fan of his as well) and never, ever disappointment.
Earlier today, watching you yet again, on a song, I felt another emotion - privilege - that I was born in the same generation as you and that I could actually watch you through all these years as a contemporary. That my growing years coincided with yours - and therefore, I could watch it with the same intense passion with which you played. And privilege that I have indeed witnessed genius.
When you are on , the world stops to watch.
Thank you for everything Little Master!