You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July 2009.
.. or twime, since I am in a mood for bad wordplay.
If you don’t follow me on twitter, I will hunt you down. If you do, I will still.
- Shutdown called by Congress hits life in West Bengalhttp://bit.ly/qQTuL .. Another one called by Trinamool Congress hits wild-life.
- ‘Suspected hotel bombers stayed at Marriott’ .. http://bit.ly/R0rpH .. So they do believe in eating their own dog food.
- Azharduddin courts arrest over Joshi issue .. http://bit.ly/WiVRg .. He was actually a hot favourite to not get arrested. Strange.
- NASA releases remastered moonlanding tapes of 1969..http://bit.ly/19WpT1 .. They added one more person to the moon landing team. #fakenews
- Sachin is unparalleled in T20 too: Praveen Amre ..http://bit.ly/CZ8Xr .. I am a huge fan of Sachin, and even I am laughing.
- Musharraf hints terrorists have friends in Pak http://bit.ly/8eqnT .. Tht’s the only way to explain their recent surge in FB friend requests
- BJP walks out of Lok Sabha .. http://bit.ly/om7hY .. They seem to be the only health conscious senior citizens in India.
- Another reason to quit smoking .. a pack might cost $23,148,855,308,184,500 http://bit.ly/2cPzuI
- Suspicious-looking object in BEST bus triggers panic in Mumbai ..http://bit.ly/ixDKq .. So what was it ? An empty seat ?
- Amdavaad gets its first BRTS .. http://bit.ly/MrcJB .. If it is anything like the one in Pune, then hah !
- UP Congress chief makes inflammatory speech, part of her house set on fire by BSP .. http://bit.ly/4411a5 .. Not making this up !!
- Sreesanth likely to become Kerala Ranji captain http://bit.ly/16fEPv.. So now if you spot him crying, they are khushi ke aansoo.
- Gen Kapoor inaugurates course on defence journalism ..http://bit.ly/ODjwl .. So we can expect more Barkha Dutt’s now. Uh oh ….
- Gilani to meet Manmohan with ‘open mind’ http://bit.ly/d4cLu .. The key here is mind, not open.
- Anyone noticed that whenever Arnab Goswami uses the word dramatic, the dramatic part is usually his contribution ?
- Ponting chides England’s `time-wasting tactics’ for drawhttp://bit.ly/i3Apo Ponting complaining after not winning, this is a first !!
- Indian space centre plans to send two humans into space by 2015.http://bit.ly/1uAJB1 That leaves out Mayawati. Does it HAVE to be humans ?
- Meera Shankar : ‘Nuclear deal transformed Indo-US relationship’http://bit.ly/RGX52 .. exactly like an arranged marriage then.
- Hillary :”Trip to New Delhi to start a strategic dialogue with India”http://bit.ly/10IzI5 why waste money ? I use an awesome calling card.
- “Just 1 in 4 Americans see Sarah Palin as their favourite” ..http://bit.ly/7wX2C .. I was expecting more like 1 in 200 million.
- Okay .. Sarah Palin signed a baby .. http://bit.ly/nZAgd .. yes, she signed a baby.
- JonStewart on S. Palin : A gr8 candidate for ppl who loved Bush’s certainty, but were bothered by his rationality and executive experience
- Leaders favour conversion of G-8 and G-5 into G-14http://bit.ly/17IqRQ .. I favour leaders taking elementary math.
- Baba Ramdev offering a 1 week yoga course for religious leaders to help digest the 377 verdict #fakenews.
- Okay stop shedding tears, MJ’s ghost is here just for you :http://bit.ly/dhCZn
- Just as I predicted (http://bit.ly/3tD8O2), Zardari is talking sense now : http://bit.ly/O7uXQ So stupidity WAS a key presidential power.
- @UnitedAirlines : This is what happens when you break a guitar :http://bit.ly/YJurB
- The French beat us at being the world’s worst tourists !http://bit.ly/WMgr8 .. I need to go litter. Brb.
- India trip: Hillary says she is excited http://bit.ly/rftDx Just keep Bill away from bookstores. You know what India is famous for, right ?
- Gandhi’s gift to his Irish friend to be auctioned .. http://bit.ly/sUKj4.. Mr. Mallya, you know what to do.
- Kangana Ranaut : I play a dumb girl who thinks that she is the sexiest girl on earth http://bit.ly/4cOB7p Okay then that’s just reality TV.
- Zardari to relinquish some key presidential powers: Reporthttp://bit.ly/HX8Lg .. so now GIlani will come up with stupid quotes ?
- Muslim girl emerges topper in Sanskrit degree course http://bit.ly/4zjMAE .. Uh oh .. I don’t think the VHP is ready to hear this yet.
Move over Orkut, Twitter and Facebook, from India at least. Well, Hillary Clinton is making a visit and we need quite a bit of space to accommodate her, but that isn’t the point here.
After years of lurking in the dark corners of social networking sites gather wee bits of personal information, with a very low signal-to-noise ratio if you may, finally we have a show that well, cuts to the chase.
You want to know about a person’s girlfriends, details of his sex life, partners, affairs, illegitimate kids ?
No need to follow Dr. Watsa’s column or trouble him with fake questions anymore.
Just tune in to Sach ka Saamna, the Indian adaptation of Moment of Truth, and another brainchild of Siddharth Basu, who I can safely assume makes a living out of adapting American shows, and legally at that. A concept tailor made for us, whose voyeuristic pleasures take up a considerable amount of time with non-linear results, I would be very surprised if the show didn’t do well. This video should give you some idea.
The show is anything but fair, relying on a polygraph machine for the answers, just like our cops. You reveal personal stuff, you earn money, viewers rejoice, for the secrets not your money.
But to its credit, it is hosted really well by Rajeev Khandelwal. But I really want to see him in more movies after last year’s very effective debut in Aamir.
This is what Mahesh Manjrekar, write of Mi Shivajiraje Bhosale Boltoy, had to say about a resort owner Arvind Parkar, whose dues hadn’t been cleared by Manjrekar, and who after making a few attempts to recover his money wrote about his story to the media :
Why is he writing a letter? Why can’t he just ask for his money? He is a woman in a man’s body. You know, it’s precisely for such petty-minded people that I had made ‘Mee Shivaji Raje…’
Now I am mighty confused about the movie.
If he did understand the problem of native Maharashtrians, shouldn’t he not be responsible of inflicting the same ? And if he did not understand it, why did he even make the movie (apart from piggybacking on the issue for collections) ?
The UP Congress Chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi is in some deep trouble for her remarks against Mayawati :
I read that Rs5 lakh was spent on a helicopter and Rs5 lakh was spent on petrol. It went to Meerut, Ghaziabad and Mathura. Why did it go? To give Rs25,000 to a girl raped in Meerut. In another rape case of a deaf and mute woman, her husband was given Rs25,000. In a third, the father of a girl who was raped and killed was given Rs75,000…
I say (the victims should) throw such money at Maya and tell her that if she (Maya) is raped they are ready to pay her Rs1 crore…
She has been remanded to a 14-day judicial custody and denied bail under the SC/ST act and if found guilty, could be in prison upto 10 years. While the comments were in extremely bad taste without a doubt, I don’t get the SC/ST act being invoked for this case. Yes, I know that Mayawati belongs to the SC/ST community, but shouldn’t the act be invoked if the crime was committed only because the victim was an SC/ST individual ?
As I see it, in this case, the comments were made against Mayawati in her capacity as a Chief Minister who allegedly did not compensate rape victims adequately.
If there is one thing the accused would have learnt, it is that you don’t mess with Mayawati in her land. Even Sonia Gandhi and L.K. Advani stay clear of her in UP, so it would have taken an extremely naive person to take her on.
The only mildly funny thing in this incident was this piece of news as written in an article :
President of Uttar Pradesh unit of Congress Rita Bahuguna Joshi was arrested in Ghaziabad district and a portion of her house set on fire by alleged BSP supporters for making allegedly inflammatory speech in Moradabad district.
If an inflammatory speech doesn’t get your house on fire, what will ?
Thankfully, I have given nothing but respect to Kumari Maywati at this blog, frequently conferring upon her prestigious titles like Dudette of the Week. I think I should be fine.
I admit that the last few posts and tweets have been about Coke Studio and Rakhiji ka Swayamvar, the two shows I am addicted to. Now if only there was a way to get those musicians into that palace in Rajasthan where the swayamvar is going on, that would be the stuff heaven is made up of. But I digress.
It is this extremely touching piece of news I’d like to share :
As part of [the show] she observed a fast for five finalists to pray to god to help her make the right decision.
Not just that — even the contenders — Luv Khanna, Manas Katyal, Elesh Parujanwala, Chhitiz Jain and Manmohan Tiwari — decided to support her and observed the fast with Rakhi. If that wasn’t enough, each boy’s mother helped Rakhi and their sons in breaking the fast in a traditional way, a source close to the show told IANS.
Rakhi also bonded with four of her prospective mothers-in-law, when they went all the way to Udaipur’s Fateh Garh Palace, where the show is being shot. She even discussed recipes of some of her favourite dishes with one of them, said the source.
Before you non-feminists say the whole fast thing is fake and just drama, I will vouch for this fast. I saw this episode myself !
Now I know there are plenty of haters of Rakhiji out there, people who just cannot stand the sight of her. But I ask you to think on humanitarian grounds. Here is a small town girl who takes every effort to fake sincerity, works hard to fake a deep-rooted culture and tries her best to fake her love for the gods and goddesses and invoke their name in every sentence.
Seriously, what else does this woman have to do to win your respect ?
Okay I’ll cut down on posts about Rakhiji, as soon as I get other stuff to write about.
This post might be heavily musical for your liking, but read on.
I am currently addicted to Aik Alif from Coke Studio season two; reproducing the video here :
Sung by Sufi folk singer Sain Zahoor and the band Noori, it has a beautiful feel to it. The lyrics are by Baba Bulle Shah, and the translation can be obtained here (or watch the video with lyrics and English subtitles embedded here). It has an easy and addictive groove or taal, which I gather is the Sindhi theka. But the lyrics and singing are what make it work so marvellously.
One reason why I like to listen to Sufi music, is that I don’t understand it. Rather, I don’t want to understand the technicalities or nuances that make it deterministic for me. Then there is the inherent humility in Sufi music, that mainly stems from its poetry. Always in praise of god or truth, however you see it, the humility is reflected in the music and singing.
Which brings me to the person who introduced me to Sufi music. Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. I never had any training in any form of classical music, most of it was self taught through listening, attending concerts, reading or playing. So whatever I have learnt or know about Sufi music, is due to Nusrat saab. If there is one person in the whole wide world that I’d call a genius, it is Nusrat saab. A close friend had once said that the day Nusrat saab died, he had tears in his eyes. That day I did not understand it, but later I came to realize why. There was a time during engineering that I was addicted to Nusrat saab’s music, digging up every song of his, every concert video I could get. I still don’t have a clue about his music, because I never wanted to understand it, I just wanted to enjoy it. I still watch in sheer awe the power he exudes through his singing, the raw talent he commands, yet the humility that comes across.
Arguably my most treasured collection is an old recording of Nusrat saab singing at a dargah. A friend had a cassette handed over to him by some relative of his, and I digitized it. I would love to share it with interested music lovers.
One fun exercise was when I sat down to map his singing range. The harmonium I had ended up being insufficient. He went beyond the last note, quite easily at that. In another recording, he jumps across 3 octaves within a fraction of a second. In yet another, he almost beat the lowest note of the harmonium. I could go on and on, such is the man’s genius. When Rahat Fateh Ali Khan says that he would die a happy man if he had even 1% of Nusrat saab’stalent, I know why.
….
In India, Kailash Kher is a good singer but I don’t know how good a Sufi singer he is. The only person I know, who tries to understand Sufi music, is probably A.R. Rahman. But the music he creates tends to be very different from Pakistani Sufi music, which just takes off with the power in singing, while Rahman usually reflects his humility by using lower notes, one major difference.
I have never been this nervous in my life. Forget biting nails, I am already half down the fingers.
16 contestants, 9 gone, 6 standing. The million rupee question remains :
Who will marry Rakhiji ?
Yes, I finally got down to watching this epic serial that has been touted as the next best thing after sliced bread and silicon. A heart wrenching story of an item girl, who wants to settle down now, it has lived upto its hype and attention. So engrossed I am in the series, that all day long I can only think of whether Luv Khanna will keep Rakhiji happy forever, whether Ashwin Chaudhari might win the contest which will deeply sadden me, whether Atirek Sharma, who was in love with Rakhiji for over 3 years and made his desperation clear, shouldn’t have been eliminated. The mystery and suspense is killing me.
The show is not just about Rakhiji. It is a commentary on contemporary society, a fitting reply to the right wing fundamentalists who have always been against Rakhiji and whose hands are tied now due to the word swayamvar in the title, it is an urge to introspect, to look at the devil within before pointing a finger at Rakhiji or laughing off this show. It is all this and much more.
Take for example Ashwin Chaudhari. How could he ask Rakhiji whether she had to face the casting couch in the industry ? Isn’t she the perfect woman, the epitome of purity, whom will pass the Agnipariksha with flying colors, as even the god of fire might find her hotter than him ? Her subsequent monologue which was a slap on the face of every critic, had me reaching for the tissues (as I spilled some coffee).
I have no idea how the series will end and who will marry Rakhiji. But I can pray that this innocent small town girl, with dreams like any other, gets the perfect husband, her knight in the shining armour, her Ram, her Krishna. Whether all these qualities can be found in one person might be debatable, but do not be surprised if Lord Vishnu decides this is the perfect moment for his tenth avataar, as a wild card entry. I can only speculate, since strange are the ways of the almighty and Rakhiji.
But till the, I can proudly say, “Yes. I see Rakhi ka Swayamvar“.
P.S. : On a very serious note, do watch this video, where she answers questions about casting couch, virginity and suchlike questions girls have to face.
This is a few years late, but I trust everyone has heard of Air India’s experiment where they tried carrying three extra passengers on a flight.
Out of the three, one woman was accommodated in the cockpit – modern aircrafts have three seats in the cabin two for the pilot and the co-pilot and one a jump seat that’s usually kept vacant -and two children were made to sit on foldable seats meant for cabin crew during take off and landing.
While they are being rapped for violating safety norms, I applaud them for trying out this experiment whilst not ignoring safety norms. If you read closely, the extra passenger was in the ejection seat. In the event of any problem, they could easily get rid of the extra person.
But Air India still has a lot to learn from the neighbouring PIA (Pakistan International Airlines), which did this experiment the right way. They first experimented with rats, before moving on to humans.
Passengers heaved a sigh of relief when their plane from Birmingham finally landed at the Benazir Bhutto International Airport here on Monday, as they had been pestered by a number of rats who travelled with them all the way from Birmingham to Islamabad.
I am super curious to know if Samuel Jackson was on the plane, mouthing his iconic line, “Enough is enough. I’ve had it with these mother******* rats on this mother******* plane” or the censored version, “I’ve had it with these monkey fighting rats on this Monday to Friday plane“.
As people, we are not too different, are we ?
Link via email by Pushkar S, Tushar B and others.
R.I.P.’s seem to be the flavour of the season. First, it was Michael Jackson and now it is a certain sister-in-law. I admit it is unfair to compare the two. One is an imaginary icon who leaves no chance to get intimate with young guys, the other is of course, Savita Bhabhi.
Firstly, the I&B ministry’s decision to ban it was just plain wrong. To invoke an act meant for national security on SB, even wronger. But I do not expect otherwise from them anyway. Perhaps, if she would have been a modern woman wearing skirts and tops, she would have been left alone. Alas, she made the mistake of wearing sarees and flaunting, amongst other things, her mangalsutra and vermillion. She had to go.
But do check out this hilarious piece by Pritish Nandy, who, from his article, I can only assume is one of her biggest fanboys :
Savita Bhabhi is a symbol of freedom, of empowerment, of the sexuality our women can wield if they are allowed to escape the sham world we Indian men trap them in because of our own fears of sexual inadequacy masquerading as machismo.
I can only hope that he still knows SB is a cartoon character.
While it is widely being reported that the creator has decided to shut down the site, the creator has only ended his legal campaign to take on the government’s decision. The site will still be around assuming you have a virtuous ISP or some basic internet skills.
So no R.I.P. for Savita Bhabhi, as yet.
Sheer joy !
Coke Studio (previous post on Coke Studio here) is back with season two. Actually, it has been alive since a few weeks now, I just realized it through a comment by brok3n on Xeb’s blog.
Check out this superb rendition of Khamaj by Shafqat Amanat Ali, one of my favouorite singers. I just pray you have heard the original version.
In fact, you should check out all videos. Superb production quality, makes for a great viewing, irrespective of whether you are a musician or not. After a long long long time, something has inspired me to resume playing !
Also, check out this spellbinding rendition of Garaj Baras by Ali Azmat and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan from season one.
