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I came across this great quote by singer/musician Richard Marx in an interview :
There was a time back in the ’80s and ’90s when an artiste just wasn’t allowed to suck too badly… The fans would leave them. Now, I don’t think the fans really know the difference. Or they just don’t care.
He is referring to Western music here, but the quote is so apt for Indian music too.
Much of the music of Bollywood last year was terrible that I am still happy with Coke Studio (note to self : write that long-pending post on Zeb and Haniya). Himesh was an okay-ish composer until he took to singing and ruined it for everyone. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy just refuse to budge from their good-but-not-excellent position. Anu Malik can be good, but is hardly consistent to be significant in this debate. Rahman doesn’t come across as the genius whom I used to listen to in awe.
It’s not just film music. There is hardly any popular music besides film music in India. The standards of classical music are way higher which keeps it safe from mediocrity — although exceptions sneak in. I’m not naming names.
I guess we’re to blame. We allowed them to suck so badly.
I reserve the final comment for fusion music. Only a handful of musicians understand what fusion music really is. For the rest, any combination of a drum and one alaap or harkat is fusion. Things are so bad that I am scared when someone recommends a fusion music piece.
Zakir Hussain is one who understands fusion. Shakti is a fine example of fusion of instruments, and his performance at the San Jose Jazz music festival was a fusion of music. Remember Shakti is a good example of not-so-good fusion.
This is another skiing weekend for me at North Lake Tahoe (Squaw Valley Ski Resort). We had to pack up early once again today due to bad conditions. The resort hasn’t received much snowfall in the past few days, and the ice layers were starting to expose themselves. There is such a thing as the right amount of fresh snow to enjoy skiing : plenty of fresh snow tends to be hostile (causing falls such as these) and very little fresh snow exposes icy layers which lead to less friction. Friction is what skiing is all about — that’s how one controls the speed. It wasn’t fun today, so we called it a day. There is a snowstorm outside our hotel room, and we’re hoping the resort is receiving this. Tomorrow might be a nicer day to ski. If not, we’ll have to shift to ice-skating for tomorrow.
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We got a ridiculously cheap deal at a 3 1/2 star casino/resort at Reno. If you’ve ever been to the Las Vegas airport, the whole hotel looks like it with the flashing machines that are supposed to attract people walking by. Whatever.
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They say that Reno is the Las Vegas of the elderly. They’re right.
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Most of the world isn’t bothered about the Winter Olympics. We’re surrounded by skiing resorts, so all televisions in common areas are telecasting the NBC coverage. I’ll admit — I didn’t follow them until now, but a few seconds and I was hooked. Since I spend much time on the snow slopes, I could identify more with the Winter Olympics than I ever did with the Summer games. I saw a few events and it left me humbled — I’ll think twice before calling myself a skier in the future. I’ll try and follow the rest of the games, increasing the NBC viewers to 2.
I claim to ski down ‘expert only slopes’, but I hardly ski elegantly down the toughest slopes. The technique is fine, but elegance and ease are lacking. This is still great progress for someone who learnt skiing a year back, but that doesn’t help at all. I know there is a world of improvement possible.
Harishchandrachi Factory was superb and prompted me to write a lengthy post on Marathi cinema that you can find here. Today, I watched Natrang — a Ravi Jadhav movie with Atul Kulkarni in the lead. I’ll be honest : I can’t say much about the movie, besides superlatives. I strongly recommend watching it (with subtitles, if necessary). Watching it in Marathi is a sure advantage because the dialogues are excellent and crisp. The movie was completely unlike what I expected. I went in expecting a plot rooted in theatre, then it seemed like a light-hearted movie, but the movie turned out to be a drama by the end. It almost seamlessly transitions between themes. Almost.
You must also watch Natrang to see some masterful acting by Atul Kulkarni. There are so many scenes that stayed with me after the movie. I did feel a couple of very minor issues with his acting (forced acting) but that could very well be because I was trying to be a critical viewer. The female lead (was it someone called Sonali ?) was — in my very humble opinion — the weakest link of the movie. Both dance and acting-wise. But these are trivial issues in an otherwise impactful drama.
This is another Marathi movie that you must-watch. I’m sorry if I am recommending too many Marathi movies to readers who don’t understand Marathi. But I’m really not sorry; the movies I recommended are that good. I’m delighted to see the bar stay high. I have 3-4 recent Marathi movies in the pipeline and from what I hear, they are equally good. I’ll keep you posted.
Blogging is slow as most of my time on weekdays is spent at work or sleeping (never combining the two), and weekends — skiing/hiking and travelling. I have been trying hard to allot time to finish some pending posts, but I haven’t been able to do it yet. I don’t want to force-write posts; that would diminish the quality. So hold on for some time.
As they say, patience is a good virtue — unless you are being attacked by one of the 1410 remaining tigers.
Mumbai Mirror isn’t known for high-quality journalism — but even by their standards, this is in poor taste.
Mr Bachchan is especially sold on a grandson, but when asked about it he says, as usual, “When it happens, it will happen.” But the question that is really bothers the family and their close friends is – when? After all, it’s no secret that Aishwarya is 37, and she isn’t getting any younger.
But it now comes to light that the reason for her inability to bear a child at the moment is because she has been suffering from stomach tuberculosis for a while. Says a source, “The medication Aishwarya is taking for her stomach ailment is hampering her from getting pregnant. Until the tuberculosis is fully cured, she is unlikely to risk a pregnancy.”
Amitabh Bachchan blasted the tabloid at his blog, and he is absolutely justified. Abhishek Bachchan took to Twitter and posted a series of tweets expressing his outrage. Aishwarya herself wrote to the tabloid who — smartly — did not retract the story but went ahead and printed the letter too — to grab more eyeballs.
I can’t articulate what line tabloids shouldn’t cross, but this fabrication seems to have crossed it. The Bachchans’ complaint might not have any legal merit to it — but together, they have a enough following to make noise. And they must.
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All this is assuming the story is fabricated, and I want to believe it is. I wouldn’t wish an ailment like this on anyone.
Matt Buchanan of Gizmodo reviewed the Windows Phone 7 series here. This is what he says about Xbox on the Windows Phone 7 series :
I’ll admit, I very nearly needed to change my pants when I saw the Xbox tile on the phone for the first time.
Now, Gizmodo is a respectable website among non-respectable techies. I have no idea who the editor is. But such metaphors must be banned. Period. I’ll admit, I very nearly needed to change my technology website when I saw this sentence at Gizmodo for the first time.
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I subscribe to a hundred blogs or so, and I know a few who use metaphors in every other sentence when a simple narrative would work better. Metaphors are fine, but repeated use of cliched metaphors just puts me off. There, I said it.
(Just to be clear, I will make an exception if your name were Bobilli)
What’s wrong with Sindhis ? They were the only fortunate community who were not included in that hideous remake of Mile Sur. Any wise person would give one arm and leg for that (and if it is Varun Gandhi, just one hand — someone else’s that he cut off). But the Sindhis will not take this lying down :
The latest edition of patriotic song Mile Sur Mera Tumhara, which was telecast on small screen recently, has upset members of Sindhi community, who have registered their protest against non-inclusion of Sindhi stanza in the poem.
Bhartiya Sindhi Samaj (BSS) has appealed to Zoom television channel not to telecast the second version of this song unless the Sindhi stanza is incorporated.
If it’s possible I would like to protest against the inclusion of both Tamilians and Maharashtrians in Phir Mile Sur. And if Sachin Tendulkar agrees to be a part of the video, I will go to no end to ensure that he doesn’t. I will — if such drastic measures are needed — start an online petition.
Disclaimer : I have lived my entire life in Pune, but I’ve been living outside for the last couple of years. It is possible my reaction would’ve been more knee-jerk and aggressive had I been living in Pune when the blast occurred. It is also possible that it wouldn’t have been so.
I’ve seen far too many people commenting on the Pune bomb blast and blaming SRK, Shiv Sena and Pakistan. It is not just annoying; it is silly.
Does anyone seriously think that had the cops not been manning the theaters, or had they not been ensuring discipline on Valentine’s day, we could’ve averted the blast ? You’ve got to be kidding ! Or you’ve got to be a kid.
Do you know what the Pune cops were upto on Valentine’s day ? They had decided to be the moral police themselves. They said that they would take action against anyone protesting against Valentine’s day, but would also prevent any public show of affection on Valentine’s day. If they weren’t guarding a theater, they might have been after the Valentine’s day pro and against folks. If not that either, someone still has to convince me that they could and they would take note of a stray bag in a bakery.
We have no information to blame any external entity yet. From all initial information, it seemed to have the footprint of Indian Mujahideen. If and when a link is established, feel free to flood your modes of outlet of anger. At the right targets — if it isn’t too much trouble.
That said, feel free to blame Shiv Sena for the blast. The line of thinking — if you need to defend yourself against me — goes thus : Shiv Sena started a huge controversy, their Sainiks started attacking cinema halls, police needed to protect property rights of theater owners and maintain order, hence cops were diverted. I still maintain it is extremely silly and laughable, but as long as it aligns with my views, you’re fine. Just like most of you are seeking positive reinforcement of your respective lines of thought.
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My friend escaped the blast by roughly 30 mins. I hope he posts his observations somewhere.
But there are some points that I wanted to put forth :
1. Whatever was done to Pakistani players was deplorable. It was extremely unfortunate, and it could have been averted. Anyone who says (and I know many who do) they felt happy is just marginally better than terrorists who cause friction. By terrorists, I also mean anyone who is complicit with them — state and non-state actors.
2. If you feel this was a great way to enforce dismantling of terror groups in Pakistan, please explain to me how exactly do you think this move helps.
3. I don’t blame the team owners for not selecting players who may or may not be available for IPL 3. It depends on how relations between India and Pakistan are from today till the start of IPL. It is a business decision and they have every right to do what they think makes monetary sense for them. As SRK said, if the Shiv Sena had claimed earlier that it wouldn’t let Australians play in the IPL, he would’ve thought twice before bidding for one. While the analogy is good, I don’t think it is perfect. Being Pakistani is different from being Australian. It is a fact.
4. It is entirely plausible — but highly unlikely — that all team owners did not bid for any Pakistani player purely by coincidence.
5. The reaction from players like Sohail Tanvir was unhealthy and unsportsmanlike (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2IL-6YaCk0).
6. The whole auctioning of players with BCCI as the middleman is stupid. Only Lalit Modi could have come up with that. This is a non-sequitur, but I wanted to mention it nevertheless.
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While on this topic, I want to mention one sentence I was told recently : Pakistan is suffering because of its ill-karma. I have come across statements to this effect in the past too.
I won’t analyze it. I do not wish to dignify such ideas by replying.
I read about 2 judgments recently :
Sex before marriage is rape: Delhi high court
An Indian girl won’t lie about sexual assault, courts must believe her, says apex court.
I am tempted to say that such precedents are messing up rape, sexual assault and molestation laws. There have been many judgments in India equating pre-marital sex with promise of marriage to rape.
In earlier posts, I have noted judgments equating extra-marital affair to rape and a High Court offering a rapist an option to either marry the victim or languish in jail. The latter post attracted some comments contrary to my view that such cases are not rape. They are fraud; they are adultery (which isn’t a criminal offence. Civil, maybe).; they are not rape. It is tempting to label such cases as rape because we empathize with the victim and want a harsh punishment for the accused. But bundling them all under ‘rape’ is just wrong. The law exists for just one purpose — identify crimes and provide a guideline for proportionate punitive justice.
Do you imply that a woman who was physically violated went through the exact same trauma during the act of sexual intercourse as a woman who had a relationship with someone who backed out of marriage later ? You can’t be serious !
