life with you…

I want to see more of you,

more of your kind,

lived in a dungeon so far.

with lesser than everything you have,

I am a poor gluttton of this grind.

With feeling of conquest,

Of thoughts and actions,

I thought, I was the one,

Your vision broke my illusion,

I ain’t anymore done.

I envy your wealth,

Of riches and happiness,

Of pathos and pain,

Of darkness and light,

Envy your life filled with sorrow and plight.

Content as you are, I ain’t,

‘cos I want the colors you have,

bathe in your fountain year round,

sleep in hunger, die with pain,

and live all your life.

With hearty embrace I’d move ahead,

with hope to live the world I’d breathe,

with dreams to feel your love I’d sleep.

I’d  leave the self ashore and ajar,

I’ll walk your path hence far.

No more a poor glutton then,

I’ll be the world and life,

With all fear and courage,

and all shades of smile,

I’ll move with you, and have life abound.

rendition of raaga…

had yet not decided the song and there I was…on the bed for the whole day…too tired to get out of it. But humming this song…”aaoge jab tum”…from the movie “Jab We Met”. I’d not have dared to go ahead with it, had I not known the simpler rendition of the song. After recording the song, I figured out how pathetic I was doing. And then it was a search on you tube. You tube rocks and so does Nikita Daharwal, a progeny in music and painting. I chanced upon her video for this song and her clear rendition lend me the confidence to go ahead. At the same time, it was challenge that I took up, to live up-to my own expectations.

Then began the grueling session of recording, figuring out notes, getting them into rhythm … .The next problem I faced was how to remember the sargam at the end of the song, that was critical for the song to have some influence. There were 4 short sargams on teen-taal and 2 long ones. I kept on revising them…umpteen times to rote them.
Now I had got both of them. But the next confusion was how much of the difficult portions of song I want to sing, given the short time before performance. The Alaap looked difficult enough to not let any confusion on that front,  and I chose simpler of the two sargam pieces; the later one. With my colleague’s  fairly good experience on tabla, I chucked the karaoke and used tabla and electronic tanpura to keep from following the strict structure of the actual song. Thus keeping things simple and working hard worked.

The first recording with tabla and tanpura didn’t sound great but my voice clarity, precision of notes and pitch-impact improved with time. So, for the three days I was living the song day in and day out.

Now the d-day arrived and we did few practice session in the morning…I still had doubts which had surfaced earlier, And that was whether the song suited the audience and occasion. But what the heck…with so much effort into it…I didn’t care anymore. I didn’t have any expectation in terms of audience response and targeted to do the best. And there I was, erred in between when I sung some lines at the wrong place…but didn’t get perturbed…the song was not that popular for audience to notice that. And it finished smoothly, with some styling in the end that i had given to make it sound good. And yes, it was lauded performance, self-lauded I mean. I had al the satisfaction in the world to have done that. Not a great feat but a personal achievement that has high recognition in my own eyes.
It was out of luck and some good choices, that I gave myself and few others a reason to be happy….yup….I did it …

I’d love to…

why would i love those colors,
and not the others,
why i feel the touch with someone,
and not with others,
why there is accord with some,
while others dont bring that.

Is it what i have colored myself as,
colored my thoughts and myself,
in action, in drive, in all manifestations of self,
apparent self, not the total,
‘cos a total self, is natural,
it’s in communion with the existence, so ethereal.

I may reason and complain as I see,
others with their words and intent,
I decipher some of them not all,
same with the self, same in every moment,
the reason of conscious drive of this world,
and there I lose, the inner self.

I may not forgive and forget,
I may cling for long,
I may wish to have it all,
I may get a lot that pleasures,
but I will then be removed from the truth,
from the moments of realisation that matter.

I’d love to get back,
to the home, as one says,
where I feel more than I reason,
and I have myself with the truth,
truth that I will hold on to,
then I’d have lived forever…forever.

initiatives of AIDs awareness…how effective ?

It’s really heart rending to see the state of affairs in health-care from close quarters. Such initiatives are really inspirational. But my question is how much would the public demonstration by celebrities to spread awareness go across the barriers and take effect? Such demonstration would have fleeting effect according to my understanding of human psychology.

A more effective means would be to spread such awareness through people who can get in the same context or get to the level of understanding as of the audience. I am not offering any concrete solution here nor I am decrying the noble initiatives taken so far. However it’s important to rationally think, to make such efforts more outreaching, expansive, self-sustaining and effective.

Gran Torino song…

[*Sung By Jamie Cullum & Clint Eastwood*]
So tenderly your story is
nothing more than what you see
or what you’ve done or will become
standing strong do you belong
in your skin; just wondering

gentle now the tender breeze blows
whispers through my Gran Torino
whistling another tired song

engine humms and bitter dreams grow
heart locked in a Gran Torino
it beats a lonely rhythm all night long
it beats a lonely rhythm all night long
it beats a lonely rhythm all night long

[*sung by Jamie Cullum*]
Realign all the stars above my head
Warning signs travel far
I drink instead on my own Oh! how I’ve known
the battle scars and worn out beds

gentle now a tender breeze blows
whispers through a Gran Torino
whistling another tired song

engines humm and bitter dreams grow
heart locked in a Gran Torino
it beats a lonely rhythm all night long

these streets are old they shine
with the things I’ve known
and breaks through the trees
their sparkling

your world is nothing more than all the tiny things you’ve left behind

So tenderly your story is
nothing more than what you see
or what you’ve done or will become
standing strong do you belong
in your skin; just wondering

gentle now a tender breeze blows
whispers through the Gran Torino
whistling another tired song
engines humm and bitter dreams grow
a heart locked in a Gran Torino
it beats a lonely rhythm all night long

may I be so bold and stay
I need someone to hold
that shudders my skin
their sparkling

your world is nothing more than all the tiny things you’ve left behind

so realign all the stars above my head
warning signs travel far
i drink instead on my own oh how ive known
the battle scars and worn out beds

gentle now a tender breeze blows
whispers through the Gran Torino
whistling another tired song
engines humm and better dreams grow
heart locked in a Gran Torino
it beats a lonely rhythm all night long
it beats a lonely rhythm all night long
it beats a lonely rhythm all night long

————————————-

loved the movie and Gran Torino … this piece has a soul.

quote for the day

“Fruit of innovation is savored in installments. Often it’s not a bonanza.”

snapshots from past…

let’s peep into the story called India…
Part:1

Part:2

Part:3

effect of globalization on culture…

no…I am not trying to be didactic and tell you what are the “discontents” of globalization…Friedman does it well…

…in simple terms I’d say that when all of us start wearing jeans and t-shirt and more urbane sytle in clothing, would it harm us to not remember or preserve the traditional dhoti, kurta and payjama and other such outfits?

Would it hurt us as a civilization to lose touch with our past as we racing into the future with greater inventions and higher degree of homegenity in ways of living? May be it will, may be it will not. May be we don’t realize, what effect does carrying on a tradition has on us, as an individual and a society.

In order to gather people’s reponses on a prospective effort which seeks to document Indian Culture, we have launched a survey. Your answers would help us understand the need of today’s society with respect to culture and traditions.

Take this survey and help us find the answers:
“http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=zwZVV5CLex84b_2fUmYpZZaQ_3d_3d”


thank you

GDP…a specious measure of democratic growth…

The media fudges data and completeness of information to spread propaganda which benefits the sources in power. And who are these sources; sources with money or political power. When politicians could be bought and driven through money, the obvious driver here is money. Having listened to and read P. Sainath’s article and interviews I realized the truth about the corporations and the power wielded by them on the fate of the masses. Although a close to ideal democratic system would not have highly variant power distribution over masses, i.e. power to determine the functioning of the nation. But such a system is nowhere to be seen, not at least amongst the most prominent flavors of democracy.

A measure of comparison on how well India is doing is reflected by the fact that India’s GDP is equivalent to the sum total of the wealth of few rich industrialists. Now if the produce of billion plus individuals equal that of less than 100 people, what does our standard deviation curve look like. I think to really determine the efficiency of a democratic system, we can come up with a technique based on statistics. There are some select metrics which define, how well the nation is doing as a democracy and GDP is not such a metric. Some metrics that should be used to determine the Democratic Efficiency would be Average-Life-Expectancy, Standard Deviation in Per Capita Income, Ratio of voting right exercised, Literacy rate where minimum qualification should be to have at least intermediate education etc. There are many more rational metrics which could determine the success of a democratic system. It’s high time that the media project and analyze the performance of governments on these rational scale rather then playing on the hype fueled by corporations. Why doesn’t the media talk about various UN reports which factually reflects the “India Sliding” reality of the nation. I am not a political scientist but as a rational being could think that democratic values could only be emboldened through continuous analysis of the political system, rational performance determination, and communication of such real facts by the media to the public. Much of public apathy is driven by media. If it plays a sincere role and reports news objectively, the citizens won’t be mired by false propaganda and would be better informed to make decisions.

It’s election time and although I can’t exercise my right to vote, it’s time you think about where the nation is going and how to measure it before making your decision.

Here are some of the Links to P. Sainath’s Lectures:

i) Washington State University, Feb 2005.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1560557294503313321

ii) Interview on Indian Media:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QewCqpgBiuw&feature=related

iii) Globalizations and its remnants

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVWdIjfRpy0&feature=related

movie comparison…outdated…

Why LuckByChance and similar movies are better in terms of content and projection when compared to commercially-successful movies viz. Ghajini?  I’d like a movie like LBC as it is sincere in terms of showcasing real-life ironies and effectively establishes rapport with the viewers. It justifies a relation between reel and the real life characters by abstaining to make the lead a-larger-than-life character.

While an exuberant flick like Ghajini would capture mass-interest, it fails to effect story-telling in a subtle manner, resulting into a loud epiphany.