Melancholic Ecstasy...

"You are not rock; you are not jazz; you are not fusion; you guys are INDIAN OCEAN!!" - This was what I wanted to say. But then, the reticent me, came up with the utterly cliched - "You know, I have been following the fusion scene a lot these times, and you guys are just the best!", while giving Rahul Ram a hug onstage after their performance at a venue in Chennai in 2006. I got one thing rightly done, though. Got his autograph on the cover of a CD of theirs - acquired from their manager, and which was, incidentally, my first ever authentic music CD purchase. Add to this the fact that despite being an ardent music lover, I had been a proud pirate all my life. Earlier, it was the penury of student life that forced me into it, & later on it was the sheer ease of downloading free music. This trait left me by sheer happenstance through two turning point events in my life - one, attending this concert here and experiencing a passion to pay for quality music and two, meeting Ayn Rand - in fiction(pun intended), of course. I shelved out 150 bucks for the CD - which, considering the fact that 150 constituted a full 1.5% of my then salary, and that 150 is an amount which could have bought me enough booze for the night, and also that possessing Rs. 150 in college days used to be a luxury of millionaires - was a pretty sumptuous amount - and the fact that such an amount is being spent on an authentic music CD(which has just 8-9 tracks) didn't much help the cause either!
All this, was of course after I heard their last performance of the night - a song which sounded odd & was totally incomprehensible - because basically its about 1000 years old, is almost entirely in Syrian if I'm correct, and which enjoys a cult status in fans across the globe - Kandisa. A group of youngsters had cheered for and demanded this song since the show began, partly because they loved it, and mostly because it was the only Indian Ocean song they had heard - and this shouldn't come come as a surprise because this is one of those bands who can develop a cult following of one-song initiated fans with ridiculous ease. I myself had come over because I had heard Bandeh & Bharam Baap Ke, and both were testimony to the fact that my money on the show's ticket will not go waste. And I was not wrong.
Since that concert, I became a hopeless addict.
There shouldn't exist that 'If there be one word to describe this.....' phrase, because it is just so....so....unfair.....in one word!!! :-P But on a serious note, it does do a colossal amount of injustice to a plethora of words like ethereal, mellifluous, extraterrestrial, intense, hypnotic, & most importantly earthy, which, incidentally, are some of the most suitable adjectives that can be employed to describe Indian Ocean's music. A composition of theirs - Ma Rewa, which was also the penultimate song of the evening, and which is an ode to the river Narmada, has a starting combo of guitar, tabla & dubdubi(an instrument used by tribals in MP with its structure and sound being incomparable to any other recognized instrument known to me). The result is a unique sound which induces such passion, fun & intensity that you actually feel yourself to be in between the waves of Narmada, being swept from one point to another in an oscillatory manner! The song was introduced by Ram as - "Nimaad ka ilaaka, Vindhyachal ki chaon, Narmada Maiyya ka aanchal........"(read earthy!) and then went on to inform that this is basically a folk song sung by tribal fishermen, whose sole means of existence is the river, thereby christening her as Ma Narabda(thats how we MP dwellers call her!). The vocals finish within the initial 2 minutes and the rest of the three minutes or so follow an increasing pitch & breakup-reconstruction pattern, culminating in a violent frenzy of drums by Amit Kilam - this, as was interestingly suggested by some fan in some forum, indicates the destruction of the river. Given the band's ideology, which is pro NBA, this seems to be a plausible explanation - an explanation which may not go down very well with dad, who, incidentally, holds Medha Patkar and her NBA activists as nothing but a bunch of unpatriotic morons - but that's not the point here. :-)
"There's this blue coloured, long haired, dope smoking guy we all know. This song is about him" said Ram.
"Wha....!" - uttered the crowd in unison, instead of the more ritualistic - "Who?"
Agreeing with Yann Martel about his view on the spoken english of Indians, I too became "bamboozled".
"Shivji." said Ram, as a matter of factly.
And before anyone could react, Teevra Aadi began to be played. Starting with a gothic chant type of an opening, the song soon got settled into the same rhythm Indian Ocean is so famously known for - periods of high octane percussion & vocals, followed by rhythm inducement. Though the lyrics may sound abstruse at times, but then, doesn't it add to the charisma!(Remember Stairway to Heaven?) Asheem Chakravarty, through his sheer powerful vocals, took this song to an entirely new level altogether. As their website says, he's truly 'the man with the golden voice'!
They had earlier followed through the gig with some other breathtaking compositions like Jhini & Bandeh. Jhini, rendered famously earlier by Anoop Jalota, must have been a tough act to perform. Jhini Chadariya has been a bhajan since time immemorial and to morph it into the genre of rock is something like asking Rembrandt to do a me - no offense meant to rock with that! But surprisingly, in what they came up with, Kabir's iconic words sounded like being tailor made for their music! Such great philosophy, so very well complimented by Sushmit Sen on guitar & Asheem on vocals! Bandeh, disappointingly for me, did not have its electric touch, as the band opted for an acoustic rendition, going by the mood of the evening. But then, some songs just don't need instruments - they become so larger than life that even a hum is utterly satisfying! One thing is common in both songs and many other IO songs though - the extended classical aalaap coupled with drums - an act which in western rock is sometimes quite amusingly called as 'orgasm section'; an example being there in Whole lotta love. And, as it happened with Led Zep, being different pays!
There is no star in this band - there is no one guy who steals the show, with others doing their jobs inconspicuously. They all participate in equally in the effort, an effort to create effervescent, soul-stirring music. In all their history, including their struggle years, which stretched almost a decade, they have never done cover versions on stage or elsewhere. Never, Ever! Whatever music that has come out of them till now, including their first gig, has come straight from them, and no one else. That's what I call courage. Sushmit, for that matter, is an entirely self taught artist, so any possibility of covers, even while learning, goes out of the window! Everyone does that today - if you are an Indian Rock band, the mentality is that you will do covers only, or will come out with numbers that will be heavily inspired, in both music & lyrics, with their western counterparts. Molotov Cocktail, the local Chennai band who introduced Indian Ocean did just that and ended up almost raping 'Jeremy'. Poor Pearl Jam! But nonetheless they were heavily & understandably for that matter, cheered by the crowd which mainly consisted of people who were shouting 'slogans' like "Increase the bass, man!!" - this explaining the use of the word 'understandably' earlier in this sentence.
Listening to their album Jhini, which I purchased as mentioned earlier, I was surprised that they didn't play Bhor at that concert. It is unarguably their best song & one of the best that I have heard till now, in any genre. Everything, every single detail, every single component of that song is amazingly brilliant. A human's journey through change, heartbreak & realization is traced through a bird's flight in early morn. Its a must hear for anyone even remotely interested in quality. Des Mera is another song in that album which catches attention with lyrics like - "India sir ye cheez dhurandar, jeb daliddar, dil hai samandar"!
They make you sway with hopeless abandon, and make you feel proud of tabla being Indian, all over again!
Indian Ocean is a genre in itself, and, as they themselves proclaim at their website, it is the sound of contemporary India getting to know itself...

The Insipidity of Order

About 20 beer, 6 vodka, 4 whisky and 2 rum bottles(empty, of course) and 10 cold drink/soda bottles(half empty, this time) + a heap of unwashed clothes that might actually qualify very well for use as a mop + a medieval cassette player along with a speaker set which creaks if u try to shift them by a millimeter - for a centimeter, the left one goes dead + 16 butts - of cigarettes, of course + 2 pairs of shoes & socks- with the shoes lying over socks, also a dried up liquid shoe polisher, with the 'dried up' tag signifying its last use date + a horde of CDs & DVDs which contain the same songs or videos redundantly ripped + a little electronica which includes a 64 Kbps line feed, a modem and my laptop power chord = my room's floor. As my eyeballs surge upwards with a mystic smirk, I scan my almirah(a walled one) which contains, in ascending order of height(dont read importance) - CAT memorabilia + an equally large horde of discs as the one lying on the floor, a screwdriver set(I got that so that I could open up and try to repair a pair of headphones gone horribly wrong - and actually because of a childhood fantasy of having the power to unscrew any damned nut!!) + a neatly folded set of clothes which is so because I NEVER wear anything out of it - covered, of course, by dust, plastic, ties and important papers + the penultimate(in ascending order, remember?) shelf playing the role of a 'safe' - chiefly because it can be easily accessed only by a six footer like me and partly because its only me who knows how to navigate safely to reach the base of the almirah after avoiding all the obstacles beneath, and thus housing some documents that may be needed for future reference, unexplainable coils of wire, medicines like crocin tablets and balms and basically anything that is needed urgently whenever needed. The almirah is topped by a moth & dirt-ridden compartment which, thankfully, is about 6 feet(diagonally) from my bed and this distance thus aids me heaps & bounds in sustaining my life. Continuing with the smirk, my vision takes a right turn and I start scanning my walls - well nothing really spectacular here too, except, of course, the occasional blemishes and golden duct tapes torn off whisky bottles' tops (for no apparent/logical reason whatsoever), apart from the usual cobweb decor adorning the corners. There are also the cloth hanging hooks, which, naturally, are used quite extensively as is the case in this room with any form of cloth holding which discourages neat foldings and encourages quick, efficient disposal of clothes once they are off your body - the other example being that heap lying on the floor. Apart from these bare necessities, there are also a couple of indulgences like a bed, a table & a chair, the last one being because its very uncomfortable to do stuff on the table while standing. The table, of course, is littered by the presence of a wine flask, more bottles, discs, an opener, a persian glass(well, a 'Made In India' Persian stemware, actually), 5 empty cigarette packets, and the laptop. Its surface is actually a miniature, but a similar version of the floor, with both scoring equally in entropy. The bed's mattress is ably assisted by a sheet of apparels lying just above it in providing comfort while relaxing and also in serving as a blanket in times of absence of the same. The smirk has now turned into a full fledged grin - the grin of a crusader taking pride in his achievements, as my visual sweep comes to an end. I think most of you, by now, must be lamenting my existence, trying to imagine yourself in my place and ending up shaking your heads in disgust; some probably even trying to sympathize with a person(read 'me') suffering from acute bouts of filthophilia. But there is absolutely no dilly dallying in my thoughts as mind ponders for a stand on the issue - I stand firmly by the interior decor of the room, and this is not because of any Bheeshma Pitamahesque patriotic devotion towards my room, but because it is I who is the proud designer of the same and the whole.....ummmm...situation.....is a product of careful & extensive self restraint & experimentation in pursuit of a higher ideal - Uncertainty. The quantum model was rejected decades ago, and I seriously dont understand why is it still advocated for use in our daily lives?? That what is employed in my room's design is an ultimate ode to a certain Mr. Heisenberg! If there isn't an object in the world whose position can be accurately determined, what is the use of futiling away a whole lifetime in pursuit of order - which is nothing but a structured & physical arrangement of tangible objects like those found in my room? Order can actually be proved to be irrelevant. Suppose, I become an orderly person and I keep placing my watch at a certain designated place, like a drawer. One fine day, I cant locate it. What options do I have - my being an 'orderly' mind, I'll keep coming back to the drawer, without having the capacity to think beyond, or rather, as they call it - the closed box approach, while, if being in a similar situation in my room, you have the whole damned room at your disposal - dig it, swoop it, do whatever you can - there exists a probability of it being present in this very room! Order extinguishes the flame of hope, disorder reiterates it. The 'pleasant surprise' element, which is a rarity these days, is also a distinguishing factor of disorder, and one comes to know about the pleasure of the same only when one stumbles upon that watch 3 weeks later in the same heap. Order is insipid, disorder is exciting!(See, even the exclamation mark is on disorder's side!(and again)). These are not the times of meticulous planning, gelled back hair, suave appearances or disc records; these are the times of impromptu action, jazzy hair & i-pods! And that is why I remain a hardcore disorder loyalist!
So what if I'm left with only 1.5 sq meters of floor area, spread over as a map of Africa - at least I have some zebras to chase!

A Theist : To be or not to be?

Yeah, I know – BAD TITLE! But it is so only till you keep on getting the wrong feeling of what this new crap from me is all about! Well, for the starters, its not about trying to find your way back home – it can NEVER be – because, basically, well, this is not a route map for anything. It’s just like laying out a truckload of bricks and cement and mortar in front of you and giving you total freedom to decide whether you want to build a home or a bridge out of it.
Talking about Theism first, I came across a very interesting but probably stupid point. During the course of referring to the dictionary for finding out an exact meaning for the same, I saw it being represented as ‘the’-ism. A wild thought ran through my head about the article usage here. ‘The’ is used as a confirmative choice given a set of alternatives and its cousin ‘a’ is used for an uncertain one. ‘The’ is a pin pointer, ‘A’ is a shaking finger. ‘The’, given the current discussion, also represents the constant, the absolute and it is THIS absolute in belief of which Theism stands. It has a figure, rhetorically called God, which is claimed to be universal, constant, absolute, omnipresent, & omnipotent, a figure who is complete in all aspects, has a state of existence which is beyond life & death, shape & size, and beyond our contemporary knowledge, perception & analysis. Given the fact that it is rationale which drives the world, any concept having such a hazy definition can very seldom be accepted. But still, Theism thrives! So what is God anyways? Of course, the ‘What’ part in the preceding sentence can be replaced with ‘Who’ or ‘Which’ too; it all depends, but that’s not the point here. I am actually attempting to transcend the last hypothesis of Theism here – analyzing God.
God, in my opinion, is a stage of evolution which can’t be bettered. God is the example of irrefutable & absolute perfection, which is also the motive of every human life. Life is basically the intervening distance between the journey from 0 to 1. And 1 is God. Believing in it is an acknowledgement of the fact that you are at 0 or somewhere en route. So a believer is bound to be humble, and if he is not, he better check his premises. God, through its existence for theists, instills an aim in them – achieving Godliness i.e. becoming better and better in all their endeavours - in their conduct as humans, in their belief in doing the right things, in extolling the greatest human values, in their willingness to fight injustice – both within and outside, in their being indiscriminate, in their empathy towards fellow beings, naming a few. When it is said that God always stands by you even in most adverse circumstances, it is actually your own values which do, but without your belief in it, they won’t be visible to you. A belief in God corresponds to a belief in Truth and its fearless application in all ventures. In fact, both terms can be used interchangeably because both stand for the same cause – bringing out the best in a man. As God, Truth too stands for the finest qualities – righteousness, honesty, strength, self belief, & integrity, again, to name a few. There is no religion bigger than the religion of Truth and there is no worship tougher than the worship of Truth.
Proponents of atheism often cite ‘self’ above God, asserting that it is the man who creates his own destiny. Perhaps there is a confusion prevailing in them regarding the metamorphosis of self.
What is self? Self is thought. What is thought? Thought is Truth. What is Truth? Truth is God.
Our self is what we think. Our thought - our pure, clean, shining thought is unfailingly true. And, as I mentioned earlier, Truth is God.
And though destinies are always created by man, the end result that one achieves comes through one’s adherence to either the right/Truth/God or the wrong/False.
When do we reach that perfect state of being, of rising above the throes of joys & sorrows, victories & disappointments? We reach there when we know – when we have an absolute knowledge of the way world functions and the minisculity of material emotions before that grand function called life. The path of God, the path of Truth leads to this very state, something referred to in Hindu scriptures as becoming a Sthitpragya.
It is achieving this final aim that we all yearn for all the time, never for a moment realizing that the path is just one – that straight one.

The Great Indian Media Circus

We, the people have been addicted to the media since time immemorial. Mankind’s difference from the other species has lied in the fact that we want to know, to be aware of what happens around us. The happenings may be positive, negative or even grotesque – its not that we don’t refrain from making judgements, its just that we aspire to gain knowledge, always. We are curious, and, though a small sound will turn the heads of both an animal (the precise definition of which is highly debatable!) and a man alike, it would be the man who will go forward and ascertain the cause for its occurrence. We think, and are constantly on a lookout for upgradation of knowledge – a trait which was so indispensable in our "George of the Jungle" days!
The word "media" conveys exactly the same meaning as is cited in the Oxford dictionary, which, given today’s times, is quite amusing. It goes like:
"the means of communication, as radio and television, newspapers, and magazines, that reach or influence people widely"
Media acts as a bearer of information from the source to the people, its utility being understood when its audience is far away. As all of our five senses are satisfied in our quest for knowledge by this enterprise, it becomes one of the most powerful forces in our existence, because, as food nourishes our body, media nourishes our mind. And, ala Aunt May: "With great power comes great responsibility.", I just wish the media guys had watched Spiderman! In my opinion, Indian media can be summed up in two words – "Sensationalism unrestricted". True, it sells. In order to avoid getting wrongly interpreted, I would like to clarify that media never was, and should never be philanthropy – it IS a business, meant to create wealth and employment for scores of people and should remain a profit making venture. My only argument is that a business transaction between two people which results in gain for one and loss for the other can’t be termed as a business; it is, instead, a fraud. The irony here is that, much of the audience the media caters to doesn’t realize its loss, for the loss here is entirely of the human thought.
Consider this- Rakhi Sawant getting an airtime of 30 minutes LIVE on a show where the anchor is quizzing her about the kiss controversy, and where, at the end of the show, she is cheekily asked by the anchor to "perform" for the audience, to which Ms Sawant gladly obliges, gyrating to her numbers while giving a thumbs up for playing her favorite song to the "DJ" present!! 30 minutes live for THAT! True, its quite possible to think that the moment you take Ms. Sawant out of the picture, the case will hit you as actual sexual exploitation of a woman, and most of us wont be amused as we were when it came out, and, in that case, the media may be applauded in giving her a platform to speak out, regardless of her image. But couldn’t anyone see the useless arguments she was making in favour of her case - that "bhartiya nari" rhetoric reappearing every 5 minutes to prove her point- and the anchor asking questions on the costumes she wears in her videos while discussing an exploitation charge! These people were looking like giving a live example of the meaning of the word "Astray"! If that was the intention, they can better go and be part of a video GRE word tutorial rather than appearing on national television 24x7! Mika cashed on the scandal in a smarter way by making a satirical video about it, because, in the end, that’s what it deserved!
And this- Indian cricket team getting an astonishing 16 hours of coverage spread across various news channels after the South African ODI fiasco in which even a sneeze of a cricketer is scrutinized down to every nook and cranny. We were seeing analysis and counter analysis and frenzied criticism using a language that would be at a wafer thin distance from being profane – the difference lying only in the fact that swear words were not used. Also the same team is applauded after an almost guaranteed home series victory against a not so strong opposition! Why is the reaction on cricket always knee jerk & senseless by the media, when what we expect is an intelligent analysis coupled with a matured unbiased viewpoint – this being hallmark of quality sports reporting throughout the planet. I don’t think that the nation has been cricket crazy since generations, most of the hype and the overwhelming importance accredited to the sport is media generated, and would remain so until it decides to mend its ways. I would like to dissect the tagline of a popular Bollywood gossip show –"For news, views, opinions, scandals, scoops and gossip come to us" – leave out the scandal, scoop & gossip part for the entertainment section of the news channel guys, keep the former with sports reporting!
Also there was this "story" about a woman principal and an elderly manager of a school being beaten up by a bunch of rowdies in Muradabad. Termed as a heinous act and reflective of the changing social norms by the media, the video, ironically, has been shot with such poetic clarity that one wonders about the deftness with which it was shot. While lamenting police & government for inaction in the aftermath, what action was taken by the morally correct media? True, media’s job is to bring out objective facts for the populace to see/hear and form their views, but seeing the video, which carried as disturbing visuals as a woman being pulled by her hair, should and would spur any human being into action, and that includes the cameraman. In fact, even after the woman was knocked unconscious, she was still being zoomed into by the cameraman! The Gateway of India molestation case’s video is justified, as in such a swarm of people, the best thing that could be done was to just shoot. But here, where only a handful of people where assaulting a lady and an elderly man, surely something could have been done.
The result - A "sensational" news story; the impact – Watch any such act in future from a distance. Is this the "societal" change these channels pledge to bring with their reporting?
There are so many examples, including visual footage of a VC of a university being slapped by a student leader, of reckless reporting and the purpose they serve is to tell the society that the previously unthinkable incidents are now happening ushering the dawn of a new era which looks very gloomy indeed. And that there is NO light at the end of this tunnel, the best thing that we can do is to watch these channels & lament our surroundings!
True, the English channels are marginally better than their Hindi counterparts in the way that they are starting to realize their social responsibilities and are mixing it wisely with business, which, in my opinion, is the best formula in today’s times. The recent successes include the Jessica Lal & Priyadarshini Mattoo cases, and the exposure of the questions for money scam of Parliament. But, as the Supreme Court sagaciously warned, raking up of cases by the News Channels should not be the only driving force for the lower courts to act speedily; the process should be judicial as prescribed by the law, because such a trend would end up being even more unconstitutional than justice being denied. And no, I’m not being cynical here, asking the channels to be more socially active and then ending up supporting a verdict that contradicts the same. Instead I’m trying to emphasize just two points – Make a start, and don’t overdo it. And the current trend in Indian media can be summed up by this comment from a renowned columnist:
"The problem is not that we sell ourselves, that everyone does; the problem is that we sell ourselves to the lowest bidder!"

Pen O Pen give me this might!

Can anything get better than these immortal lines written by equally immortal souls -

"Sound the bugle now, play it just for me
As the seasons change, remember that I used to be
Now I can't go on, I can't even start
I got nothing left, just an empty heart

I'm a soldier wounded so I must give up the fight
There's nothing more for me - lead me away...
Or leave me lying here

Sound the bugle now, tell them I don't care
There's not a road I know, that leads to anywhere
Without a light feat that I will stumble in the dark
Lay right down, decide not to go on

Then from on height - somewhere in the distance
There's a voice that calls remember who your are
If you lose yourself, your courage soon will follow

So be strong tonight - remember who you are
Ya you're a soldier now - fighting in a battle
To be free once more -Yeah that's worth fighting for!"
By Bryan Adams

"We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here."
By Roger Waters

"Risin' up, back on the street
Did my time, took my chances
Went the distance, now I'm back on my feet
Just a man and his will to survive

So many times, it happens too fast
You change your passion for glory
Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive

It's the eye of the tiger, it's the cream of the fight
Risin' up to the challenge of our rival
And the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night
And he's watchin' us all in the eye of the tiger

Face to face, out in the heat
Hangin' tough, stayin' hungry
They stack the odds 'til we take to the street
For we kill with the skill to survive

Risin' up, straight to the top
Have the guts, got the glory
Went the distance, now I'm not gonna stop
Just a man and his will to survive

The eye of the tiger..."
By - Jim Peterik and Frankie Sullivan

Musings...

The Republic Day eve is almost here. Ok, that bit of info done, we move forward to our extended weekend plans – most of us must be having exciting plans up our sleeves, myself in for an Ooty trip! National holidays have always been, and perhaps always will be - especially if they are coming gelled with weekends - our long awaited vacations. My mother laments this attitude of mine as being one that may be classified as “unpatriotic” and “materialistic”. She tells me of the times when Prabhat Feris used to be taken out in every village & town on days of national importance like the Republic Day & the Independence Day. I’m flummoxed. Yes, we are literate enough to understand what they stand for, unlike someone from the rural hinterlands who doesn’t even know who rules them – the landlords or the higher castes (kind of shocking, but true), and Yes, our heart swells with pride while looking at all the military might being displayed at the parade in Delhi, but that’s JUST about it. From all strata of the society, the story repeats itself. The big doubt that arises then is, if you seem to be so apathetic about your own history, how, in the devils name are you still standing united as a country. I mean, how do we just tick along, and mind you, tick along nicely?! What actually binds this mass of land known as India?
I have traveled a bit across the length and breadth of India in my relatively short lifespan, and there were quite a few things I noticed. I have never seen any other adage than the following one coming so true about India –
“Kos kos pe badle vaani, char kos pe paani”
There is a peculiar thing about human nature – we love segregations, and have, over the centuries, made the same over an amazing variety of issues. First and foremost is geographical location and it all ends on geography too as I will display in a short while. People living in one particular area have similar needs and aspirations, so they clubbed together against outsiders for obvious reasons. This is more often than not funny – first, we fight and oppose others as a country, then fight other states retaining a state identity, then districts/townships, and followed on by towns/tehsils to colonies and finally ending up as unified households, even the unity of which, in today’s scenario, is highly debatable. During all this, we also realize that in order to elevate our position in society, which is the most basic human ambition, we need to downgrade others’. So come the distinctions of colour, chore, & race. To add to the woes, often big territorial chunks of lands, comprising similar, but not identical, cultures often come together on linguistic/cultural grounds. Examples for this being the Southern Quadruple and the North East. Even the aft repeated religion factor, which is SO misleadingly called to be the greatest binding factor amongst the followers also comes crashing down in this country, as the Gods worshipped majorly throughout India differ, even their names differing when it comes to South India. Frankly speaking, if you go to any major part of India, you will find a self sufficient city/region in place, without having even an iota of a need of a national identity. Take Tamil Nadu, for instance. It has its own industry, infrastructure, language, culture, cinema, art, history and believe me it is so self sufficient and complete that a north Indian actually feels gratified at spotting even words jotted in Hindi as an act of benevolence on the part of the locals! In fact, this one question haunts my mind most of the time – “Which other country in the world has a situation where a countryman can not talk to a fellow countryman, without using a foreign language as a common medium of instruction?” Such disparity, and mind you, I wrote “disparity”, not “diversity”!!! To say that it were the British who unified us as a country would be wrong, because long before them, we were unified by the Mauryans and, more recently, Akbar. The only distinction that the Britons achieved is that they have done it so for this generation and perhaps more to come in future, to revel in.
But nevertheless, here we are, as a country, where everybody’s chest swells with pride at seeing a single flag, the tricolour, flutter. So what is it that binds us?
The answer, as we all know very well in our hearts, comes from very frivolous issues indeed. Take cricket – love it, hate it, lament it, curse the boys, do whatever you want to, it IS a religion in India. It is one sport which removes all barriers erected by the people – religion, caste, language, regional, gender etc and we all cheer the “Team India” in one voice. There has not been a single place in the whole country where I have been and have not seen people go gaga over the game. Huddles inside a tea shop with all ears on the radio and all lips uttering analysis, curfew like situations on the roads in case of an important match, even the poorest managing to get TVs are all the signs of passion this game invokes in our country. North to South, Hindu to Muslim, Literate to illiterate, poor to rich, everybody sways to the tune of each wicket and each six identically.
Move to movies – they manage to break the greatest barriers with effortless ease. In my opinion, the greatest harbinger of communal harmony in this country has been the movie industry, which, even with all its stupid plots, manages to stir the heroes in all of us. No matter how much we admire the Hollywood for its finesse with the technical side and its penchant for “original” scripts, it still doesn’t stop us from making our “tear-jerkers” super hits and retaining our status of being the ONLY country in the world where Hollywood is still miniscule compared to the local movie industry. The whole industry, in all conduct, makes religious discrimination a medieval term; and being one of the most influencing medium of contemporary times, manages to make the audience feel the same too. It even manages to break the linguistic barrier, with Hindi movies running even in the remotest parts of South India to full houses, and the audience, though being thoroughly unaware of the language, still whistles and enjoys the whole experience. THIS, is being Indian – the ability to “understand” a fellow Indian or an Indian antic, even without having an actual “comprehension” of the same.
Our Armed forces, which constantly remind that there are people guarding us when we go to sleep in the night, people whom we don’t know and those who don’t know us, people who don’t do this as an act of philanthropy but as an act of duty, people who take a bullet on their chests as a means of protecting us, even though the natural human reflex to pain and danger is fear and self defense. I have had the opportunity to witness the Kargil war during my short stint with life, and I have never seen the whole country being united in such a manner. Curbing ALL our differences in all possible spheres, we marched together as Indians. I don’t even remember one instance of a fallout between two parties – in fact, even the “always at arms” politicians shut up their mouths for good!
If there was ever a term called national integration, it was on shining display during the summers of 1999.
And the biggest of them all – The constitution. The constitution, which is the same for one and all, which won’t fete out different directives based on one’s religion, region or caste, which would stand tall even in case of tainted governance, whose word will be the absolute & into which we all pledge to trust the day we become citizens of this country. This is the same constitution which MANDATES that flag as our tricolour, that fabulous piece of poetry by Gurudev as our national anthem, and that identity that we carry with ourselves as being an “Indian”. Without its existence, our existence, by every possible benchmark, ceases to exist. We owe our wholesome identity to it, and this being so much implicit in every move we make on this soil that even our constant bickering against it cant negate it.
I don’t even want to say that we understand this fact, solely because this would be equivalent to saying that we understand the importance of food for the existence of human body, only, here, the constitution is important for our being, our soul, our thought.
THIS is the common thread of existence that binds us all, and, despite having “disparities”, we portray ourselves successfully as having a “Unity in Diversity”!
And I don’t need any Prabhat Feris to understand this fact!

Pink Floyd & its significance today..

Ah! How we all just LOVE fame….deserved or undeserved….this, being really sad. But irrespective of caste, creed, & gender and even more irrespective of the “wished for” fame’s medium, which can be as diverse as ranging from personal conversations in chat rooms to the full blown Bacchanesque version, we just crave for the same in all our five senses. It can really be something as miniscule as a perky compliment, and though ephemeral, still manages to give us the “kick”!

I mean, why the f triple star do we write blogs in the first place when there is always the comfort & anonymity of our personal journals waiting? What is the motive behind being so desperate to have the blog name as Absolutum Dominium that, when “domain is unavailable”, the name is retained sans the ‘i’, and no one for that matter, gets to know?

Actually am talking of all this because of a very interesting article I recently came across, which was written by Mr. Sudhish Kamath for The Hindu, in which he has compared blogger’s personality/social profiles with the stuff that they write. The girls have been shown to be more meticulous and observant about their surroundings as is evident in their blogs and the guys are more funny, and as disjoint from themselves as they can be, as is again evident from their blogs. So, what am I trying to achieve here – killing time, trying to get popular, trying to sound funny, writing all this commenting upon what just what I said one word back, thereby inviting the vicious cycle rumours????- I mean WHAT??? (This time, I decided to switch personalities and start empathizing with you…..:-D ) Ok, what next… (Take a bloody guess who is this now, you or me?) Getting reminded of MPDs???(chuckles)

Well, if you are still reading on, I just have a confession to make – I know that in order to be understood, structure is important in any creative output, but I feel that I’m just fed up of the monotony of structure today! I will even completely agree with any Sanjay Gupta on this planet regarding his views about experimental cinema and his sheer disregard to structure & originality in the same. So it is only natural that I write this sheer-ly unuseful post – but then who told you this blog was a news channel?
And yes, the title thing was intentional.
I think software engineers are the world’s greatest sociopaths!