Grammys for every gram of song

‘One for the Slumdog, one for the Millionaire….adding to two for the road’ says the West in feting a film that shows India’s financial capital as a beautifully festering sore. What happened at the Oscars has happened again, and will be repeated at the Granny’s award.

A song showing a group dance at the Victoria Terminal, the very spot where Kasab and his killer cohort let loose automatic gunfire at unsuspecting Indian passengers, symbolizes India… Forget 26/11…even if it was bad it only cleaned up a rotten city!

What was till now a land of snake charmers, loitering jumbos and sprawling slums, is repackaged in the persona of an unlikely Michael Jackson of India cinema. It’s insane, as twin Grammy recipient A.R.Rahman said, but there is a method in the madness of those kissing him all over. They never met such a cuddly Khan till now!

And so, not only the nimble-fingered Zakir and phenomenal Amjad Ali Khan get pipped at the post of western approval, but also with retrospective effect melody kings like Madan Mohan, Naushad, Sachin Dev Burman, Sri Ramachandra and Shanker Jaikishen in the north and C. R. Subburaman, G. Ramanathan, K. V. Mahadeven, Viswanathan-Ramamurthy and Ilayaraja in the south. They are with retro effect neighbourhood boyz of the nondescript past.

But an award is an award is an award, especially when it is given repeatedly by our erstwhile colonial masters, and especially when we are still under the complete sway of everything Western. Given this state of affairs, I humbly make the following proposals.

Jai Ho as India’s anthem

As ‘Jai Ho’ has won the approval and applause from the west like no Indian song in all Indian history, and as we always look up to the West – we did not mind having an Italian as PM, only the Italian was good enough to pull back – we should make Jai Ho the anthem of India. The dance movements for the song were extraordinarily pleasing, and could be declared as one of the national dances of India, taking precedence over old forms like Kathak, Bharatanatyam, Odissi and the like.

Slumdog, most momentous

One must not forget that Slumdog Millionaire has been instrumental in bringing Oscars for the first time to an Indian artiste, and so one must acknowledge it as the most momentous film ever made in India, and throw out into the recycle bin the old represented by films like Pather Panchali and Pyaasa, Do Bigha Zamin and Devatha, Mughale Azam and Meghe Dhaka Thara. This is the symbolism we get from the life-time Oscar given to a dying Satyajit Ray. Kick out the past, and kick in the future…Make Michael Jackson and A.R. Rahman the musical and cinematic icon of the new superpower India. Pepsi, Coke and ARR ki Jai Ho.

Festival a la Tansen and Thyagaraja

In this context, we must also take care to institutionalize these glorious moments for posterity. Just as the present-day classical musicians in India celebrate the day of Thyagaraja in the south, and Tansen and Haridas in the North, we must also celebrate this new Grammy. It signifies the emergence of Indian (!) music in the world scenario (please discount the groping efforts of Ali Akbar Khan, Ravishanker and others in this regard). We must organize a yearly festival at a great location to record Rahman’s phenomenal service to Indian music.

David Boil should inaugurate the first fest, and it should be attended by Oscar and Grammy committee members, agents, promoters, and worthies of our English channels. The English language press can also be given free delegate passes to the function, which should have Rekha Sawant dancing to Jai Ho along with reality show king Rahul Mahajan and US returned beautician Nooria Haveliwala (who gave a new dimension to drunken driving by allegedly drinking during driving). The latter two will be doing their own jigs. This festival should be held annually with religious zeal with junkies dancing to more ARR anthems even greater than Jai Ho.

Song to Tamil Mother like Jai Ho

The progressive Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Mr. Karunanidhi has shown the way by roping in Oscar and Grammy Rahman to compose the music for his own Tamil song commemorating the ‘Classical Tamil’ conference. He should also think about getting a newer version of music for the Tamizh Thaai Vaazhthu. That would fire the imagination of the youth. We can also think of officially adopting his spunky tunes for Jana Gana Mana and Vande Mataram. All this will take India nearer to the West…which is best. Let us all pray in silence that all this should happen. We can even invoke the example of Beyonce, who has grabbed six awards in one night. Think of a woman Rahman three times more powerful than him. Wow…Phenomenal. Jai Ho to all the Millionaires…Jai Who to all the Slumdogs of the world!

The uses of love in a season of hate

The Uses of Love

Being Tamil Nadu chief minister, M. Karunanidhi recently (Jan. 17, 2010) could not resist the temptation to play high priest of love, surrounded as he was by his family members, ministers and party leaders. They had of course no alternative to hearing him out.

Presiding over the marriage of the son of a close relative of deputy chief minister Stalin, he commanded his partymen to love, ”so that caste is banished for all time to come”.

Love, obviously is not the first priority of the man known more for his political stratagems than for being a Majnu. Ridding society of caste is.

This obviously means that same caste lovers don’t have his nod of approval, even if the boy is a crorepati many times over and the girl a Neelmetal Fanalca conservancy worker! Even if they were in love. In the face of caste, such HImalayan social differences don’t mean a thing to him.

One wonders why, if the CM is so hell-bent on showing caste the door, he does not practice it during elections….giving constituencies with one dominant caste a clean and honest candidate from some other caste! Obviously that would be a nice method to show how the member of a particular caste is a fine person. But most of the time he plays along with the caste card.

One knows that party rivalries badly deface public life in Tamil Nadu. Will Karunanidhi encourage love between scions of top party functionaries of his DMK with those of the AIADMK or MDMK? Or will that affect power structures too badly? Caste discrimination is practised only in villages deeper south, but party politics is practised right here in the heart of Chennai. Wouldn’t it be a great idea to foster love marriages among squabbling parties so that Cupid gambols all over around Fort St George and the new complex being built near Anna statue?

More questions raise their heads. Because in his reckoning caste is such a bad word, will the chief minister encourage those who marry inter-caste more than once? In that case, will the law against bigamy be amended? Only to quell the villain of caste, you know.

What about trans religious marriages? Sometimes communal considerations do come in the way of love marriages. Will his government encourage those forsaking their religions to marry in secular bliss. (Of course he will do this in case both lovers are Hindus…but what about the other religions?)

From the party he runs, from the government he presides over, and from the films he writes, one can see that Mr. Karunanidhi is first and last a politician.

If there is any love in our politicians, it is love of power and position, and all the good things they bring. Love of family of course runs along with this first love.

Love is indeed a rare commodity in this world. This is a world of calculations and mis-calculations. This is a world of power and pelf. This is a world of selfishness and self-seeking.

Love is what took Damayanti with Nala when he lost his kingdom….love is what made Nala run away from her so that she was saved from the suffering that was his lot. Love is what took Moses from Egyptian royalty to the slaves. Love is what made the wealthy father wait for his prodigal son. Love is what made Buddha seek the door of deliverance, not for himself, but for all creatures.

As Jesus said, it is as easy for a wealthy and powerful man to enter the heaven of love, as it is for a camel to enter the eye of a needle.

Not only age-old caste, but all the grand structures of wealth and power will be reduced to dust in the face of real love….By that I don’t mean the infatuation and passion that grip young adults. I mean the magnificent obsession that takes man and woman beyond self into a nameless transcendence.

Meanwhile, the pair whose marriage occasioned the CM’s homilies, are perhaps laughing it all out.
Karthikeyan and Revathi know that an SMS sent as part of a prank brought them together.
Ultimately it is perhaps ‘Spectrum’ Raja who has to be thanked after all.

Breaking news

As a continent hopping musician, Amjad Ali Khan has perhaps flown most aircraft carriers in the world.

Yet, his 34-year-old sarod has travelled with him unscathed all these years.

Till he boarded an Air India flight from Ahmedabad to Bombay for a performance in the city.

In Bombay, when he opened his instrument box he had the shock of his life. He found the front of the wooden belly of the instrument that is covered with goatskin riven in two.

Only a few days back, Amjad Ali Khan’s sarod maker in Calcutta, the eighty-year-old Hemendra Chandra Sen of Hemen and sons had passed away. Even that had rattled Amjad.

When he saw his shattered instrument in Bombay, the effect was therefore more poignant.

Though Amjad did not want to sue the national carrier of India, he did greater damage. He went to the channels with the story of his shattered sarod! Feeling needs to be channelised, you see!

Civil Aviation minister Praful Patel sang a sad raga of apology in lieu of the eroded sarod.

Amjad Ali meanwhile had his wife Subhalakshmi fly in with another sarod from Delhi…..and performed for the C.R. Vyas memorial concert a day later.

The auditorium was full…but the maestro’s heart overflowed with nostalgia for his broken instrument. He is said to have stopped four times in the midst of his raga essay to tune the instrument or because of unhappiness at its tone.

How much anguish the inept AI porters had caused a great artiste!

Imagine the plight of lesser musicians and artistes in the wide wide world.

I know of a talented musician who was almost run over by a rash auto.

A trucker, many decades ago, did not give the phenomenal Jon Higgins occasion to complain. The first non-Indian to perform Carnatic music like a born-to-it Bhagavathar was run over before anybody could say Higgins.

So much for unfeeling fellow humans.

Softly, please tread softly, there may be angels amidst us!