Ramp Up (read Vamp Up)

Finally… my ass was glued to the cheap plastic chair when I realised that my blog was rather shabby and needed an FTV scale makeover. I had always wanted to this but never really could get myself to it. Now that it has been, it definitely feels good.

Dope has not been that easy to get these days thanks to no doping-gangers. It has really been tough times what with me moving into a new house all alone. If today my toilet malfunctions, tomorrow its the turn of tap. Somewhere it does not leak where it should (those are the taps) and somewhere it leaks where it should not (thats the roof). I am, though, in rather good company in my dingy way of keeping things clean, with the little cockroaches that flutter around. Seriously though, lifes not all that bad.

It has been difficult to blog with all these problems happening around me. Work has taken a full 365 degree swing back at me and I find myself spending more than 12 hours working these days. Sincerity, commitment, dedication to work; I hear all these words thrown around for us to work day in and night out. Let me try help these managers here with a better perception; human rights violation. I realized that if you go to office everyday, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep track of whats a Monday and whats Friday. Monday ho ya Sunday, it becomes, just another day in the office for a tiger (no wonder they are endangered).

There are sweet little cookies I have kept at the sidebar (now at the right), one of them being a comments tracker and another being a visitor tracker. I fear that these will be huge morale downers. Updates to these would probably come during the next purple-moon and blue-mars combo sighting predicted to happen on Feb 34th 201A (hexadecimal).

Keeping aside all the cribbing and blabbering, this time round, I take a stringent shapadh (English: vow) that this blog of mine will be updated as often as I can. You guys please keep coming and please comment often. I like to see those comments ticking and not trickling.

PS: Do check out the post below with pictures that I had taken during a trip to jog falls.

Jog Falls Trip from Office

Music Review- Awarapan (2007)

Cross border friendship between India and Pakistan is something we have all been yearning for. I would say in no other field has it been as successful as in the music industry. From Junoon to The Call we have been mesmerized by their style of music which is a delightful blend of Sufi, Qawwali and good old Rock. The music of Awarapan stands as a tribute to their contribution; lets hold our breath here; as ALL the songs are Pakistani originals which are rearranged by our very own Pritam.

First up on the list, we have Toh Phir Aao sung by newcomer Mustafa Zahid. Newcomer is a rather false title to be given to this talented lad, as he is the lead singer of the Pakistani rock band called Roxen. Toh Phir Aao, visits the album in three avatars. The Toh Phir Aao (Original) is a beautiful masterpiece of the band Roxen. Sung magnificently by Mustafa Zahid, he takes us through a ride of high voltage mushy romance with good aid from lyricist Sayeed Quadri. Toh Phir Aao (Lounge Version) bags total credits to Pritam to show what a music arranger can actually do. He takes the same tune and lifts it into a very ambient realm with some amazing synth sounds and accompaniments.

The next song in the album is again by Mustafa Zahid, and this time he comes up with Tera Mera Rishta. In first listen it is a very ordinary kind of tune with some very Chinese instrumentals backing it up. But give it a second or a third and you can sense the singing of Mustafa taking you over. The way he sings the title part of the song itself is worth every second of the song transformed into solid gold. Guys, do try singing this song and you can see why the rendition is especially difficult. Two down and the album is already worth your greens. But wait, we have more.

Playback singers sometimes go rather unappreciated. They need to have more than just a good voice and faultless pitch. This is evident in the song Mahiya which is sung by Suzanne and another version (which is also a DJ Suketu Remix) sung by Annie. Annie is the original artiste of this song and it goes to show how much of infectious charm and energy she has put into it. I personally find most of the Hindi and Tamil songs which has English lyrics interspersed to be rather annoying. But this one is a welcome break, as it is cute. It is strawberry candy cute. It has a very catchy and fast paced tune, with lyrics singing about a girl who’s waiting for her Prince Charming (yes, Emraan Hashmi with a horse’s mane). The lyrics effortlessly move from English to Hindi. Arrangement-wise there is not much difference between the original and the remixed version, but I would go for the remixed version any day so that Annie’s rendition brings a smile to your face.

Maula Maula is a very traditional Qawwali song which has some very bare minimum accompaniments. Its rendered in the usual full throated Qawwali style by Rafaquat Ali Khan. A very situational number, Maula is a break from the power packed track list found in the album till then. Nevertheless it is a must listen for the Qawwali lovers amongst us.

Like all hindi movie albums, this one also has its set of remixed versions. The remix of Toh Phir Aao is easily the best in the pack with DJ Suketu packing in the beats for this otherwise very emotional number. The remix is a decent one, but thanks to the innate energy packed in the original number, this is one song that will be seen moving to the top of the charts soon. The slickly shot promo video for this song which features the band Roxen, Emraan Hashmi and DJ Suketu, ensures that this song will become a rage pretty soon, if not already. The other remix we have in the album is that of Tera Mera Rishta. With some offbeat English vocals, this remix really cannot do justice as a floor burner. It sticks more or less to the original tempo of the song and really cannot drive you to dance. Again, it’s the beauty of the original that holds it on for this particular remix as well.

To summarise it all, Pakistani music is what Himesh’s should have been. The tone, construction and ambience of almost all the Pakistani artistes are remarkably similar. But somewhere in there lies a very pure musical form which never makes us really tired of it. We had Junoon doing it for us in 1998s, Strings in the 2000s and with Awarapan, it definitely looks like Pakistani artistes have established their foothold in Indian Music Industry, and that too for the good of all of us.

The Blind Man’s Wall

There is this movie in Malayalam called Guru. It stars regional superstars Mohanlal and Suresh Gopi in some of their different bests. The movie is a very personal favourite of mine as it shows the problems faced by mankind in a very offbeat kind of visual analogy.

The movie is all about how human beings have lost its inner being to external influences like religion and end up killing each other. They don’t realize the existence of the inner being and refuses to believe in it. This might be a rather complex idea to convey through a movie. But what the movie does is to send the protagonist, Raghu, into a fantasy land where everyone is blind from birth.

Raghu knows the reality, that there is another sense called sight, and that everything around you has a colour and a visual shape that you have to see.

But how will anyone ever get convinced about something which’s existence they are oblivious to from birth. They see Raghu as a threat to their existence but decide to give him a test to prove if he actually has sight. All he has to do is to identify a person in front of him without touching him. Simple you might think, but it wasn’t so; and this is the philosophy from the movie that had the most profound effect.

The man who Raghu has to identify is behind a wall. Raghu being chained to a post has no way of identifying the man, but what is even worse; he cannot explain anyone his failure. What is obstruction of vision to someone who doesn’t know what vision is? How do you explain it to them? Imagine how much sense it would make to you if someone says there are things you cannot see through, when you actually don’t have a clue about what seeing is.

This is not the essence of the movie but forms a very hard hitting part of the movie. The same philosophy can be used for many a subject in our world.

We are sometimes so used to mediocre things in our life that we become oblivious to good taste. Many a money minded businessman takes our lack of good choice to shove things down our throat or through our brain which we might not actually need.

Our lack of a drastic change of perception is taken for granted. We get so used to mediocrity in our daily life, we cannot just tolerate it when someone comes to us and says what you are having is no good. There are better things, it is totally different, it is this! You look at it and you think, its different, but is it better? Your judgement becomes totally controlled by the fact that a change, that too major one in your fundamentals and choices, doesn’t really account to something better.

I have to wash my hands clean before going further with the discussion to say that, opinions are very subjective. What is good or bad is totally upto the person. But what we should not do, is to NOT try seeing the other side of the picture. When you say something is good, just see how it can be bad as well. Whatever outweighs the other will emerge the clear winner.

The above statement is true for all the art forms. I agree, art is very difficult to be judged, because it depends on one’s taste. But mediocrity in art forms are there for everyone to see. When we don’t expect too much, the world takes advantage of it and shoves mediocrity into you through popular art.

Take music for instance, we are treated to the Himesh Reshamiyya for ages now. I know I have gotten tired of his sound. And I know many others have as well. But the people who pay him for his songs think that we will take it. And somewhere, it seems, his music is taken by people. I try to judge his music from the other side. I try my best to like it.

In the end I come up with the conclusion that the music is mediocre, his sound is irritating and overall everything is just so repetitive.

This is just an example. For us to like or not like Himesh’s music is a simple choice. But what when it comes to your making a choice as to what is good or otherwise, on something you have believed to be a part of you for a long time; for such a long time that you really cannot think outside of it. That’s where I feel the real effort should come into play.

Why don’t we open our perception on anything and everything so as to see both sides of it. I am writing this blog thinking that writing down my thoughts help me identify with myself. Lets try to say for sure that it is bad. Writing is bad! I know it sounds drastic and probably is not true. But there can be places where the other side which you have so seldom seen might prove to better in the long run of things.

I didn’t have the novel ‘The Fountainhead’ by Ayn Rand in my head when I started writing this. But once I finished, it seems, that’s all what Ayn Rand had tried to convey through her book. Struggle for believing in something and facing the odds of the world to show that what you take for granted right now need not be the best, there can be better things out there. THERE ARE BETTER THINGS OUT THERE. Why don’t we just open ourselves are try to see everything.

Every single vision have multiple perceptions. Every object can be viewed from an infinite number of angles. Every problem have many different solutions. There is nothing linear in this world, except for maybe the linearity of life. But never is there anything called linearity of choices. Choose, choose different. Choose the unthinkable. You really wouldn’t know where the correct choice might be. Let us break the wall that hides us all from a truth which is out there; a truth which might be blurred or hidden, but a truth that nevertheless, is there.

A Buggy Ride

Long long ago, it dawned in the mind of a dubious entrepreneur that a rickshaw can be motorized. Thus began the era that we all would like to call as AUTORICKSHAW- THE TORTURE YEARS.

Actually, it was a boon for many of us; in small towns, autorickshaws became a very cheap and convenient way to get across to places. But it was not so when it came to the metros; especially a metro that we are so accustomed to, Bangalore.

The creative mind of whoever came with the yellow and black color scheme for the Ricks must in fact be having a pleasant dinner in hell; or he might still be stuck somewhere in the labyrinth of Bangalore traffic, doesn’t make much difference does it. The sight never escapes you and brings nightmares to you even in broad day light; the shiny yellow and black bug of doom.

With the IT boom they realized the full potential of the spending power of IT employees. Hence started what is a remarkable cost-market analysis which reaps in benefits for them by the day.

Autorickshaw and the Entrepreneur on 3 wheels

The business strategy applied by the auto drivers can put any of the managers in an IT firm to shame. The effective processing of data like traffic congestion by the hour on any route, the effective necessity and the possible spending power of the customer is evaluated in what is timed as two head bobs of the driver. More complex calculations which involves extra monetary addition to the regular fare makes the auto driver to shrug his shoulders twice and contort his face to show how tough a decision he has to make. This will be followed by a low frequency hum of approval or just plain at-your-face rejection when he just zooms ahead. If your request is blatantly incomprehensible to the intellect of the driver (like a trip which will only cost you minimum fare) he murmurs something like a cow having a bad case of diarrhea and zooms off with a wave of his hand which in turn questions your intellect.

One is danger, a herd is a threat to your existence

The scenario discussed earlier is of a single of the species. Your existence in this beautiful world can be in question if your misfortune brings you to negotiate with a pack of drivers. Like a well lubricated parallel computing system, the ground premises are laid well ahead of your arrival; the expenses, possible routes and the ‘right’ attitude. If you find one driver in the pack rejecting your request there is no point wasting your time asking the rest. Collectively, they will manipulate your decision making process to accept their exorbitant request of maybe four times the amount you might have actually spent.

The Rickshaw Man and his Sixth Sense

Unlike us mere mortals, auto drivers do not rely on worldly senses like sound and sight. Though provided with equipments like mirrors, indicators and horns, they rely on something hugely superior to all this; THE SIXTH SENSE. It is what we might call a gut feeling; the auto driver just feels this sense tingling in his brains which will help him decide to take a turn or just stop the ride. His apparent carelessness and lack of awareness of the traffic is a mistake from our part, as we fail to realize the years-ahead-of-time technology and sadhna which goes into the mindset of the auto driver.

Club Auto- 24 hrs open party destination

This is a sub species of the general Auto irritatious group of creatures. This one is found especially with trance inducing hypnotic ‘disco lights’ of blue, green and red. The timing and pattern of these blinking lights are so created to put the rider into a state of trance where his normal senses cease to exist for his own aid. This is usually accompanied by dhinchak kind of music which not just keeps your foot tapping, but gives an occasional tap (read knock) in your heart that by the end of the ride you have just had a near death experience. Though the music might be thought as inferior to our regular senses, the lyrical value of these is an unquestionable assault to our senses. The speakers used in these autos will put any club in the city to shame, with their effective reproduction of bass, and nothing else.

Club Auto is also known as UFOs

Many a foreigner in their trip to India has mistakenly identified the Club Auto as a UFO sighting. The out of the world directions in which the auto seems to travel and the color lights of these are quoted as the main reason of this deception. It is rumored that almost all of the UFOs supposedly stored in Area 51 of USA is actually different type of Autorickshaws abducted from various parts of India and Indonesia. The ingenuity which goes into the making of these remarkable vehicles have puzzled the Americans to wits end and they have concluded that these ‘UFOs’ use technology highly advanced from our so called state-of-the-art.

Idol Worship and Space Marketing

The regular auto drivers of Bangalore city are on a spiritual level above the regular religious customs. They idolize and worship a long haired, bearded movie star in Kannada film industry popularly known as Uppi Dada. The dedication shown by them into this worshipping effectively makes them behave like a Super Star on three wheels.
Also to be noted here is effective space marketing campaign of these Autos. A popular product review website called mouthshut.com apparently enjoyed a 200% increase in hits per day because of this effective mode of marketing. For the auto drivers though, more than just marketing, it was a mode of communication to effectively reach out to the customers as if to say, if you don’t like it, better keep your mouth shut…. Dot com.

Necessity is the Mother of Doom

Apparently for us mortals even after all these tortures, has to depend on the yellow and black three legged buggy driven by the monster behind the ‘wheels’. In this crowded city, where you can rarely enjoy a two wheeler ride, thanks to Bangalore’s contribution to the ongoing debate on green house effect and the ice caps melting, and few of us can afford the luxury of a four wheeler, or even take the burden to drive one down the city, these three wheelers provide adequate relief by providing us shade in this dusty hot city. But like all ‘good’ services in this world, we should realize that, nothing comes for free here. If we take it, make sure we pay for it, a tad higher than regular meter rates though.

Awareness

Before you readers gets into a conclusion that this writer is about to start off on being politically aware or being aware of international affairs, he would like to put all such assumptions to rest. No there is no preaching in this blog about cut flag cakes, instru’mental’ised national anthems or sex sirens draping national flags around themselves (unfortunately one of those public uproar sensitive national flag came somewhere between her legs; not a bad place I would say, but anyways).
I am sure we all are, to an extent, politically aware. We are also aware of our sexuality. We are aware of current affairs. We are financially aware. We are aware that the global temperature is rising and soon the ice caps up north will melt and all World will be drowned (except Americans ofcourse).
Have I missed out on something; let me see (not in the order of preference at all)
1) Finance- Check
2) World around you- Check
3) Sexual pleasures- Check
4) Profession- Check
5) Ambitions- Check
Check check check….

Let us focus our perception to something we HAVE unfortunately, VERY unfortunately, missed. LIFE

When were we last aware of ourselves? Put aside the worldly image of you, be it a banker, software professional, Manager, party animal, everything; lets put it all aside, and look at yourself.
The sole purpose of existence, is to be happy. And they lived happily ever after. So ended fairy tales of yore. But in todays world, we have many a dragons to slay before we reach the happily ever after. Infact, we keep slaying dragons that life puts in your path, we never really have time to live happily ever after.
So how do we find the ethereal (supposedly) happiness while we slay those dragons.
Its something I would like to call (drum rolls)

SMALL JOYS OF LIFE

There are lots of little things in life, which gives you pure unadulterated joy.

Next time you try a new deo, try not to think how it will appeal to the opposite sex. Close your eyes and try to conjure up a picture in your mind as you smell it.
Next time, be involved in all the sensations you feel as you gently lather up a delicate, sweet smelling foam, while washing your hands.
Next time you listen to a song, get inside the song. Imagine you are a music conductor. Imagine, you have a whole orchestra infront of you playing the song. Try controlling the song.
Feel the texture of your loved ones hair and scalp as you gently run your fingers through it.

If we are not passive in these things, we can find happiness. It is in such instances, that you are in tune with yourself.

So stop gawking around looking at the fantastical imagery of the world around us and be lost to life; because, Life is You.

Dude, your blogs crying. FEED IT!

Aaahh…. so the gogols of tincans who come over here to read the stupid rants of whoever writes these blogs got agitated i guess.

Some help for understanding the above comment:
Gogol- ’supposedly’ the real name of Google. Means a REALLY LARGE number.
Tincans- People who doesnt really have a brain. (You)
Rants- Mindless blabber. (this blog)
Agitation- A new washing machine technology that will make your life REALLY easy (that words been inserted here by Whirlpool(r)).

Actually, the title of the blog is what a friend of mine, had commented about the lack of substance thats been noticed in this blog lately. It is true that the writer of this blog unabashedly used this space for reaching into the millions of readers this blog has, so that the parties in which the writer of this blog deejayed become a huge success. Unfortunately, the millions of fans of this blog are just that, PERIOD.

And thanks to the lack of an auto save feature in the blogs, this post actually got delayed by a good 1 month. Also, people, you should know, no matter how popular this blog is, it doesnt give me the greens, or the greyish browns and greens which is available in India (in case you want to donate, make it reds).

This post is just a note from the writer of the blog saying, ‘I am sorry for the delay. I had been lazy. But I will try not be anymore. I will regularly keep updating this blog and make it a huge success.’

The writer of this blog doesnt really have much minced meat (or minced vegetables; a wink goes here for someone special) to fill those tin cans of yours.

So he asks you all to see whats happening around the world.
Is instrumental version of National Anthems detrimental to a culture?
Can tricolors be found only in flags?
Why is there such a fuss over celebrity weddings?
Do we really care?

Actually, the last question is the only thing we really care about.

What is to be cared and what not be cared?

Visions and perceptions abound in this world; but which among those matters to you? The way you care about the world, thats the world thats perceived by you. So why not try for the biggest picture? When it comes to a canvas as big as humanity, it is always, bigger the better.

Groovy Love Sessions @ Club Baywatch (VDay Special)

Saturday Night Party @ Club Baywatch, Bangalore

Heart to Heart

Heart is the closest synonym you can find for the really pseudo ‘limb’ called mind. When you get really hurt you will have an ache which originates very close to heart.

Author have repeated this often in his blog; that life is a rather straight line. Maybe more or less like a kid with a crayon trying to join two points.

Relations are there in every aspect of life. Be it friendship, ‘love’ or commitment. There is, but one thing, that underlines all these relations. Its the aspect of feeling for someone. Be it hatred or affection; if you feel for someone he/she is important to you.

The author of this blog has been heavily influenced by the book Power of Now, suggested by a very special friend of his.

Relations are a double edged sword, one edge being sharper than the other. You might find all the happiness in someone, but if you ever come to a point that you are losing him/her, the sharper edge of the sword takes over. Hurt, frustration, loneliness. The wounds this sword makes to yourself, is much greater than the happiness you get by drenching the sword with the blood of others’ wounds.

So why do we let emotions and lust take control of our lives? Here is one place where I cannot come to this else amazing writing called Power of Now. Without anger, without heartbreaks, without frustrations, just imagine the world. Too tranquil a substance. Too much of tranquility is a really boring experience.

Its like a room with no sound. Peaceful you might think, but then again you might feel the mighty need for some distortion, some sound; something to relieve you of this monotony.

So lets not keep our emotions at distance. Let it be there, but as ‘Power of Now’ says, never let the emotion take control of your life. Feel bad, feel sad, but never feel hopeless.

Look around and see things- Visions and Perceptions, always there, seldom noticed.