BanAnna

Every morning I buy the Times of India. Only to hear that somewhere in our country, an old man goes without his daily meals. Sad stuff really. But no, Anna Hazare wills it so. He refuses to eat, until he gets a Lollipop… Lokpal, whatever.

This is what I read and have been reading for the last 3 months or so. With the odd cameo of Baba Ramdev and a 2G scam a while back, it seems news in India has come to a standstill. Everyday it’s just Anna Hazare fasts and 3 other things that happen in the country.

And The Times of India isn’t even worth its weight. The raddi rate is currently touching Rs.10 a kilo, but the expensive Rs.4.50 for an issue of TOI negates it. I should thank DNA for its insanely low subscription rate. Clearly, I have aced the raddi market.

It saddens me though that the old must starve while I feast on daily portions of chicken or whatever the appetite calls for. What good I do hear though is that Anna, by virtue of fasting, has lost 7 kilos in 7 days. Talwalkars take note; throw out your treadmills.

Now to cut to the chase. Anna Hazare seems to have worked wonders on the country. People everywhere have united, starved of a national cause. The tricolours and Gandhi caps that were only let out twice a year, have now become the most fashionable and righteous of headgears. Suddenly, everyone’s a patriot. The generation that only heard of the freedom struggle in history textbooks, now gets to re-enact it for themselves, slogan-spouting and all. So unite all Ye Previously Pointless and Ye Fuck-the-Systemites, unite. Rage against the machine and all that.

Yes. The tigers are going, going, gone. Yes, we’re still insecure about our security. Yes, Ram Gopal Verma continues to make weapons of torture. But no, you’re not seeing the bigger picture. Corruption. It’s all because of corruption. Let’s put a really big Band-Aid on the whole thing instead of trying to solve the individual issues. That should do the trick. Heck, let’s get out en masse and clog the roads up and stuff. Good non-violence should after all make everyone else suitably violent.

The other thing about Anna fasting that troubles me is this: He’s starting the race a little too close to the finish line. To give another analogy a go, an old man fasting is a bit like a bomb with a short fuse. It’s unfair that the Government has only that much time to react and decide on a matter that could very well change (and complicate) politics. Time is ticking fast, and the old man knows it. He dies and he becomes a martyr. He lives and he could even make the cover of GQ, if he wasn’t so damned… unpleasant to look at.

Anna Hazare is gonna get you!

But no. This is non-violence. Look at us, we’re all being so rational. Just pass our bill no questions asked and we’ll call it a day and go home. Just do it. No, not your version of the bill, idiot, ours. I want, I want, I want.

They say that old age is a return to a child-like state. Too true, in Hazare’s case. Though I always thought there was a difference between child-like and childish.

Also, does the song Emosanal Atyachaar come to mind? (courtesy: Winamp Shuffle)

And Mr. Clearvisor.wordpress.com. I refuse to object point by point as you have done and so will only pick one. Yes, you’re trying to topple a government. Anna Hazare is following the Gandhi strategy of revolt and such yes? He did topple a government, didn’t he? And your format is only, so annoying. Even if I didn’t agree with Arundhati Roy, at least her article makes for good reading. See, this is how it feels:

Clearvisor, lie one caught.

Much to Spider-Man’s disappointment, in our country with great power comes with great opportunity. Sure, the government’s as corrupt as a hormone-charged teenager let loose on the internet. But then again, so is almost every Indian. We pay bribes, but really what the heck is that Babu accepting it for? Not a stain on my shirt, I tell you. I mean, I’m only a victim.

Sure, I fudge my taxes. Sure, I’ll pay to get my driving license faster. Corruption it seems, forgive the grossness, is a lot like a fart. Yours never stinks.

What Jesus said. Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone.

And really, who among the great unwashed will run this Lokpal? What angels will descend and guide the collective moral compass of our country? A part of me actually hopes the Lokpal gets passed, just to see it crash and burn. One government never worked out for us, two opposing institutions is going to solve the matter. Right.

Not to mention, the money that will be spent on setting up such a needless institution. Wonder where your recently paid tax money is going? Come on. Let’s hear that ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ louder this time.

The hazard of Hazare though lies in his inertia. He’s running down a slippery slope. He can’t stop lest he fall flat on his face. And he’s pulling us all down with him, thrilled as we are with the adrenalin rush of a quick descent.

He’ll get his glory while he can. He’ll be on T-shirts and slippers and stuff. But the crowd is fickle, Anna. Ask Dhoni. Today they celebrate you, but one misstep and you’ll be booed.

Please God, I pray to you, let that happen. I want the rest of my newspaper back.

Flaking Away

It never goes away.
Never.
Often I try to ignore it.
I can’t get it off my head.

I have tried.
Repeatedly.
But it’s something I can’t seem to shake off.
My shoulders must bear this burden too.

Passers-by stare at me.
Smirking.
They see me struggle in misery.
I tear at my hair in despair.

My friends offer advice.
Fruitlessly.
There’s only one path left to me now.
God please let Head & Shoulders work.

Gaana Mana Hai

Hindi music sucks. Well, most of what’s being churned out today, at least.
And before you think this is a baseless statement, I am going to get technical. And medieval on what passes for music.

First off, I like some Hindi music. Lucky Ali was excellent. Daler Mehndi was and is fun. Indian Ocean is amazing but they have long since risen above the cesspool of Indian music. I have a love-hate thing with Himesh Reshammiya. I love him because he’s one of the only artists to become famous with his solo albums and not solely as a playback singer. A feat which used to be not so rare in the times of Lucky Ali and Apache Indian and so on. And man, Himesh really knows what Indian audiences want to hear at really high volumes. Which brings us to why I hate him. Because he sings from his sinuses and every time, he releases an album, the whole country sounds like one huge nasal block. But the man deserves respect. And an ENT specialist.

Today, like much else in the country, all music has bended to the will of the great evil in the west. Bollywood. If you hear a new Hindi song, it’s almost impossible that it’s not from the latest run-of-the-mill Bollywood flick. It’s gotten so that everyone’ll hate the movie but still be blasting the music from the rooftops. (FALTU and Chaar baj gaye anyone?)

Every new singing talent out there wants to be a playback singer. Remember KK, Shaan and even the supposed rocker Vishal Dadlani? Well, they’re now mindless drones in a long processing line of mediocre movie music. The onslaught of reality singing talent shows doesn’t help the cause either. Abhijeet Sawant was only the heart-throb of the nation for all of 5 seconds, before he became just another voice in ‘hits’ like Tees Maar Khan. And right now, that’s the only reality awaiting the winners of the dozens of singing reality shows in the country. The road to obscurity never seemed so certain.

Next up, is what the singers are singing about. Almost 80% of Hindi, well let’s cut the shit, Bollywood music lyrics is all weepy and teary stuff. It’s all about love, my first crush, I miss you, will you be my girlfriend, please don’t go away foreigner guy, oh it’s so beautiful when it rains, and such other weepy stuff.

Bollywood music fans might not notice the difference, but it’s exactly the same reason why the younger generation loved the music of Rock On. It sang about laundry bills and a fairy-tale sailor, a refreshing change from the monotony of mush. Not great lyrics (I’m sorry Javed Akhtar, it’s true) but a refreshing start.

Let’s put it this way. The average Indian man is NOT sophisticated, soft or elegant. The recent World Cup will have proved that. So why then does our music give the impression that we’d burst into tears if we spotted a sad puppy?

And what is with Indian music all sounding the same? Wailing vocals and a dhak-chik dhak-chik in the background. What genre is this? Indipop you say? Please. That’s a myth. Go ahead, define it.

…

I thought as much. Nothing comes to mind, does it? Not to make you feel bad, Hindi uh Bollywood music. But all over the world, there’s rock, pop, reggae, blues, soul, funk, electronic, classical, jazz, Motown, World music and a ton more. All you’ve got is indescribable sounds and Bhangra. Bollywood really owes the Punjabis big time for bringing a bit of variety to it's music. Balle Balle indeed.

And if not either of the two, there’s remixes. It’s simple. Take old song. Add beats. Serve.

The last bit is the audience themselves. While English music listeners in India (me!) will give a good Hindi song a listen and a like, the average Hindi music fan remains a die-hard fan of his language. It’s all ‘yeh kya gaana bajaa raha hain?’ and ‘kucch maalum hi nahin padta hain’. Fine, don’t listen to English music. There’s a world out there. Brazilian, African and even the non-lingual electronic music. But sadly, much like we protect our customs, we remain afraid of being infected.

Please Anna Hazare, India doesn’t need to change how it behaves so urgently. Maybe I can bear that a little longer. Let’s change how we sound first.

An Ode to Fitness

To lose weight,
Exfoliate.