A Sense of ‘Ah’

I owe something to Rahul Sharma’s music and I hope with this write-up I can make me owe him a little more. Rahul Sharma’s santoor is as profound and lively as his albums are experimental. Time Traveler a 2005 presentation is like a vagabound traveler’s journey across time with eight musically programmed tracks. I am not particularly fond of fusion, because, done hurriedly; it may sound kitsch. However, a track in this album - ‘1960- Travelling to New Orleans,’ where jazz instruments warps itself around the pahari sounds of the santoor creates a perfect jugalbandi. The rhythm instruments are tabla and drums. Livid in their presence, the tabla sometimes and quite strangely, plays first fiddle to the main instrument.

Often when I listen to Rahul Sharma’s encores I feel like I am cycling full tilt on a kacchi guli in a nondescript Indian village with the wind raking in my hair. It is fluid and extraordinarily beautiful. A feat that he achieves in this album is to transcend the boundaries of the santoor as a Kashmiri folk instrument to give it a universal flavour of a saxophone. Strange, often tangled, and unearthly beautiful. I found in his music all rights and pleasures due to me, even though the disturbance of new age instrumentals was sometimes a bit off, but finding it's own space in the entanglement. I have often heard that musicians have the power to transcend their bodies and lift their mental beings to a state of suspension; it is like spoonfuls of honey into the gullies of the mind. That is how dear readers I would define an ‘out of the body kind of an experience’ with my banality.

I went for a similar concert at Max Mueller Bhavan by Tanmoy Bose a few years back, where he created a bizarre yet poignant mix of an Indian instrument like the ‘dhak’ and a western instrument like ‘brazilian drums.’ The audience grew from a dwindling crowd of five to six people to an auditorium full of listeners, people who could hardly attend their language classes downstairs. The rhythm interfused in my mind a number of extra-musical memories. Something I would fail to describe in words. Out of my right mind!

Up in Splitsville

If I was George Orwell writing a sequel to Big Brother, I would be all over the place now. MTV India recently released its brand reality show Splitsville and it's not news anymore. A clutch of girls fight it out for two sickly sweet chocolaty boys on an exotic location - perfect for a holiday. With dialogues like 'Main pyaz katne wali bharatiya nari nahi hoon' (mind you this is one of the participants) I couldn't help fathom if the archetypical bharatiyanari ends up teary-eyed with slices of onions and tomatoes in both hands. The guys get to dump one girl per episode, an example of the game element in any game show.

There's something gladiatorial about game shows in that the participants make an irresistable public spectacle. MTV's Roadie 5.0 was a laugh riot with a single episode airing all possible combinations of inglis galis. Channel V's Get Gorgeous (a model hunt) has the Bitch Diaries an antecedent to a rather bitchy elimination episode. Our home-spun version of Big Brother - Big Boss was a lesson in raunchiness. What with Rakhi Sawant's razor-sharp tongue and frequent abuses to Bhowjpuri superishtar Ravi Kumar I can only feel sorry for the other stars who joined the show to save a flagging career. Separting the real from the 'act up' is a challenge, really. I would personally prefer a CCTV (close-circuit tv) in the neighbourhoods to capture footages of our daily misadventures or even fly-in-the-wall docusoaps with matter-of-fact names like 'Airport' or 'Shopping Mall.'

Not too long ago AXN aired a gameshow on a forelorn island 'Survivor' with a number of challenging and unpleasant tasks. However, as a caveat, one of the edgy competitors later featured in a movie called 'The Animal.' The overtly theatrical 'Big Boss' tempted our theatrical lachrymal glands and aroused the conscience of the human right activist in us (now that's another story.) Pop Idol in the west was followed by Pop Star in India--a hunt for talent among the ordinary college goer and later a degree of voyeurism into the plush hotel where they were stationed, the makeover has something of a Cinderalla fairytale syndrome. Bindaas TV's Dadagiri every bit as obvious in its lift from AXN's Fear Factor format starts airing in early July. And, paradoxically, my sequel to Orwell's is on the way.

Ballack and Euro 2008

Michael Ballack rattled the crossbars with a masterful header in a clincher of a match with Portugal and I almost rattled a nerve in my forehead. Ahem, trying too hard to avoid any discussion about the boyish striker-turned macho-Deutscher oozing chutzpah, Ballack hasn't disappointed me at all.

However, any die-hard football fan would admit that watching football in a paltry television telecast isn't half as magnificent as watching it on the grandstand. I root for the German team and I take time to watch every match that the Rhinelaenders play. There's something blond and lively and tall about the German team that takes away some of the Bavarian brashness. I would infact, wager to watch them on the field and so would my, soccer affectionado father.

Oli Kahn at a recent match in Kolkata--Mohunbagan vs Bavarians(that turned out to be more of a feel-good match) convinced me that soccer matches are meant to be watched on the grandstands only. The Salt Lake stadium seething with fifty scores of moving masses shouting Kahnda as our humble home-team suffered in silence. (It's another story that Mr. Kahn's gigantic legs gave way to excessive sluggishness after he could hardly see the ball pushed within twenty yards of the goal post).

The psychedelic colors of fans, a sheer sense of atmosphere that television can hardly capture, outcry among opponents and the defeaning roar after every cut or pass, where every spectator doubles up as the supporter. And every goal is a lifesaver for the fans. Every fan has the advantage of offering physical homage to his favorite player on the field; every fan on the field experiences a sense of autonomy when expressing his disapproval on a shot. What a view from the turnstils!

As I came to know from my father, during pre-televised times, football was a gentleman's game to it's quieter cousin cricket, somuchso that the penalty kicker would stroke the ball and then throw it to the opposing player, simply to affirm that the foul occasioning the kick was not malicious and therefore, the team to whom the kick was made would not misuse the advantage. But I'm going to admit that even wrestling isn't as telegenic as fouls in football matches are- theatre par excellence, a-not-so-recent-example from Zizou's farewell match. A profligate kick can attract a disapproving fan's discontent and make him switch allegiances. But even then, it doesn't appear 'scripted' like a WWF match. The theatre here might be entertaining, but it doesn't have any choreographed fakery. Meanwhile, I'm going to make a paradigm shift from this discussion about the rivalry and instant ness of football matches to watch wonder boy Ballack head a quick riposte!

Resonant Spaces

What do I sing to you today, through notes, chords, blotting pens

These unstated words and lost chords I find

The chords that did us bind and fastened the strings of our life

Through rain and shower and summer suns, we walked together under a thousand suns

Remember the day? When we first saw our reflections on the moon

How we sang the same John Denver number on that hot summer noon

Seeking peace on a northern chilly night, a busy arena with bobbing heads

Our asides on the musical kid who brought warm strings into your life

Do you remember our secret language during rehearsals?

And the exactitude with which it set itself on our creations

Today we breathe in separate spheres and we think different thoughts

Though words still return, to weave our thoughts in equal spaces

On threatening looking rainy days mother earth weeps

For me, in writing I find a solace, that puts my worries for you to rest