Corruption – that quick and dirty practice of allowing money to change hands to get things done in a hurry – inhabits our lives so pervasively. And what’s all the fuss about white and black money? Anyone who has received a crisp 1000-rupee note for no lawful reason will tell you it is a pleasant, peachy pink.
Well, sometimes it doesn’t involve money at all. Enterprising government servants will accept your contribution in kind, perhaps even kindness. . . . → Read More: What would we do without it?
Our inherent corruptibility is a Third World virtue, a sort of “common wealth” that binds us with a host of also-there-on-the-map nations with whom we have little in common besides terrorism, indelible poverty and chronic hunger. Since we have proven our pedigree by exporting our patented brand of corruption to postcolonial rackets such as the International Cricket Council, there can be no better testament to the validity of the Commonwealth Games than to host them in India. Except that amid the flurry of kickbacks, you may think it’s the FIFA World Cup all over again. What an emotional homecoming for corruption! . . . → Read More: Under the table and dreaming
Mumbai has engendered a great number of bands but the Bombay Band that once shook the foundations of indie rock culture in India is a relic. So, it is refreshing that the reprise of that once-favourite memory comes to us from one of the youngest and most talented groups in the city. They represent the panache and insouciance that makes Bombay so dear and fondly remembered. That band is Something Relevant. . . . → Read More: The Bombay of Something Relevant
The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 received presidential assent on August 26, 2009. While this is clearly a step toward positive change, there remain glaring lacunae in the understanding of the Act and its provisions, as well as some ambiguity over who owns what. A friend at Maya Prajayatna has prepared a new leaflet for internal use (and therefore not shared here) that critiques the Act while seeking to examine and clarify its position on existing issues. I have illustrated the booklet with my cartoons. . . . → Read More: New cartoons on the Right To Education
My piece on the music of Thermal And A Quarter, published in today’s Mint Lounge, traces the history of the band’s music, its relevance and rootedness to Bangalore’s cultural milieu and argues that rock music can actually come from a deep place — if only you care to listen. . . . → Read More: Bangalore's own Roots Rock
My friends at Thermal And A Quarter and I read Inder Sidhu’s outcry against “the media’s hysterical coverage of Indian rock bands” (and before that, in 2008, Deepanjana Pal’s diatribe against Indian rock) in Tehelka with familiar feelings of resigned amusement and piquant regret. While Sidhu makes some pleasant noises and points available fingers at the usual suspects, he disappoints us by stating the obvious and therefore fails to offer us any fresh insight into what actually ails the rock scene. What ails the media we already know.
Sidhu writes that the “vocabulary and context for rock criticism does not exist in India.” When was the last time you met an editor who condescended to carry a major story about any Westernised urban counterculture in India? When was the last time any self-respecting commentator (such as you, we hope) turned away from the clippings morgue and did some legwork to find out what’s really happening in India’s underground music scene?
For instance, how do Indian bands approach songwriting, where do they learn to play their instruments, where do they rehearse? How do they finance gear, studio time and production efforts? What level of initiative does it take for a band to bag concert dates at Hard Rock Cafe or Blue Frog, or plan a five-city tour? Or to cut an album and market it independently?
These realities offer story ideas for any journalist with a serious interest in writing about Indian rock. Perhaps Sidhu might want to consider exploring these areas instead of expending two thousand words on a subject he believes is not worth writing about. That’s laughable. Of course, we are aware these stories can’t be written within a week’s deadline but has any journalist cared to investigate the possibilities, or any editor dared to commission them? . . . → Read More: Don’t believe everything Tehelka says about Indian rock!
The ‘One Small Love – Bangalore for Mangalore’ concert on February 14, a red-letter day made infamous by Hallmark cards and various killjoy extremist groups, will bring together musicians Konarak Reddy, Ravi Kulur, Alwyn Fernandes, Gerard Machado, Karan Joseph, Gaurav Vaz and Swarathma along with Thermal And A Quarter. . . . → Read More: One Small Love – drawing the line
I happened to be streaming Nina Simone’s haunting rendition of Strange Fruit when the news video of the policeman’s killing, which had been buffering, came alive. Both audio tracks played side by side and I was struck by the eerie similarity of their themes — it had a sort of roughhewn, impromptu resemblance to Simon & Garfunkel’s Silent Night-7 O’clock News.
The age of original heartfelt protest songs in jazz, pop or rock has passed unlamented ever since we started counting Madonna, MJ, Eminem, the Black-Eyed Peas and Amy Winehouse among protest singers. Insidiously, Protest has become a marketing label, a genre if you like — which adds up to a nice new varnished shelf in a large music store somewhere before Punk and after Gospel. Most artists have realized that they have little to protest about but their own inconspicuousness. And their acts of protest are in truth about having a go at the fifteen lucre-encrusted minutes of fame that their voices, if sufficiently loud, would bring them. . . . → Read More: Protest and the Strange Fruit of Mistaken Identity
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