LIVEing Sonu

There are few moments of your life you never thought would be the most exciting one. I have heard most of Sonu Nigaam's songs on my music phone. They always struck a chord in my heart, every song triggers different emotions in your mind. For normal listners like me, we always visualises the video in which Shah Rukh or Salman romances with heroine. Later the imagination replaces Shah Rukh by yourself. (For some people, heroine may also get replaced!!) But we never think of the real voice who created the melody. Ok, we are quite deviating from the topic. I am not here to represent singer fraternity and injustice about their creditabilities kind of stuff. When I got to know that I would attend sonu's live concert, I was excited. But one can not experience that enthusiasm without previously attending something like that. Being novice, I didn't get the goose bumps, which I surely would get if now I get the chance to attend one.
One thing that is common among great people or rather performers is that they keep the audience awaiting. Being late due to traffic shoukd not happen with every performer. May be they have certain planning to psychologically manipulate the audience by hanging them desperately to wait for the performance. But after a long wait when he entered on stage, waiting period felt like seconds. Being a music lover, i tell you when you listen to your favourite singer live, it is litterally uncomparable with the recorded songs. I wrote so much of generalised statements. Let us be Sonu specific. even though it was my first concert, I am sure no one could inetract with audience so easily as he did. He entered on thestage with such a confidence that he knew he will rule the stage. He involved the audience in every song. I will keep taking about his non singing things, because commenting on his singing will surely insult him and I am big sinner already.
His versatility whether it be the song selection or genre is fantaastic. He modulates voice so easily that even high configured sound systems will sweat. At one point, he sang an english song immediately followed by opera song. At the moment I thought all we could do is to clap helplessly. the divinity of his voice gives us the traquility of mind even in the crowdy mob. Before sonu came, we heard the songs from another singer, we danced and enjoyed the songs. But when sonu started singing, we were busy flooding our ears with the melody.
Long LIVE Sonu Nigaam!!!

He

Today, I would like to introduce you to someone. He, ya...he does not have a name but he is there in each friends group. This specific He has got some characteristics. Once upon a time, His only world used to be His friends. But as the girl encroaches in His life He undergoes a massive metamorphism. The people He usually used to hang out with suddenly starts to annoy Him. Irritation starts surrounding Him. He starts moving away from the friends. This is as simple as the laws of common physics. If he is moving towards someone, then probably he must move away from someone. The small creature-some guilt muddles inside His heart. But He has more important things to focus on. So, he ignores the guilt as easily as he ignores his friends. His friends become very uncomfortable with His behavioural modifications.

One day as he joins the friends in the discussion, suddenly He feels out of the circle. He feels panic rising up in his head. He try to open his concerns to the girl. But she takes that whole thing as lightly as never before. Suddenly a thought occurs to him, thunderstrucked, he realises that He exchanged role with her. He have become a cry baby.

To overcome this feeling, He decides to spend some manly hours with His friends. But He overhears His friends talking about him, rather making fun of Him. Now He hates her and hates His friends. Then comes one of His beloved friends. He opens His heart to the friend and asks where did I go wrong? The friend draws the hyperbola on the paper and says "You are the focus. One branch is She and other is your Friends." Bewildered, he asks, "What am I suppose to do with this?". Friend replies calmly, "You need to bend it into the circle." He thinks and suddenly realises the meaning of the statement. His friend wanted Him to make the balance of both, giving each of them sufficient time. He praises his friend for the advice and thanks him for being his relationship guru. But the only thing that the friend wanted to say was to let him meet his girlfriend and have a chance with her...

( The writer has many such HEs in his friends group, but none of them had understood the real meaning of the advice yet.......)

Some day you wake up in the morning and nothing seems to be in the right order. You can not remember the immediate last day or the day before it. You shook your head in dismay but that just gives you the pain in the neck. Then you think of the place, where am I? But most likely you recognize that it is the same room where you get up everyday. You look at the clock, you are quite late. Its nearly noon. You sigh because yesterday you promised to win over the clock. Being loser, you go to the basin. You see a boy, unshaved, hairs all messed up. You hate the the guy as he hates you back. You wash your face. Slowly you start to remember things as if the pieces are falling in the puzzle and suddenly it completes. But that does not make you happy. You feel a burden deep inside your chest. You don't know the reason but you do not care either. You see the same flower from the window which fascinated you once. But now you just hate it because you are tired of seeing it daily. You can not do anything but to wait for new flower to blossom. You pity your helplessness. Suddenly a thought occupies your mind, what if no more flowers blossom? You shiver in fear. You blame yourself for not being attentive towards the growth of the tree.

The Sun moves from east to west. You try to diversify your thoughts by watching TV, reading books. But whenever you cross the window, the flower just appears as a thorn. The darkness spreads all over the place. You start the tubelight. But all you could see out of the window is the blackness. You try real hard to visualise the silhoutte of the flower in the dark but after some time your eyes starts etching. You leave the window. You move inside the sheets on the bed. Your thoughts keep moving from one place to another as yours eyes follows the blades of the fan on your head. Suddenly, you feel dizzy. You are not sure that it is because of your thoughts or the fan. The hands of the clock now moves slowly. You feel as if you are dragging the hands by your gaze. You feel exhausted. Slowly, you fall into sleep.

The room is full of sunlight. The clock on the wall hits the 12 and a neck moves inside the sheets....

Rajneeti

The film on Indian Politics, the bloody and cunning games for winning the power, the powerful and ballastic star cast and most importantly A Prakash Zha movie....all this is quite sufficient for the normal audience to walk down the theatre to watch Rajneeti. The Prakash Zha's earlier movies like Gangajal were really good pieces of work and so the expectations from the director was increased two folds as he was reappearing after quite a long gap.

But Rajneeti was not matching this burden of expectation. The weak point was the story especially in the second half of the movie where the murders were happening as frequently as the songs in typical old Govinda movies. The story line was significantly matching to the Mahabharata and Godfather. The resemblence of the characters to those in the Mahabharata was quite ok but as the story advanced, the writer was quite compulsive about the way in which story should advance. The resemblence of Suraj's (Ajay Devgn) car crashing down the road and then he begging Samar (Ranbir Kapoor) to let him go....Samar's dilemma and Brijmohan's (Nana Patekar) persuation were copied scene to scene from Mahabharata, though that was not necessary. This made the whole storyline predictable.

As far as acting is considered, Manoj Wajpayee was fabulous. He portrayed the exact image of Duryodhana, cunning and evil. And so was Ajay Devgn. Though we all know that Ajay is Prakash Zha's all time favourite, he really performed well the character of Karna. Nothing to say about Nana. The poor actors were Arjun, delivering quite overacting aggression. Katrina is looking too beautiful as usual, but if acting is considered, way to go buddy!!!!! Ranbir was ok but not that good as he was supposed to be, though his character is so leading in the story that his acting looks quite sufficient.

The background music, mora piya by Adesh Shrivastava were really good. But again, the dialogues were quite weird. Sometimes the dialogues consisted of very ancient hindi words like sangram, dheya showing the relation of the script with the epic whereas the next line in the dialogue would be something like com'n do it...

So, overall rajneeti is one time see but never again!!!!!

Remotely India's Idol

I remember the days five years back when the first season of Indian Idol was launched. It was before the avalanche of reality shows struck the television industry. Everybody was very excited and impressive to see the new format of talent hunt in which the people from normal background were directly thrown into the limelight of popularity. The high profile judges like Sonu Nigam and Anu Malik from the industry, along with Farah Khan (remotely related to singing) where given the job to search for the voice of the nation. Abhijeet Sawant was the winner. Even he deserved the victory and everybody especially the young generation was quite attached to Indian Idol seeing the fact that Indian Idol can provide them the platform to showcase their talent in better way and in faster means. Next year came with lots of reality singer hunts like fame gurukul and others. Suddenly, one day I came to know that a boy from Rajasthan became the second indian idol. I couldn't follow the second season of the show n the crowd of so many others.

The only thing that was popular later about Indian Idol was their auditions as it consists of good singers as well as the really bad one's. The advrtising people always portrayed the auditions keeping the bad singers on front as if it were the comedy show. Now as I write this post, the fifth season of Indian Idol is going on with two new legends in music industry along with the one and only Anu Malik. But as I followed the show, I realised that rather than singing many other aspects which can provide good TRP values were focused adamantly. The audition episodes mostly consists of the non singing fellas whose primary motive was to go in the audition and do something weird so that their footage will definately be aired. And what's wrong in their thinking? They were publicized quite regularly. On the contrary, the good singers who did serious singign in the auditions were not at all filmed because the advertising team knew that they possess low TRP values. Also, the Abhijeet Sawant, the first Indian Idol, was just co anchoring the show. What should the aspirants now think?eIs this what I havew to do after becoming an Indian Idol? Anchoring? I am not saying, like Abhijeet Sawant is bad singer or anything like that still it portrays different meanings.

The quality singers are absent on Indian Idol stage and they use different stratagies to uplift the TRP, for instant, the fake battles between the judges, Anu Malik being constantly one of the opponent. I just like to say that public is smart, stop fooling them by making such stunts. If you are showing the singer hunt, show us some serious singing. Otherwise the next Indian Idol will remotely be India's Idol.

Cricket Culture Changing Drastically

Three years ago, when IPL was just launched, as everybody said it was a perfect blend of entertainment and cricket, initially, it was proved to be quite right, but as 2nd and 3rd seasons came up, the feeling occupied my mind slowly and gradually that something is going really wrong.

Let the entertainment be the part of the show, not the heart. When I was watching the finale, this doubt of mine was confirmed as rock. There was less of cricket and more of advertising, cheerleading and other non-cricketory stuff, for instant, the cameramen were quite busy in searching the celebrity personnels present in the crowds. After each good or bad shot, the focus was to grab the reaction of the respective owner than the players themselves. At one point, it felt to me as if I am watching the match in breaks between advertisements. There was a streamline of thinking in which people opposed the whole concept of IPL as Owners buying the players, buying their talents making them like the puppets. I do not completely agree with this mindset, because in the goblisation and privatization we can not think in this way. But I really felt sorry for the players as their dresses are nothing but the advertising notice board. Everywhere there was a logo of this or that endorsements. One of my friends rehetorically said, "after so much crowding on the T-shirt, why have they kept the plants plain?", "Wait, you'll see that in the next IPL", I sighed.

What was the basic idea of introducing IPL? Wasn't that to enhance the cricketing skills of our players and keep them in good form? But the recent world cup super 8 match against australia didn't show any of that? BCCI really needs some self talk otherwise I guess this deterioration would acclerate in season 4.

Best luck team India