Rapists of Article 19

The country we are living has become a pathetic place where:

• Singers are threatened and forced to quit without any sense of reasonableness shown by self-declared protectors of religion and culture.
• Movies are banned even before the public can actually see them to debate or justify their contents.
• Users of social networking sites are harassed, threatened and even charged by police for pointing out and acknowledging injustice.
• Books are banned along with their authors if they are critical about certain ideologies and beliefs.
• Paintings are torn, destroyed and painters forced into exile because some fundamentalists doesn’t have the eyes to appreciate and understand artistic sensibilities.
• Cartoonists are arrested because some politicians don’t have an appetite for humor and the minimum capacity to digest criticism.
• Police in the name of morality, raids, drags, beats and arrests young people for committing the “crime of enjoying life” in a metro.

The article 19 (1) (a) of the Constitution of India gives its citizens the right to freedom of speech and expression but it seems that a handful of fringe elements and some vested interest groups have made a clear mockery of the whole concept of Freedom of Expression.

Every Indian citizen has the right to like, dislike, agree, disagree, accept, reject, appreciate, and criticize. But no one in India has any right to dictate and impose his/her views on others even to their own children if they are above 18 years of age. The most unfortunate part of all these is that the government which is supposed to be safeguarding the people’s rights has failed miserably in doing so. Due to narrow political compulsions and perhaps shortsightedness, the government thinks that they are playing safe by not interfering with certain groups and their exaggerated sentiments. The political parties (either in power or in opposition) believe that they are protecting their vote banks by projecting themselves as protecting sentiments of others.  However, this shortsightedness is because of the fact that in India the voices of the ‘Silent Majority’ have long been dominated and often been overpowered by the voices of the ‘Aggressive Minority’. Therefore the time has come for the Silent Majority to come out on the street and say it loud and clear that we won’t tolerate any Talibanization of our society and our country. It is perhaps a high time to hang the “Rapists of Article 19”.

Broken Down To Infinity

Weeks ago, it was the shocking molestation incident that got all the attention from the media from all over the country. The overexcited Newslive reporter was rightly criticized by everyone for putting TRPs over minimum sense of morality and incidentally arrested by the post-activated police. However, as soon as that happened, other news channels too tried to increase their TRPs by focusing on the same news and same disguised footage.

Now, coming on to the more pressing issue, we are still surprised how situations are being represented. Not only that the state machinery fails repeatedly to curb natural and unnatural disasters in Assam, but what is more shocking is that instead of taking a right perspective of the situation, everyone including the top ministers are busy finding someone or something else to pass on their blames.  On the other side, a portion of the media created headlines, where they highlighted words like “communal violence”, “riots” and “Bodos Vs Muslims” – a politically, socially and anthropologically incorrect title used to define the kind of violence. While some channels were careful and quick to distinguish between ethnic violence and communal riots, others simply didn’t seem to bother. “Bodos Vs Muslims” sounds as absurd as a cricket match between Punjab and the whole of India. First of all, Bodo is the official name of a Tribe, not a religion (of whom approximately 80 per cent are identified as Hindus and the remaining are followers of Christianity). They are predominantly concentrated in parts of north-eastern India. Muslims are the people who follow Islam as their religion. They are found all over the world, in all skin colors, speaks all sorts of their native languages and have their own distinct respective cultures. Though, it is true that the tension that broke between two sections was the Bodos and the other side happened to be Muslims. But why was it necessary to highlight a particular religion before everything else? Doesn’t it send in some way a confusing and incomplete impression of the region to the rest of the country? Doesn’t it hurt a particular community? Of course, it does. Therefore, here is a need to agree and reaffirm on certain basic points:

1. All Muslimls living in Assam (or anywhere else) are not Illegal Migrants.
2. All Illegal Migrants living in Assam (or anywhere else) are not Muslims.
3. All Migrants (Hindus or Muslims or Sikhs or Christians or Buddhists) living in Assam (or anywhere else) are not Illegal.

If taken together, since independence there have been way more Hindu migrations (including tribals) than Muslim migrations in India from Bangladesh. Migrants are migrants; they may be legal or illegal but need not be termed as Hindus or Muslims. Let me also clarify here that we are not dismissing the argument that, the root causes of these ethnic violence in Assam has a lot to do with the migration coupled with the feeling of deprivation and negligence among many native ethnic groups living in Assam. Take the example in West Bengal and Tripura where the problem of migration hasn’t been looked upon as severely as it has been in Assam. This is may be because of the cultural similarities between Bangladeshis and neighboring people of West Bengal and Tripura. In case of Assam such a cultural similarity is difficult to establish except in the districts of Cachar or Dhubri, where incidentally the majority population have always felt some kind of an identity crisis. Therefore, for Assam Migration has always been a cultural problem and was needed to be dealt as a cultural problem. The political parties never had any clear strategy to manage the ethnic diversity of Assam. Unfortunately, they were always luring themselves to secure power with narrow vote bank politics. They realized that it is easier to come to the power in Assam if it retains its sectional politics and thus never honestly worked for a Unified State.

The tragic compulsion for the helpless people to leave their motherland and migrate to a foreign land can be economic as well as socio-political pressure. Therefore, dealing with migration is equally a critical and sensitive issue which needs both diplomatic and humanitarian approach. Unfortunately both the Centre and the State have neither of them.

A Country Divided By Egos

Till now it used to be mostly Bollywood celebrities who makes spicy page 3 headlines for their love-hate relationships with other celebrities. But now, politicians who generally preaches about unity and integration or sportsmen who are supposed to put their country first no matter what, are indulging in childish and selfish ego-battles. Whether it is Pranab Vs Mamata, Modi Vs Nitish or Mahesh Vs Leander - its all and only about Ego. Demographically speaking, India is a young country, but I wonder when its leaders will care to grow up..!!!

It’s Not "Fare"!!

One of the major colonial contributions to modern India is the railways. Since the pre-independence era, the Indian Railways stood (and ran) as a symbol that promised to be the engines of growth and prosperity for a vastly poor country. However, sadly no other organization has been as severely exploited as the Indian Railways since our celebrated independence. Regional favoritism and political exploitation has so far done significant (and perhaps, irreparable) damages to one of the world’s greatest public sector enterprise. The railways that crisscrosses the length and breadth of the nation like veins and arteries, as quoted by the fired minister during his budget presentation, is unquestionably under serious financial crisis. Even just increasing the passenger fares may not seem to be enough now. In the successive and recurring process of pleasing prospective voters (or a section of it), the Indian Railways had to keep on adding burden on its aging wheels, year after year. And in the course, there was never given any visionary scope for sustainable development. Now, it’s high time to protect the Indian Railways from being running down to the bottom under our “honorable” railway ministry dominated by unrealistic sectional politics. What we need today is perhaps a full corporatization of the railways; if not necessarily privatization. But certainly and most importantly, we need its full depoliticalization.

Leading the “I” way…

There were three apples that changed the world as we know it – first, the forbidden apple that ignited the “basic instincts” between Adam & Eve and made contraceptives today a worldwide necessity; second, the apple of discovery that Newton saw falling from a tree and gave the world the “science of gravity” and apparently, the “gravity of science”; and the third, much later, appeared as a quarter-eaten apple of Steve Jobs that digitized, gadgetized and hypnotized the modern consumer society. Perhaps, it was none other than Steve Jobs, who first truly bring innovative concepts and shaped them into the real life. He merged futuristic technologies with simplistically aesthetic designs and packed them all into single tangible entities that soon became benchmarks for fulfilling contemporary human desires. Surely, an apple would have been just another nutritious fruit, but with the magical touch of Steve, it looks seductive too…

Technology, by its core definition is not just about rocket science or building war ships. In fact, it should be more about transforming those rocket sciences into simple accessible formats that brings change and happiness to the mass human lives. This was the message that Steve Jobs lived to create successfully in his short yet significant life. As long as Apple as his living example will continue to wonder, people won’t mind to stay hungry and foolish.

To read Steve Jobs 2005 Stanford Speech follow the below link:

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

Cut-Copy-Edit-Paste: The Clever Art of Plagiarism in Indian Film Music

Inspirations, Adaptations, Remakes and Remixes are all different forms of reproducing art, but often in the commercial world, they doesn’t bear a clear line of distinction from the otherwise  derogatory term called “Copying”. And many a times, it becomes cheaper, illegal, unethical and contradictory towards all artistic sensibilities when such things are done without copyrights, consent and/or proper acknowledgement of the original. In the context of music, plagiarism, like piracy, not only causes economic loss for the original artists and producers, but at the same time, they are an intrusion to someone else’s intellectual property.

Once, Bappi Lahiri made headlines by suing American producers for plagiarizing his ‘Kaliyon ka chaman’ in their song ‘Addictive' by Truth Hurts. And now, it’s Anu Malik again. On the recent drama of Anu Malik accusing Pritam for lifting his tune, I took a dig at both of them… and this is what it looks:

Anu Malik

It sounds surprisingly funny when accusation comes from someone called Anu Malik who is by the way, now more known for judging reality shows where he tries to make a fool of himself with his instant idiotic shaayris. The old hindi saying aptly fits here – “Ulta chor kotwal ko daate”. Anu Malik accused composer Pritam for lifting his tune in the Salman starrer ‘Ready’ (2011). According to him, the song ‘Charcter dheela hai’ is a copy of his song ‘Mohabbat naam hai iska’ from the film ‘Ajnabi’ (2001). Though once, he was the most sought after music director of 90’s, but now perhaps he has nothing more left than to remind people of his previously forgotten tracks. Still, if one looks back, he will definitely loose count of his own infamous Choris. From Qawalis to Spanish pops, he had a diverse source of “inspirations” - both from inside and outside of the country.  He shamelessly took Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s ‘Mera Piya Ghar Aaya’ and put it up in ‘Yaarana’ (1995), which was of course, superbly spiced up by Madhuri Dixit thoomkaas. Around the same time, came the film ‘Akele Hum Akele Tum’ (1995), and most of its songs were far from original. Ironically, the film itself portrayed composers who steal music from the protagonist.  The now “virtually non-existent singer” Kumar Sanu number ‘Dil Mera Churaya Kyun’ in that movie is a straight lift from ‘Last Christmas’ by British pop duo Wham! (one of the duo is George Michael) from their album ‘Music from the Edge of heaven’ (1984). In some way, ‘Aye mere humsafar’ from ‘Baazigar’ (1993) was a good work but still you cannot hide the fact that its mukhda clearly resembles ‘Khubsurat Hasina’ from the old movie ‘Mr. X in Bombay’ (1964). The original song was sung beautifully by Kishore Kumar and composed by Laxmikant-Pyarelal.  Most of his other “inspirations” came from the west, where he often couldn’t resist the temptations of lifting from the western catchy tunes and beats. He took the identical beat from Michael Jackson’s ‘They don’t care about us’ (1996) and used it in the masala number ‘Neela dupatta peela suit’ from ‘Hameshaa’ (1997). He used Spanish Los Del Rio’s global chartbuster Macarena twice in the same year in ‘Auzaar & Dhaal’ (1997). The film Duplicate (1998) had songs like ‘Ek shararat hone ko hai’, where Anu Malik copied a catchy tune from Laura Allens ‘Slip And Slide’. And its ‘Ladna Jhagadna’ is a copy of a children song called ‘A-Tisket A-Tasket’. You can see, quite literally, he has justified the name of that movie by his "sincere" musical efforts. In ‘Kareeb’ (1998), there is a song ‘Tera gussa’, and believe it or not, it’s a plain copy of the ‘Happy Birthday Song’. Seems, he sometimes even ran out of the “inspirations”. His works in movies like ‘Murder’ (2004) and ‘Zeher’ (2005) are basically not more than just a compilation of copies. In Murder, ‘Kaho na kaho’ is an adaptation of the Arabian song ‘Tamalli maak’ and has been acknowledged in the track itself. But surprisingly, it’s not the same treatment with the ‘O Jana’ number, which is also a note-by note copy of ‘Firiye dao’ from a popular Bangladeshi rock band called Miles. In fact, in a case hearing, the Calcutta High Court has ordered Bhatts to put off the track from the movie. Also, the superb ‘Bhheegey honth tere’ was again a total copy (including its lyrical parts) of a Punjabi track ‘Menu tere naal’ by a Pakistani singer named Najam Sheraz. So as you can see, Anu Malik has clearly left his foot-prints in the already stained saga of plagiarized music in Bollywood. However saying all that, I still feel that it would be unfortunate if he won’t be remembered for his rather good works in ‘Refugee’ and ‘Phir Teri Kahaani Yaad Aaayi’. Oops, wait a minute, I just realized that the ‘Tere dar par sanam’ prelude is also a copy of the theme track from 1971 film ‘Summer of 42’ composed by Michel Legrand.

Pritam Chakraborty

True, we couldn’t stop our laugh when Anu malik accused Pritam. But again Pritam too is neither a “washed-basil-leaf”, since this whole game of lifting tunes in Bollywood is not less than a vicious circle of some repeated players. So let us concentrate now on the composer who stepped in bollywood with a Dhoom. Soon after the success of ‘Dhoom’ (2004), a hardly remembered singer-composer lyricist called Sanjay Raina resurfaced and claimed that he lifted the tune and catchword ‘Shikdum’ from one of his album ‘Hungama’ released way back in 1996 by Magnasound. Pritam defended, saying that he was actually inspired by the Turkish song ‘Sikidim’ (actually it’s Simarik) by the group called Tarkan. So it seems that he wanted us to imply that it’s always okay to take “inspirations” from outside. Now moving on to his more direct intrusions, of which the first is the hugely successful ‘Gangster’ (2006). In that movie, the producers purchased rights from Gautam Chatterjee for the ‘Beegi bheei’ number. What a nice gesture and act of decency, but hold on. The movie also has a track ‘Ya Ali’ with which Zubeen Garg–a talented singer from northeast rose to fame. The song was a straight rip-off of an Arabian song called ‘Ya Ghali’ by a Kuwait based band named Guitara. Incidentally, the music company which owns rights of the Arabian number is owned by Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal from Saudi royal family. As usual, Pritam characteristically denied all the allegations and said he was inspired by a Muslim folk song instead. Other hits of that same album are also direct lifts, such as ‘Tu hi meri shab hai’ (from ‘Sacral Nirvana’ by Oliver Shanti & Friends) and ‘Lamha Lamha’ (from Waris Baig’s ‘Kal Shab Dekha Maine’). Then there is ‘Life in a Metro’ (2007) of which the song ‘Baatein kuch ankahe si’, which has got several versions in the same album, is a copy of a Korean song ‘Ah reum dah oon sa ram’ originally sung by Seo Yoo Seok in the 70’s. The same is the case with ‘Pehli nazar mein’ from ‘Race’ (2008). The song in the soulful voice of Pakistani sensation Atif Aslam is a “pure” copy of another Korean song ‘Sarang hae yo’ from the hit Korean tele series, ‘Kwae-geol Chun-hyang’ (2005). And, remember KK’s ‘Kya mujhe pyar hai’ from Who Lamhe' (2006)? Yes, again, it’s a copy of an Indonesian song ‘Tak bisakah' by the popular Indonesian band ‘Peterpan’ (it was a part of the soundtrack for a 2005 Indonesian film ‘Alexandria’). The other favorite - 'Chal Chale’, sung brilliantly by James with his usual sleepy touch, is a copy of a 1965 track, 'A World of our own’ by the band named, 'The Seekers'. So you see, like many, both temptations and success is keeping Pritam’s motivation going… and we can expect that it will continue to go as it is.  

Indian Film Music Industry: A Chronicle of Plagiarism

The Indian film music is perhaps one of the biggest entertainment industries after the Indian film industry itself.  And the distinctive identity of Bollywood has been substantially maintained by its colorful music, since generations after generations. Though, plagiaristic practices in Indian film music are as old as the industry itself, but the early 40’s to 60’s were generally seen as largely clean period with strong classical, folk and regional influences. Occasionally, there have been western influences, especially in some of the works of O.P Nayyar, Shankar-Jaikishan, Usha Khanna and S.D. Burman. But one wouldn’t deny that those influences or adaptations were actually aesthetically incorporated, enhanced and aptly Indianized versions of the originals. And that creditably paved the way for the beginning of further developments and popularity of Indian film music. But the 70’s and 80’s were the times when  trends really started changing. Even though legends like R D Burman maintained originality in most of his work, but he too occasionally took inspirations from different sources including Rabindrasangeet. However, it was the later new breed of music directors like Rajesh Roshan and Bappi Lahiri who took this trend to another level by mastering the art of plagiarism. They made, borrowed and stole heavily, by directly copying western music from different genres like Pop, Latin, Hip-hop, Disco, Country etc. The trend was further carried forward in 90’s by the likes of Nadeem-Shravan, Dilip Sen-Sameer Sen, Jatin-Lalit, Anand-Milind, Sandip Chowta and of course, Anu Malik. Some of the composers even shamelessly copied A.R. Rehman, who at that time infused fresh blood in the industry. The other distinctive change was that the “influences” were not just limited to West but also had already embraced the Middleast and Pakistan for their immensely rich musical resources. And today, in the new millennium, with the rise of talents like Pritam Chakraborty, the “music expeditions” has even reached to the earlier untouched territories of Southeast-Asian countries like Korea, Malaysia and Indonesia. A truly global robbery!!

P.S.: Visit the following site for a shockingly fascinating experience: http://www.itwofs.com/itwofs.html

The Fast… And The Furious…

How to get rid of a person who gets stuck in your butt like a “freshly-used” chewing gum? Certainly not an easy situation to be in, but still it didn’t quite seem as if the Government’s only core-option to deal with it was a sudden post-midnight use of force. And they did it in that very strange way, inviting criticism from every corner. But one would wonder: at a time when they almost had a grip on the whole situation (thanks to a Technical-Sibal brain backed by some shrewd Prime Ministerial and Party Presidential support), then where was the need of taking such a gutsy-gusty decision?

Earlier, we have seen live on our TV screens, that how this simple looking but over-ambitious middle-aged self-declared messiah – Shri Ramkishan Yadav (yes, in case you don’t know it is still his non-celebrity real name) made a mess of everything. First, he traps himself into an unnecessary documented deal. Second, he tries to script a glamorous victory with a stupid sense of timing. Third, realizing all this self-created blunders, he loses his mind and gives disastrous explanations in front of his media ke bhaaiees. Fourth, he drinks “mineral water” (wonder, was it Kinley or Aquafina?). Fifth, he hides behind the Palloos and later, he himself becomes one. And the best of all, he redefines Satyahrah with the furious idea of creating an army. However, not a long time ago, things were pleasantly conducive for his side. His political ambitions were looking to take a stride with the obvious back-staged Sangh support and thousands of fat-bellied fans across the country, who themselves might have some secret bank accounts in countries famous for picturising impractical Bollywood romantic dreams. But then unfortunately, Politics and Pranayama are as different as Rajnikanth and Amol Palekar in their “reel” lives. So, sadly, the dream of superseding a modern Gandhi in taking on with the national causes has been broken for a while, and along with it, perhaps the motive of becoming a national leader as well. Now, his proposed journey from Shaastra to Shastra will be more interesting to see than a full one hour ride at the Disney World.

So, if it isn’t that good for the Yoga Guru, it is even worst for the troubled power at the centre. Though, the next big election is still some times ahead of its stage, but the crisis they are facing are still far from over. Because, unlike laptops, petroleum is never going to get any cheaper; the “neighbors” are never going to turn “friendly”; and from 2G to CWG, the deep-rooted “G” (for Ghotala) factor is here to stay… isn’t that Sonia “G“? The funny (and perhaps positive) side of it is that when politicians throw mud at each other, we know they make both sides look dirtier and sillier.

The good thing is, for us, all the innocent home-loan seekers, budget basmati-eaters and gossip hungry channel switchers, the Great Indian Tamashas are never going to end. After all, it’s all in our blood. We grew up in a country where rich people hide Tijories under their beds and keys under their pillows. We grew up in a society where a neighbor’s new color TV was a bad news for all the hard-working husbands and used to become the next trigger for silly inter-household competitions. And now we are grown-ups. We wake up late and walk past the white Mercedes running on the unplanned streets of our own miserable cities. We glance at the news paper headlines standing near the traffic points but never bother to buy it from the under-aged hawkers. And at the end of the day, most of us are happy to buy cheap Chinese electric rackets to kill the even poorer mosquitoes in our balconies. We are proud of our nine point GDP, even if it means that there are more cell phone users then toilet users in our country. It’s all a part of our big living – the white clothed politicians, the grey markets and the invisible-like-ghost “black money”. Since clearly, India is a place of contrasts and conflicts and bound to stay like that… Or else, where will we get our natural diet of “entertainment” news?