Music Group Themes I Hosted

 I am part of a music group devoted to Hindi songs, film and non-film. We have a weekly host who runs a theme, around which members have to post songs. I had a theme related to lyricists with place names-Indori, Jaipuri, Bhopali, Sultanpuri etc. This was my report at the end of that week.

Theme Owner Report for Bhopal se Jaipur.

Behno aur bhaiyo,

Is hafte phir JCB jaag utha. An Uttar Bharat discovery tour! Pilibhiti, Kashmiri, three Jaipuris and a couple of Lakhnavis were unexpected. Ek Hyderabadi bhi nikla, dhoondhne ke baad. With a tadka from Panipatis and Dewasis and so on.. Gorakhpuri and Kanpuri were somewhat expected. And some were really far out, unknown to me at least. Shows how committed to digging our members are- even more than Bangalore (or Chennai) road-diggers! Came up with gold. Heartening for me were also the plethora of black and white era songs, most of which were both lyrical AND tuneful. Naturally! MSMTans ko Soorma (Bhopali) ghoshit kar diya jaaye, after this sterling performance. Binaca geet mala style bigul bhi bajaaya jaaye, is Khushi ko zahir karte hue..

I started out imagining that 5-6 mainstream poets/lyricists would dominate. How wrong I was, and happy to be! Good to have Indira back, and Ratnamadhavi, adding 4 moons to the theme. Students ki last minute entry ki aadat ab tak barkaraar hai, ye Ishita ne saabit kar diya. 😊

Admins. ko salaam, aur sabhi doston ko Ram ram, meri agli theme tak. I am hoping to meet at least one MSMT member this weekend, magar let it remain a secret till it happens.. 😊

Rajendra

Jan 29-Feb. 3, 2023

Identity and Politics and Media

 Any media report without the identity of the main players you heard recently? On TV, I don't think so. The newsmaker is always identified by caste, community, religion, or whether his/her father was a rickshaw-puller, and so on. 

This actually perpetuates politics of identity. Why not just mention the facts of the case? And then we blame politicians for using all of these as vote banks. Why wouldn't they, because the media- you and me- perpetuate it all the time.

This is not restricted to India- it's always Democrats versus Republicans in the news reported by American media.

If it is a riot or fight between communities, maybe that's relevant to the news item, but mostly, it is not. Being conscious of this is the first step towards treating all human beings as one.

An Amazing Community

A few years ago, a former student (from 1991, XIMB) introduced me to a music group (online) which is into old Hindi film songs (which I simply adore). Since then, I have enjoyed being on the group, and when we decided to have a physical meeting in Hyderabad sometime ago, jumped at the chance. Then, the group only grew bigger -it also has a couple of my young students- and we recently had our second meet in a Bangalore resort. These pics only demonstrate a fraction of what went on..sheer magic, with all activities built around music- quizzes, stories, new friendships, reminiscences- and singing! Every pic has at least one friend I met for the first time (physically) from this amazing group/or their families.

Reforms and Women

Why aren't there more women reformers? We had Manmohan Singh (as Fin Minister) and Narasimha Rao, way back in 1991, and Sreedharan (Konkan Railway and Delhi Metro), Verghese Kurien (Amul), and a few other good men (Sam Pitroda), thrown in. But where are the women?

I say, find more women reformers. They have the natural flair. They are completely immersed in improving their surroundings. They want to perpetually clean their abodes, and things within the abodes. They will go to great lengths to wash clothes, and iron them and loook good in them. Often, this extends to making others around them look better than they otherwise would (children, husbands?).

The trouble arises only when they want to reform their husbands. This is the only animal who is beyond redemption. If they would just concentrate on the community, environment, neighbourhood, the globe, etc., they would do exceedingly well. The parliament could do with some more grace, in general, and they can bring that to it. The GST would get passed in a jiffy. And jewellery, clothes, eating out etc. would be less expensive.

The downside? The (self-and-spiritual improvement) babas of all types may go out of business. The babes would take over.

Festivities and Productivity

Festivals we celebrate in a multicultural society such as ours are numerous. A rough calculation from my limited knowledge of festivals we celebrate shows that we have around 15-20 festivals of Hindu denomination or tradition, around 4-5 Muslim, around 2-3 Christian, and maybe 1-2 each of Sikh, Parsi, Jain or other faiths.

This totals up to around 2 months of festivities if you include the number of days we choose to celebrate each one, even if you don't celebrate each one fully. The consequences of this on national productivity may be negative, even though there are some positives that are intangible, like the joy of meeting family and friends with whom we celebrate, building up a community feeling, and so forth.

But if we have to improve our own productivity, we may need to choose a few to celebrate and choose not to celebrate others. Of course, that is a choice that we may have to make individually, in order to raise the national standard of living and remain globally competitive.

There are of course, other ways to improve productivity such as better time management. But this is not about those.

Land's End

The end of civilization as we know it may occur when we have no land to live on. barring going back into the sea (assuming it's still there), or into the sky, we wouldn't have any options.

Therefore, my theory ( I still can propound a few) is that we, citizens of the world, must value what we have. All land records of the world must be made public, on Google or its equivalent, and we must all decide on what we should be doing with it. Housing of course is a primal need, and we could allocate large portions of land to this. Agriculture may be equally important, and that should take precedence over pointless uses.

After which, other land uses should be decided on by local communities. New communities can also be planned by citizen groups. What's new about this, you may ask. Two things. Transparency- the google part, and citizenry getting involved. Might actually solve a lot of the world's problems, methinks. Royalty cheques, anyone?