CA 01: Bomb Blasts - So What?

DISCLAIMER: This article is purely out of frustration. I expect this blog to deviate a lot, and so is the size of the blog. If you really have time in your hands, go ahead :)

I go to work and open news.google.com to see that Bangalore (Now, don't get me started by saying it is Bengaluru) was rocked by serial blasts. My reaction was "Again?", keeping in mind the events that unfolded at IISC. The next day, same Google News, the same blasts story, but now in Ahmedabad. This time I went... "What the ..."

There have been many ways in which terrorism has been potrayed in the Indian mainstream media. Just for the sake of comparison, they say that India has lost more lives in terrorism in the last two decades than to what the US lost in its entire history. These all sounds good, evoking enough sympathy, but does it have any impact on the outside world? No. We can do some soul-searching by asking a few questions to ourselves.

Let us start from the point where the Indian media compares the figures of lives lost to terrorism with say a superior country, for this argument sake, let us say the US. People read the news world over and does it create an impact? No. Any one else, I bet not. Now, let us start the pondering. Why?

That is because no one in the outside world cares. India is not an important country to care about. Why do we have to think that way?

Marketing is important. When terrorism happens either you play the big brother and respond decisively or play a victim. India doesn't do either. How do you come to this conclusion?

Even though India is the power in South Asia, it is extremely soft on extremism. It promptly condemns acts of terrorism in all forms, irrespective of where it happens on the earth, the issue is that it is the same even if it is on its own soil!

They say that a consulate or an embassy is actually the territory of the respective country. Movies like Bourne Identity tell you that very clearly. The laws of the local country will work only if the mission chooses to. So an attack on the embassy is an attack on the country it represents itself.

So what happened when they bombed the Indian embassy in Afghanistan? They strongly condemned it. Wait a minute. Of course they did treat it like a bombing in India - by verbally telling the terrorists that we will not tolerate. What a joke!

In the game of poker, there is this term called bleeding. In the sense, the player will be losing money in small amounts every round, but does not like getting out of the game. The same is the case with India too. We want to be treated like a super power and we like to be a part of the big game, but we won't act like one and as a result bleed. We care about our dignity more than the issues at hand.

Indians have this mentality of being proud if someone in the world does something great and has an Indian connection. Prove me wrong! Take Kalpana Chawla, Sunita Williams and Bobby Jindal as examples. We take pride because we are not bred in the culture of achieving something. So we look for people who has Indian roots, proudly proclaim that an Indian did it, create a powerpoint presentation and send it to all your friends in your email contact list. Seriously, I have not seen any other country doing it. please don't tell me that it is called "being-patriotic", it is being foolish. You should achieving something on your own rather than basking in the glory of someone else. Anyway, this is a seperate discussion on its own. Let me not deviate from the topic at hand here. When we take pride by trying to tie a person's root to India, shouldn't we react in a similar manner when our country is attacked?

No we don't. We use "peace loving country" very frequently in order to cover the fact that we are incapable of doing anything about it. This is the exact reason why we are not taken seriously by anybody in the world.

We go and tell other countries not to interfere in our affairs and yet, at the same time wait for the international community to "pressurise" our neighbouring countries to stop their sponsoring of terrorism. The worst part is that we have facts and evidence. Mind you folks, these countries want active terrorsim in India. My question is, are you trying to use the methods of ZGandhi like Ahimsa, Fasting, Non-violence, etc.?

I was watching a Tamil movie the other day by the name "Ayudham Seivom" where the hero gets the baddies to repent their mistakes by going on a fast. I couldn't resist laughing, seriously. Violence doesn't help, but if you ask me, so does non-violence. My theory of why Non-violence worked against the British is that they wanted peace to prevail too. They would not have been able to run their administration without peace. Their methods of violence was just a tactics but their ultimate aim was to control the behaviour. In the end, they "chose" to hold talks. Terrorists are not running an organization which needs your cooperation. They don't want to talk. Their ultimate aim is to get rid of you. In simple terms, they want you dead. You are making life easier for them by showing your other cheek after they slapped you on the other. They do not feel any remorse whatsoever.

There has to be some logical reasoning. Did the world care about us up until we tested at Pokhran? Did the world take note of the genocide until we decided to invade East Pakistan? Seriously, we lost credibility when we failed to do anything about the Mumbai serial blasts or when the Parliament was attacked. We pardon terrorists to let them come and bomb us back. We lost all our credibility there that when the Kabul mission was attacked recently, it was just another news. Everyone knew we don't do anything about it rather than increase security in other countries. Does anyone even remember that the Indian soil was attacked by a foriegn force and still we only did promptly condemned the act of terrorism in all forms?

The only thing that I can think of is that some Indian scientists are working on a super-secret project for destroying terrorists when you just need to condemn the attacks and say that you will defeat them.

I salute those who guard our borders against infiltration as they are our only hope of reducing such acts of terrorsim. We will continue to be a peace-loving country where it is our "dream" to have peace when none exists as of now. I read on the internet that folks are scared to leave their homes in Ahmedabad. Way to go peace lovers.

These rulers of the country are a worthless bunch. Let them usher into the modern era with the strategies of stone age hunting. Even the stone age hunters had better brains I would say. Shame on you folks and may the God shower with all the luck in the universe for those who are trying to "destroy" terrorism by just "strongly condemning" the attacks.

CORE 01: Sakkarakatti - As sweet as it gets

Again, a long break. Rahman makes me come back. This time for the review of Sakkarakatti. I am not going to provide the professional review like everybody does, but rather the aspects that I like about the song.

Overall, this album has a huge electronic influence, but that is where the generalization stops. Read further for a track-by-track notes.

01 Taxi Taxi
This song has been on air for a while with all the promos. Highly repetitive. I don't want to use the term 'monotonous' as it is definitely catchy. A simple rhythm, three language lyrics... Tamil, English and French (In order of length used in the song). Of course, in Rahman style, there is a small Punjabi influence!!!@@##$$%% Crazy man.

Singers: Benny Dayal, Blaaze, Viviane Chiaxe, Javed Ali


02 Marudhaani
This is for the Rahman melody lovers. Madhushree does the soothing rendition with the not-so-soothing-but-blow-your-mind bass rhythm. Once again, Rahman hides a lot of sounds for you to discover everytime you listen to it. There is a simple piano piece with a mild wind of the flute. Though the credit says Rahman, don't think that this is a duet. Up until now, he had reserved it only for Lata. He and Hentry (I didn't spell it wrong) Kuruvilla does some humming.

Singers: Madhushree, A.R.Rahman, Hentry


03 I Miss You Da
Dominated by synthesizers. Not likely to be a hit song as Chinmayi whispers the song, but slowly. You be the judge.

Singers: Chinmayi, Indai Haza


04 Chinnamma
Yes. You guessed it right. The same Chinnamma from M.F.Hussain's Meenaxi. A few modifications in the effect, but yllables have been kept almost the same in the lyrics, preserving the originalty of the original version. Good job Pa Vijay! The best part is that this song doesn't require time to grow on you. It already did!

Singers: Benny Dayal, Chinmayi


05 Elay
Undoubtedly, the best track of the album. Sure to become a big hit. It might have already. Starts with a Guitar rhythm, exquisitively augmented by a solo violin. From the credits, I assume it is John Themis (He did some strings in Meenaxi too). Folks, don't come to me saying that this song sounds like Roobaroo from Rang De Basanti. It is not. A Guitar, a Violin and a Harmonica stand out among the instruments. A must-listen.

Singers: Krish, Naresh Iyer


06 Naan Eppodhu
This is Yeh Rishta from Meenaxi. No explanations required here I guess. Looks like the vocal supervisors would have had a tough time. Unlike Chinnamma, this song has been left unmodified.

Singers: Reena Bharadwaj


A few trivia about the songs.
1. Marudhaani and Naan Eppodhu were sung by Madhushree and Reena Bharadwaj respectively. None of them know Tamil. So what Rahman does is to get the service of Shreeni and Srinivasa Murthy (Yes, Rahman's arranger/conductor) for Vocal Supervision
2. The violin in 'Elay' can be found in Toss the feathers by Corrs. Of course, both Rahman and Corrs are one among the few who use Irish folk in their composition. So before you say Rahman copied, here is something for you.
3. Marudhaani has vocals by two technicians. One the great Rahman and his additional rhythm programmer Hentry Kuruvilla.