Its been sometime since when I have thought of putting together some interesting trivia from Bollywood specially things relating to Hindi film music...So here they go...
Raj Kapoor, Shankar - Jaikishan (SJ), Shailendra and Hasrat are regarded as the best ever combination of a producer, music director and lyricists in the Hindi film industry. Their association spanned two decades (1948-67) from Barsaat to Mera Naam Joker before Shailendra died after his home production Teesri Kasam bombed. Though they were the best combination, there was actually no collaboration. Shankar and Jaikishan used to compose separately and in later years Shailendra used to only write for Shankar and Hasrat for Jaikishan. To their credit, they all took these professionally and no album of theirs mentions which song has been penned by whom.
There was a song which SJ had composed for Lekh Tandon's Amrapali which he decided not to use and hence the same tune was given to Raj Kapoor by SJ. Subsequently, Lekh Tandon was advised by others that the song was actually required. But Raj Kapoor refused to part with it. Now Amrapali was a war film set in the times of the Mauryas in India and was under a huge budget. Lekh Tandon was under pressure to complete the film. It was decided that Shailendra would write the song and SJ would compose and Lata Mangeshkar would sing and everything to be completed in a day. To have a peaceful surrounding, Lekh Tandon asked SJ and Lata to wait in the studio while he went to a park with Shailendra. As providence would have, Shailendra could not manage to write a single line. After a few hours, they decided to return to the studio and inform others that the recording had to be postponed. As soon as they reached the studio, Shankar asked Shailendra - could he finish the song? Before Lekh Tandon could say that they could not manage a line Shailendra recited the entire song which he composed on the spot. The song was the superhit "Jao re jogi tum jao re" rendered immortally by Lata Mangeshkar and presented on screen by Vyjantimala.
Similarly Anand Bakshi and RD Burman were asked to create a song in an evening by Dev Anand for his film Hare Rama Hare Krishna. Anand Bakshi could not make a single line. Frustrated, RD said "Aap socho, main ek dum maarke aata hoon" ( You think while I have a smoke and come). Readers can guess, the song was the superhit " Dum maaro dum" finally made superhit by Asha Bhosle's rendition.
For the movie Teesri Manzil, RD Burman was under pressure to perform because he had displaced Shankar Jaikishan as the music director for the Nasser Hussain production house. The terms were if this movie was a hit, next 5 films of Nasser Hussain would have RD. Nasser Hussain was one of the biggest producer-director in the 70s and 80s. RD had composed "Aaja aaja main hoon pyaar tera" as a very tough song and invited Rafi and Asha for rehearsal. As it was expected Rafi got it right immediately but Asha could not get the "aa aa aaja aa aa aaja" phrase which was the clincher for the song. The whole day they tried but Asha could not. She returned with a sullen face and Lata asked her the reason. Asha narrated her incapability to which Lata said there should be nothing in music which the Mangeshkar family cannot achieve so Asha better keep up the name. The entire next day Asha sang only that phrase for about a 1000 times before the rehearsal. All her servants and even the car driver thought she had gone mad. But Asha got it right and we all know what a gem of a duet was by Rafi and Asha with Shammi Kapoor and Asha Parekh dancing to the tunes.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Magnificence munificence and extravagance
Have you ever seen a title of a blog to be so non-correlated? It only seems that the title is chosen purely to enforce a sense of rhyming. Well, to be honest its true to a large extent! However, its also a thought which sparked in me after my day-long tour to Dubai.
This was a full day trip organized by a tour company on an open top bus with defined stops and routes. The best part was you could hop-off and on the bus at any and every stop because every 20 minutes the next bus comes to pick you up. The bus also provided running commentary on various landmarks and areas of Dubai as the bus passed through the broad streets. The amazing part was the commentary was exactly synchronized with the landmark on your right or left.
The day ended with an hour long cruise on the Dubai creek again with a commentary and drinks on board as well.
After a full day in Dubai and covering almost all the major spots in the city (the city has too too many of them) I ended up revising and re-visiting them. (if you have any doubts please read my zodiac sign in my profile!). The conclusion was apart from a single fort and museum and the Gold Souk all I saw was expansive hotels, huge malls with all the biggest brands of the world and hotels and malls again.
The world islands under construction will actually resemble the world map from an aerial view when completed. The Palm Atlantis is a huge resort constructed on man made islands which on an aerial view will resemble a palm with a crescent. This is connected by an undersea tunnel from the mainland. The Burj Dubai is probably the tallest building in the world. The Burj Al Arab is the largest hotel in the world with a helipad on top. Federer and Agassi famously played a tennis match on the top of this hotel! The list goes on and on! Each of these monuments ( I don' t see any other word for them) were the tallest or largest building in the Gulf or in the world when they were built.
The question which naturally comes is how much of this is serving the purpose? Is it being driven by demand from the wealthy all over the world or is it an artificially created pomp and hype intending to attract everyone in the world?
However, the questions remaining aside, for tourists like us it provides simply a magnificent sight to behold. The munificence of the land and the people together with the extravagance in spending as well as thinking (even if you have money to spend how many countries in the world have even thought of creating such structures leave alone actually creating them?) emerges in a magnificent splendor and is a sight to behold specially during a river cruise ride after sunset.
Hence the title magnificence munificence and extravagance!!!
Monday, October 19, 2009
Sense of achievement
In recent times I have been plagued fairly frequently with questions as to what am I? Where am I going and what am I doing and what is its purpose? In a nutshell, I was trying to answer certain questions in order to understand my own identity and purpose in life. In many cases, I dismissed these thoughts as a typical aquarian infliction (probably I got too influenced by Linda Goodman :( )
Lately however the questions have been too many and too frequent to be ignored!!! All these questions, have brought me to think about what I have been doing all these years and how each stage in life has provided the satisfaction / dissatisfaction with it and what are the achievements in all these years.
A foregone conclusion to this question was that in the last few years there has been nothing to be spoken of..neither as a part of the profession or otherwise...this conclusion also brought with it some fundamental questions...a) what could be done which can be termed as an achievement in one's own estimation b) why has there been no sense of any such thing specially in the past few years despite the fact that so much hardwork, stress and strain has gone by...
Answer to the second question is probably easier...and which is - we are increasingly getting drawn into the routine aspects of our lives ('business - as - usual' for the management guys) that we are unable to get out of the routine and do something unusual...its very similar to why organizations seek external advise / help in order to improve their own self...an organization knows itself the best but still they ask for external help because they feel that they are so much into the system that its best to bring someone who can see sitting outside the system...Ditto for our own lives! Ofcourse this is not to say each one of us need an external help...
Coming back to the first question - what could be done so that we ourselves can term it an achievement...Well to put simply do someting which you will be proud of till your last day in life...still better do something which the larger society remembers you even after your life...
When you are studying - lets say getting into the IITs / Harvard or the ilk would definitely be an achievement...In your professional career doing something which brings a significant betterment either within or outside your organization could be an achievement...
Now all this also brings us to other questions such as you should be really talented and should have the right backing and should be lucky and should have so many other things in place to achieve something...And since our lives are so dependent on situations and hence we get an escape route saying things werent in my favor an hence I could not do anything special...
Looking at it from this angle, also tortuously brings me back to the answer of the second question which is we are so tied up to our current situation and daily activities and burden that it is becoming impossible for us to rise above it, think differently and actually make use of the knowledge and experience that we possess...
Fundamentally it is a choice between thinking about oneself as the 'Created' one or the 'Creator'...Being the 'Creator' is definitely not easy and it calls for something which is over and above the huge energy and time that we spend in 'business - as-usual' activities...but it also brings with it that sense of achievement and pride in oneself...Let's therefore begin this new Samvat after Diwali with a passion to create and achieve...And as always its a game of quid pro quo - you create and you get back the fruits of creation together with a sense of achievement! You give some you take some!
P:S: Next time you do a general conversation with anyone and ask people how are things and how is it going? Just try and note how many say "going on" or "as usual" or the likes and how many have a different answer... Happy diwali!
Lately however the questions have been too many and too frequent to be ignored!!! All these questions, have brought me to think about what I have been doing all these years and how each stage in life has provided the satisfaction / dissatisfaction with it and what are the achievements in all these years.
A foregone conclusion to this question was that in the last few years there has been nothing to be spoken of..neither as a part of the profession or otherwise...this conclusion also brought with it some fundamental questions...a) what could be done which can be termed as an achievement in one's own estimation b) why has there been no sense of any such thing specially in the past few years despite the fact that so much hardwork, stress and strain has gone by...
Answer to the second question is probably easier...and which is - we are increasingly getting drawn into the routine aspects of our lives ('business - as - usual' for the management guys) that we are unable to get out of the routine and do something unusual...its very similar to why organizations seek external advise / help in order to improve their own self...an organization knows itself the best but still they ask for external help because they feel that they are so much into the system that its best to bring someone who can see sitting outside the system...Ditto for our own lives! Ofcourse this is not to say each one of us need an external help...
Coming back to the first question - what could be done so that we ourselves can term it an achievement...Well to put simply do someting which you will be proud of till your last day in life...still better do something which the larger society remembers you even after your life...
When you are studying - lets say getting into the IITs / Harvard or the ilk would definitely be an achievement...In your professional career doing something which brings a significant betterment either within or outside your organization could be an achievement...
Now all this also brings us to other questions such as you should be really talented and should have the right backing and should be lucky and should have so many other things in place to achieve something...And since our lives are so dependent on situations and hence we get an escape route saying things werent in my favor an hence I could not do anything special...
Looking at it from this angle, also tortuously brings me back to the answer of the second question which is we are so tied up to our current situation and daily activities and burden that it is becoming impossible for us to rise above it, think differently and actually make use of the knowledge and experience that we possess...
Fundamentally it is a choice between thinking about oneself as the 'Created' one or the 'Creator'...Being the 'Creator' is definitely not easy and it calls for something which is over and above the huge energy and time that we spend in 'business - as-usual' activities...but it also brings with it that sense of achievement and pride in oneself...Let's therefore begin this new Samvat after Diwali with a passion to create and achieve...And as always its a game of quid pro quo - you create and you get back the fruits of creation together with a sense of achievement! You give some you take some!
P:S: Next time you do a general conversation with anyone and ask people how are things and how is it going? Just try and note how many say "going on" or "as usual" or the likes and how many have a different answer... Happy diwali!
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Society, culture and welfare economics
Keynesian theory of welfare economics calls for movement of money in the market. It recommends that the money should always remain in the system so that the economic multiplier effect can come into being taking the economy on the growth path. One of the radical thoughts of this theory was the role of the state in the economy in order to provide the path for growth. In times like the one we face today, Keynes would recommend the expansion of fiscal deficit, spending by government to make up for the money withdrawn by other entities (banks, corporates, consumers etc). To an extent, most central banks and governments are resorting to this when they see that effects of monetary policy in form of rate cuts are not having the desired effects. In a nutshell, Keynes says spending has to be encouraged so that there is money flow in the system and to re-spiral the economy towards growth.
Religion has always been thought of as something which we practise because our fathers did so or purely on basis of faith and beliefs. For a society or culture to take shape, religion or faith has been thought of as the basis. That religion could be driven by economics seems far-fetched. However a deep thought in to this shows the inherent relation. In fact, economics drives most of our activities, so why should religion be kept out of it.
Most of our festivals prescribe specific activities to be performed. If its colours for Holi, its crackers for Diwali, dandiya for navratri, pandals for Durga Puja, boat races for Onam. These notwithstanding, the custom of new clothes, painting of houses, charity to poor, span across all festivals. The underlying thought is, patronage of these specific industries and skills by stimulating demand of those through these festivals and customs. It provides for jobs for millions which in turn, provides money in the hands of more people which implies even more spending. Crux of the matter being flow of money through the system. Symbolically, Hindu philosophy describes Lakshmi the goddess of wealt and material prosperity as being very fickle. She keeps moving from one place to another, providing prosperity to the multitudes but no one can keep Lakshmi with themselves forever. What this means is, prosperity of a society is possible only when money flows (symbolically referred as fickle mindedness of Lakshmi).
Another thought which closely resembles modern day welfare economics model is using money as an enabler for growth. Keynes says money should be an enabler and used in the right manner to provide for growth in the right. The objective should never be storing and hoarding money / wealth. Because when that happens, money remains outside of the system and retards growth.
An old legend provides a similar lesson. It is said that Vishnu and Lakshmi had an argument as to who is greater amongst them. Vishnu said people follow dharma and are righteous and hence he is superior while Lakshmi's contention was people would do anything to be rich and prosperous and hence she is superior. They descended on earth to test their views.
Vishnu went to a village as a sage and found people welcoming him to their homes and offering him their belongings as per the custom. Vishnu requested the villagers to give him only a house to live and that too one which no one is using. So he was given an old house as per his wishes making Vishnu feel that he was right. But it actually proved to be otherwise. Lakshmi went to the same village as an old lady with a ragged bag and asked for water. When she was offered in a glass she refused to take that saying she has her own golden cup in which she would take the water. To people's amazement she threw away the golden cup saying that she never uses it again. She repeated the act multiple times throwing golden cups here and there. It naturally spread like fire in the village and people assembled in front of the old lady asking her what she needed. She placed the same request as Vishnu did. The villagers in their greed threw the old hermit out of the house and gave it to Lakshmi. Now it was Lakshmi's turn to feel proud that she was superior.
The climax of the story however was, when the sage after being thrown out was wandering, he found people fighting over the golden cups as to who should take it home. And, they called the sage himself to preside over the fight and assist the villagers that what is right and do justice.
The legend points to the fact that even when material prosperity is available, it can only be a medium and even to use it rightly, it needs an objective and the correct path. Philosophy says, that where there is 'dharma' there is Vishnu and where there is Vishnu there is Lakshmi.
So if you use money to pursue a rightful objective, you achieve growth. But if you want achieve money and prosperity it will always slip away in absence of direction.
Its a game of quid pro quo - you give some you take some
Friday, February 27, 2009
A friend's wedding
This post - as the title would suggest - comes after attending one of my old and very special friend's wedding. That she has been more like a sister to me all these years goes unsaid.
Dutifully therefore, I was informed way back in november about this with strict instructions to be there else...Fact of the matter was, there was no option of an else...However, as circumstances would pan out, till about 4/5 days before the actual wedding my trip to calcutta was not confirmed. In the interim, again the same instructions were repeated this time even more threatening!!!
The feeling of happiness (when you understand the importance someone attaches to you) and dissappointment of not being sure of keeping up to that is never a good quagmire to be in...
Nevertheless, somehow I could ensure my presence at the end - albeit for a very small amount of time. I guess sisters are the best in the world because they are able to accept a lot of things even if they are undesirable and so I am sure my quick exit would be forgiven...
Certain instances which left an impression on me during the 2 days that I was there form the reason per se of this post. And adding the usual disclaimer, these are my own realizations from what I saw today and in the past....
First, the bride is typically unaware of the expectations and social protocol. Its like "am I supposed to speak to all the guests who have come" or "am I supposed to do this"? So when a similar question was directed towards me, I answered in the affirmative. It was then realization dawned, that this is something she must have hardly done before (being the kid in the family) and not only that, going forward, she has to don this mantle not only at her parents' place but also with her new family. There would be many social courtesies and protocols that would follow post the marriage as well!!! The single phrase that I could attribute to this was that it would be a "giant leap of faith"
Second, during the wedding, so many (and I mean it..there were so many!) wished her and I saw, that she was already learning the ropes of being cordial and warm with them. Poor thing, there were so many whom she could'nt recognize in the first place! Yet another realization for me as to how you should know people even when you dont know/recognize them!
Third, when she signed on the dotted line (literally I mean!) assuming her new name - I was curious as to how it felt when you literally change your identity. An identity with which you have been associated for all your life... By her own submission, it was weird signing a new name! This is something I have pondered and discussed with a number of female friends of mine and most of them ended up saying they did not like it in the first place but accepted / got used to later...But there are still a few who refuse to attach their identity to their husband's! In any case (whether you assume a different identity or not), you face hurdles...The realization for me was, that a girl when she enters a new home has to not only don a new role but create a new identity for her as well irrespective of the change in the name...How well she's able to do it is what matters!
Marriage as they say is not a ceremony or an event but is an institution! Before she enters, she is absolutely care-free and the kid in the family! As she enters, she starts learning the ropes and as years go by, she learns the demands of the role that demands her to juggle attention between multiple families, not to mention her own professional career.
Before ending this, here's wishing the new couple all the very best and lots and lots of happiness in their forthcoming conjugal life! And I take this opportunity to apologize to my friend of not being present in her wedding completely! and a big thank you to her as well for literally forcing me to take this holiday...by virtue of which I could catch up with my own family and old friends...
Cheers to all the sisters in this world!
Dutifully therefore, I was informed way back in november about this with strict instructions to be there else...Fact of the matter was, there was no option of an else...However, as circumstances would pan out, till about 4/5 days before the actual wedding my trip to calcutta was not confirmed. In the interim, again the same instructions were repeated this time even more threatening!!!
The feeling of happiness (when you understand the importance someone attaches to you) and dissappointment of not being sure of keeping up to that is never a good quagmire to be in...
Nevertheless, somehow I could ensure my presence at the end - albeit for a very small amount of time. I guess sisters are the best in the world because they are able to accept a lot of things even if they are undesirable and so I am sure my quick exit would be forgiven...
Certain instances which left an impression on me during the 2 days that I was there form the reason per se of this post. And adding the usual disclaimer, these are my own realizations from what I saw today and in the past....
First, the bride is typically unaware of the expectations and social protocol. Its like "am I supposed to speak to all the guests who have come" or "am I supposed to do this"? So when a similar question was directed towards me, I answered in the affirmative. It was then realization dawned, that this is something she must have hardly done before (being the kid in the family) and not only that, going forward, she has to don this mantle not only at her parents' place but also with her new family. There would be many social courtesies and protocols that would follow post the marriage as well!!! The single phrase that I could attribute to this was that it would be a "giant leap of faith"
Second, during the wedding, so many (and I mean it..there were so many!) wished her and I saw, that she was already learning the ropes of being cordial and warm with them. Poor thing, there were so many whom she could'nt recognize in the first place! Yet another realization for me as to how you should know people even when you dont know/recognize them!
Third, when she signed on the dotted line (literally I mean!) assuming her new name - I was curious as to how it felt when you literally change your identity. An identity with which you have been associated for all your life... By her own submission, it was weird signing a new name! This is something I have pondered and discussed with a number of female friends of mine and most of them ended up saying they did not like it in the first place but accepted / got used to later...But there are still a few who refuse to attach their identity to their husband's! In any case (whether you assume a different identity or not), you face hurdles...The realization for me was, that a girl when she enters a new home has to not only don a new role but create a new identity for her as well irrespective of the change in the name...How well she's able to do it is what matters!
Marriage as they say is not a ceremony or an event but is an institution! Before she enters, she is absolutely care-free and the kid in the family! As she enters, she starts learning the ropes and as years go by, she learns the demands of the role that demands her to juggle attention between multiple families, not to mention her own professional career.
Before ending this, here's wishing the new couple all the very best and lots and lots of happiness in their forthcoming conjugal life! And I take this opportunity to apologize to my friend of not being present in her wedding completely! and a big thank you to her as well for literally forcing me to take this holiday...by virtue of which I could catch up with my own family and old friends...
Cheers to all the sisters in this world!
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