I am a Playback Singer and So can you

Disclaimer - I am stating my opinions and not facts

Songs in Indian movies have been a staple since the inception of the movie industry itself. In the Bollywood of 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, there was a holy triad made up of great Music Directors, Great Singers, and very accomplished poets who wrote songs for the movies. This may have been true of times earlier but I do not know much about the music of that time.

Here are some singers from that period who I think were great - Mohammed Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Asha Bhosle, Lata Mangeshkar.

Then there are other singers I like a lot but I would not put them in the previous list but who still are very pleasant to listen to Mukesh, Manna Dey, Talat Mahmood, Hariharan, and Shankar Mahadevan. There are I am sure a few others I like but cannot recollect their names at this moment.

After this golden era came the period of 1970s and early 1980s when there were still great singers and music directors. Poetry to be used as lyrics became optional and pretty soon we had songs like Mein Ek Disco Tu Ek Disco Duniyan Hai Ek Disco. By the late 1980s, with the death of Rafi and Kishore and the decline of Lata (again my opinion) singing talent became optional too in Bollywood. Finally and from early 1990s except for a few songs to alleviate the dreary landscape, even music directors became optional. Bappi Lahiri ruled during this era when it became the norm to copy pop songs. So we had songs like Ramba Ho. Not many people can name many other noteworthy songs or singers from this period which I call the dark era of Bollywood Music. There was a total dearth of any quality.

In to this vacuum came Kumar Sanu aka KS

I hate his singing. I detest it. One of my friends does a very good imitation of this mammal who pretends to be a playback singer. Most of you can do it. Simple - hold you nose and sing any song, take particular pains to sound unappealing.

At this point I experienced an epiphany. If KS can sing so can we all. In fact I coined the title of this post at that point.

I am a playback singer and so can you

I know it is not a character flaw that KS brays so well. I am sure he is a good father and an admirable husband. I feel that he was lucky to become a singer during times of turmoil and he used his opportunity well. I just cannot stand his singing much less sit and listen. Here is a telling fact - AR Rahman has never used him for his songs.

For those who believe I am being arrogant in dissing KS - Yes, I can sing but unlike KS, I follow Clint Eastwood's dictum - A man's got to know his limitations from the movie Magnum Force. I know my limitations, but I guess KS does not.

PS: For people who miss the reference, I paraphrased the title of Stephen Colbert's best selling book I am America (and so can you). It is a OMG, I-cannot-put-it-down-funny book.

Limited Resources

Imagine this meal.

There are 10 people who need to be fed. The restaurant that makes the food only produces enough for 10 people. One of them is obese and eats 45% of the food. The second person is also obese and consumes 45% of the meal. These two really do not eat all the food. They give it to their equally over fed pets. The remaining 8 make do with the last 10% of the food. They have not complained so far at this discrepancy since they did not have any money and were happy at getting even those scraps of food.

Of late 7 of the 8 have become modestly wealthy and proportionately hungrier for more food. The restaurateur unfortunately is unable to cook any more food. But he sees that there is demand for his food and decides to double the price. The 7 are capable and willing to pay more money to get a greater share of the food. This is galling to the two obese people. They are irritated that they have to pay twice the amount they were paying for the same food. To add to their woes, the restaurant owner has also told everyone not to be surprised if food prices will triple in the near future. Now these two can no longer provide gourmet food for their pets.

Horrors!!

Now the two, let it not be forgotten, are still very rich. With money comes the ability to buy air time on TV, Radio, and space in Newspapers. They start circulating stories how these poor people are consuming a lot of the food and are causing ridiculous price rise. They get conservative talk shows to rail against the growing consumerism of those 7. They get the liberal media to write about global warming caused by increasing consumption of those 7. They get SPCA to complain about ill treatment and mal-nutrition of the pets.

In general they avoid talking about the real issue - their obesity, their consumption, their greed.

In case you are dense, or I am too cryptic, or both - here is the cast with real names

1. Restaurateur - Oil producers
2. First Obese person - USA
3. Second Obese person - Europe
4. Overfed pets - Monstrously big vehicles, centrally heated and cooled McMansions 200 hundred miles from civilization (and more).
   
5. 7 poor people - China and India
6. Last poor person- Others (Africa)
   

I have never been more irritated by articles in respected newspapers that talk about increasing energy needs in China and India, rising consumption of various commodities and relating it to rising prices and global warming. No one ever mentions even in passing the real number that best describes the quality of life - per capita energy consumption. Well here are some numbers for annual per capita energy consumption in a few countries. See here for a more detailed list.

1. USA - 7794 (this includes me)
   
2. France - 4518
3. Germany - 4203
4. UK - 3918
5. China - 1138
6. India - 512
7. Ghana - 400

What do you think?

Lakshvataram

Kamal is a great actor.

1. He has won a the National Film Award for Best Child Artist
2. He has won several national awards for best actor
   
3. He has won several Filmfare Best Tamil Actor Award. I would be surprised if he has not won the most number of these awards
4. He has won Filmfare Best Telugu Actor Award
5. He has won the Filmfare Best Kannada Actor Award
6. Several of his movies were nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film
7. He has won a regional Filmfare award for a Malayalam movie
8. He has acted in several blockbuster Hindi movies
   

In short, and to repeat, Kamal is a great actor.

Kamal has also done dual roles, there have been three Kamals in the same movie, and finally in Dasavatharam there are no less than 10 Kamals. I looked at the cast and was disappointed to see only ten entries for Kamal. Hence I refuse to watch this movie. I feel there are too few Kamals in the movie. One cannot get enough of Kamal. So I am going to wait for a movie where Kamal also plays the role of a pole dancing Mallika Sherawat.

Why not? Nothing is too hard for Kamal.

In fact I have a great idea for his next movie. A movie where the hero is Kamal, his girl friend is Kamal, Mom and Dad are Kamal. After marriage, his kids are little Kamals. The bad guy is Kamal, the bad girl (pole dancer) is Kamal. All the assorted side characters are Kamals. The play back singers both male and female, the director, assistant director, producer, lyricist, choreographer are all -- you got it Kamal.

Here is the neat trick - the entire audience in every movie hall is also composed of Kamal .... and I have the name for this movie - Lakshavatharam.

Remember, when this movie gets made, you heard of the scoop first in this blog.

PS: I tried some alternate names, since there are Crores of humans in India, I tried Croravatharam. It did not sound so catchy.

My Happy Looks

My company has been trying to hire developers in India for the past 6 months and it has been an interesting experience. The no-brainer option is to go the IITs or the top 20 schools in India and pay top dollars for the brightest candidates. This is also the easy one since everyone can do that and it results in ridiculous escalation in salaries. Last year I read somewhere that for the first time a fresh graduate from IIT Bombay received a 6 figure offer. In US dollars!! Additionally small companies like mine stands no chance to get entry into the campus interview schedule. They would interview us and reject us as not worthy of hiring their students!!

The harder strategy is to sift through a pool of candidates, invite over ten candidates to select just one. It is not easy. Again everyone else is also doing exactly this. Just this week some company in Chennai offered nearly 80% more in salary to one of my candidates!!

Anyway, today, I was talking to this candidate, to whom by the way we ended up making an offer, during lunch. I asked him about his background and he mentioned he was from Nellore, two older brothers, a retired dad, and a home maker mom. It seems he is a budding author and likes writing stories and has written 5 in Telugu and 1 in English. He also volunteered the information that the story in English is a thriller going by the title Q.

No jokes. Just the letter Q.

When I asked him if he has published his stories anywhere, he shook his head regretfully. I suggested using Google and posting his stories in a blog. He did not like this since he feared that others would read his stories and steal it!! Dude does not know how hard it is to get people to read your posts, much less steal it.

In fact, I say, please steal my posts. In fact I will give top dollars for you to steal it!!

I assured him that once he gets people to read it and he becomes famous there are still 25 other English alphabets waiting to be written up as stories, so he should not be too worried about losing one of them.

When his turn came to ask a question he wondered if I was married and when I answered with an affirmative, he promptly hid a smile.

Naturally I asked him - what's up? To which he replied I looked very cheerful.

I asked him what was wrong with that. He replied that one could look at a person's face and see the beaten look of a married man and also figure out who wears the pants in the house!!

I, it seems did not fit that profile since I seemed happy and confident.

Funny guy, smart guy, I guess he is bound to remain a bachelor.

Streak of Narcissim

15-20 years ago, the greatest dread of my life was the word horoscope. If someone asked for your horoscope it meant they were looking at you as a prospective groom for their daughter or niece. I was petrified by the prospect of marriage and that too an arranged one. Also I guess like all boys of that age I was still rebellious. The notion that in this age of science people actually cared what Rahu, Ketu, Shani and Shukra did or believed that these distant planets could influence your future seemed so 19th century-ish!! It still seems to me despite the passage of two decades. Luckily, I met a really, really, nice girl in grad school who took pity on me and decided to marry me despite my boorishness. Thus did I escape the horoscope.

OK you escaped. So?

Well I am in Madras at present and yesterday I met a friend of my parents. This couple had relocated from Delhi to Madras to be close to their daughter. They had some friends over at that time and pretty soon we were involved in the merits and demerits of Bombay, Delhi, and Madras. One of the guests, who had been raised in Bombay, talked about her recent trip to Delhi and described how the Hindi there was so corrupt. It seemed to her it was Punjabi laced Hindi that was spoken in Delhi. I am like Lady you come from Bombay where god knows what dialect they speak and you are talking about the quality of Hindi spoken in Delhi!!

Of course, I did not say it that rudely, but people who know me, know that it must have required a lot of resolution for me to keep my mouth shut. I casually said that in the 20 odd years that I have not been in Delhi things could have changed. You may remember from my past post, how I have evolved into an improved person. In case you do not here is something to refresh your memory.

My question still stands. So?

The conversation veered to where I lived and why I was here and if I came so often to India why I should not simply relocate to Chennai for the duration of the project. I told them that while that was a good idea, one that I myself have idly thought of, the problem was each time I came here I missed my wife and kids already and that they probably miss me too.

Will this ever end?

Well one of the older ladies had not spoken for a while. At the mention of my wife and kids, she looked shocked. She turned my parent's friend and asked her, how old I was, since it seems she was almost at the point of asking for my horoscope!!

Wow, I did not know I looked that young!! I sadly had to tell her the truth that I was a father of a teenager!!

Well, wonders never cease. I actually liked having someone (nearly) ask me for my horoscope.

Had a very rough morning today - I had to tear myself away from the mirror and my very marriage worthy and youthful looks.

Holy Book

My cousin lives in the IIT Madras campus. Her husband is a professor of Mechanical Engineering. He is very serious in his pursuit of research and is frequently absconding from home when he could be found working in his lab. When I asked him how many papers he typically publishes in a year, his answer was evocative of the publish or perish mentality in higher education

More papers than the IIT average!!

My cousin's son is in 3rd grade and he studies in Kendriya Vidyalaya, IIT Madras. For the record, I was a student of that Kendriya Vidyalaya for two years in the mid 70s.

As part of an effort to raise awareness of prevalent cultural diversity in India the teachers talked about the various religions and their holy books. To make this point the teachers asked various students what book they followed in their own house. Each student came up with a list of the usual suspect such as Gita, Koran, and Bible.

When it my cousin's son turn, he asked the teacher what constitutes a holy book and how would one identify it at home. The teacher vaguely said that it would be the book that is most commonly read by his father or mother and then repeated the question. My nephew's answer was

Principles of Thermodynamics!!

Learn Mandarin and help the Cantonese

My sister is a teacher in Hong Kong. She has now lived there for more than a decade, both my niece and nephew were born and are being raised there. So I guess it is her home.

Soon after Hong Kong was taken over by China, she felt an urge to learn Mandarin. She, like many others, felt that it was the language of the future when the world would make a beeline to China. She was right, the future is now, and China is a economic super power and it would be a great advantage if we knew Mandarin.

Recently as part part of a school sponsored trip she along with the students and other teachers went to a school in Shenzhen, China. Several of the teachers were Chinese from Hong Kong and they spoke Cantonese. Now here is the unusual fact, the two dialects are so different that the Cantonese speaking Chinese do not understand Mandarin!! All the presentations at the school in Shenzhen were in Mandarin but since these Hong Kong Chinese did not understand they kept asking my sister to translate it for them!!

Imagine a Hindi, Tamil, English, and Mandarin speaking Indian woman (my sister) translating Mandarin for Cantonese speaking Chinese. I thought it was apt in a world that is gone flat!!