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naha ke khoon mein aai thi fasl-e-azadi

August 15, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Call me moderately patriotic or not patriotic at all but I am not the one who would post “proud to be Indian” and “Jai Hind” messages on 15 Aug and then on the very next day would be jumping red lights and throwing garbage on the road out of the window of my AC car.

Well….my TL on Twitter and FB is already full with one-day-patriotism messages pictures .

Anyways lets not get into all that.

This day 15 Aug, every year reminds me of two poems that very aptly describe the history and the present. One of them is Faiz sahab’s yeh daagh daagh ujala

Ye Daag Daag Ujala, ye Shab Gazeeda Seher
Wu Intizar tha Jiska, Yeh wu Seher tu Nahin
Ye Wo Seher tu Nahin Jiski Arzoo lay Kar
Chale` Tey Yaar Kay mil Jaigi Kahin Na kahin

This tattered raiment of darkness
This sputtering of dawn.
This is not the dawn that we had hoped for.
This is not the dawn we had set out for.

(Text and translation from here)

It really describes the disappointment of someone with hopes of making it big after we got the independence.

The other one is Ali Sardar Jafri’s kaun dushman hai which so aptly explains the you-are-my-enemy situation between India and Pakistan. These two countries separated at birth has almost been at war with each other since the very day of independence.

ghulam tum bhi the yaroon,
ghulam hum bhi thhe

Naha ke khoon mein aayi thi fasle azadi
Maza to tab tha ki milkar ilaaj e jaan karte

khud apne haath se tameer e gulsitan karte

hammare dard mein tum, aur tumhare dard mein ham
shareek hote to jashne aashiyaan karte

Tum aao gulshan e Lahore se chaman bardosh
hum ayen subah Banaras ki roshni lekar
Himalaye ki hawaaon ki taazgi lekar
Aur iske baad ye punchhen kaun dushman hai.

Recited by Muzaffar Ali

This is the truth about the situation that India and Pakistan has seen since the day of of freedom. This place would surely have been a much better place had this enmity not been there.

This freedom (for India & Pakistan) didn’t come for free. There were people who fought for it, gave their lives in youth. Best years of their lives were spent struggling to get this land freed from the foreign rulers. Their struggle gave us this freedom but it came with India getting partitioned into two nations India & Pakistan. Millions lost their homes even lives in this process of division. Punjab was the worstly affected state. I am not sure if we can say whose mistake it was but for sure all those people who had to migrate from one side of the border to another lost everything in this process and because of no fault of theirs.

On this day we must remember and pay respect to the people who fought for the freedom struggle and then the millions who lost their lives because this country was being partitioned. Sadly the newer generation doesn’t really understand what happened at that time. But as Manto said it is very important to understand and realize what went wrong in those days so that we don’t commit those mistakes again.

With the hope that the clouds of violence and injustice fade away soon here is wishing you  a very Happy Independence Day !

Gurdas Maan–Roti–music review and more

August 5, 2013 / / 10 Comments

I am writing a music review of an album after really really long time. The last one I wrote was on Mar 3, 2009 for Collaborations 2. I am not really the one who was eagerly waiting for this album but actually this post is a mix of two posts; ie music review of this album and some in general stuff that I have been thinking about Gurdas Maan’s performance in the last few years. I am sorry if this post sounds like a too critical one. So lets get going with the music review first.

Overall this album is a disappointment especially in terms of music. If we exaggerate it a little disaster won’t really be an overstatement. I don’t understand the reason why he left Jaidev Kumar. The kind of stuff that Gurdas Maan sings Jaidev Kumar is the only music director who can compose music for his songs. Earlier it was Charanjit Ahuja and Amar Haldipur who did some brilliant stuff for few of his albums. But this time he switched to Jatinder Shah and that seems to have resulted in almost a disaster. Lets talk about the album song by song:

1) Roti : Very nice lyrics. The live performance has been really good in most of his shows. But in this album it sounds like a blunder. Bad music and the almost stupid video makes it a bad one. There is nothing, really nothing in the video except that it has been filmed on Gurdas Maan. With such beautiful lyrics they could have made an amazing video showing daily lives of people and passing on a beautiful message.

2) Pind di hawa : Before the album came out I was expecting this one to be one of the best songs. I watched few of the videos from his live performances of this song. It has that original GM touch to it. Reminds me of mudja ve mudja beeba The album version also sounds ok. Music is just fine here if not brilliant.

3) Sajna tainu tak nahi rajna : Again a good one. Music again is also fine for this one.

4) Raati chann naal gallan karke : I could never understand what this song is all about. Sounded like a filler to me. It is so long that never seems to end. I played it almost 4-5 times and it never caught my attention.

5) Je laayi si tan nibhauni : Again a nice track but stupid kind of music. Nice beat but too much use of computerized music.

6) Akh mere yaar di : Again nothing much special here. Lyrics are ok types but a loose type composition.

7) Ja chup karke turja : I was expecting it to be a really really good song but it probably turned out to be the biggest disappointment out of all 8 songs. Such amazing lyrics and the live version was equally amazing. GM himself messed it up. We don’t even need to talk about music here. His pronunciation of words is like he is chewing them. I can’t believe such a composition can be spoiled to this extent. DISASTER !

8) Farmaan : So once again a religious song. Fine lyrics. But I think not as brilliant as sarbans daaniya ve. A friend just confirmed what I have been thinking. It looks like an attempt to silence the voices from Sikh circles who are too critical of him.

So overall this album is a serious disappointment especially in the field of music and one video that we have seen. I don’t think people are gonna play it again after an year or so. It would turn out to be just another album. BTW a question for Jatinder Shah : what was the need to edit his voice in many of the songs ? Even a novice won’t do that.

Now lets get down to talk about what has gone wrong about Gurdas Maan. There are few thing that I think are responsible for his (kind of) downfall in last few years:

1) He needs to slow down. Really he needs to slow down. Age is catching up now and he keeps traveling for whole of month. It seems he is running out of content because he has no time to think. He needs to cut down on his tours, give some time to himself and come with some quality content.

2) For music he should get back to Jaidev Kumar. No one can do it better than Jaidev for him.

3) He needs to find a new video director. After Manoj Punj left this world that void hasn’t been filled. Frankly speaking Manjit Maan isn’t a video director. Most of the videos that she has directed are copies of the work that Manoj Punj did. Roti video in itself is a perfect example of lack of creativity.

4) He needs to take his dera connection down to personal level. He has been visiting that place since ever but it was in his personal capacity. He didn’t do a kind of promotion. But since last few years he has been promoting it like anything. Given the damage that deras have done to Punjab he should be careful while doing so. In his personal capacity he can go wherever he wants but promoting this isn’t really expected from him. Being the biggest ambassador of Punjabiat he has some responsibility on his shoulders which he should be careful about. But it seems that that is not going to happen. As one of my friend and old GM fan puts it that it is a win-win situation for both the parties. Dera gets a lot of GM followers as visitors and a lot of dera visitors have become GM fans. These days half of what he says is somehow linked to what happens in dera and what sain ji said. I find that irritating to say the least and I am sure a lot of old, genuine fans do the same.

So guys that is what I thought after listening to this album. Do leave your comments !

…roadies !

March 17, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Q: Favorite show ?

A: Roadies.

 

Q: Aim in life ?

A: To be a Roadie.

 

Q: Ideal ?

A: Raghu sir.

 

Q: What are you up to these days ?

A: Sir, preparing for this season of roadies.

 

Q: Is this your first time ?

A: No. 5th time sir.

 

Q: If we don’t select you ?

A: Will come next year again sir.

 

WOW !

Zindabaad Murdabaad

March 17, 2013 / / 0 Comments

We are in Delhi, attending a Sufi music festival and a singer abc from some xyz country is singing Bulle Shah’s poetry “tere ishq nachaya kar ke thaiya thaiya”.

Some hooligans get on to the stage and start raising anti xyz country slogans and obviously the performance is disrupted and the scene is totally different now.

Who could do such a stupid act at a Sufi music festival ?

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I think most of you would have guessed the country by now. Let me tell you the event and singer’s name: Sanam Marvi singing at Sufi Sindhi festival. And those murdabaad torch bearers were Shiv Sainiks. (Here is the link to the piece of news in Hindu)

They are well known for all such things but I seriously don’t understand the point of disturbing a singer’s performance even if she happens to be from the country which we don’t have a very good relations with. Personally there are things from Pakistan that disappoint me but those policies and all are governed by establishment not singers.

Honestly to my surprise she started singing again once they were driven off the stage by the event crew folks. Earlier she was sitting but now she was standing and sung few songs. The performance lasted for an hour or little more but obviously they had spoiled the scene !

What crap !

But I do have a suggestion that I posted on FB last night:

“Our govt must create a new regiment in the army where only Shiv Sena walas will be allowed to join. And then that regiment should guard our international borders with Pakistan and China.

Lets use this blood that boils so much !”

Survival of a language

February 6, 2013 / / 3 Comments

This topic has been in my mind since long but never got to write about it. And it is not only about Punjabi language. It applies to any of the regional languages. And here we are talking about the people who live away from their native regions.

I have lived in Delhi for six years. There is a sizable Punjabi population in Delhi and Punjabi has got the second language status. But one thing that is very much noticeable is that generally the people you see speaking Punjabi are all above 40 years of age. No one from the newer generation speaks Punjabi. In fact the reality is that can’t really speak even if they want to. Leave few broken sentences that they might be able to construct and speak.

This is about speaking. If we talk about reading and writing the situation is even worse. No one from the new generation would be able to do that because they were not taught Punjabi in schools and at home their parents didn’t communicate with them in Punjabi .

Question here is that in such a scenario how does a language survive ? When you can’t read, write or speak a language how you can identify yourself by that ? Isn’t it the slow death of our regional languages ?