B

You wet my eyes,
No more 'holier than thou',
Love and hate collide, to grey.

Music Becomes Eclectic

Note: Many of the snaps in this article have been taken from Jace who has shared it under a Creative Commons Liscence.

This time of the year, the thing I miss most dearly about Bangalore is its music scene. Having visited major cities on the west coast of the California, I can safely conclude that none of them parallel Bangalore’s spirit of creativity,experimentation & expression in music.

The California west coast is an affluent area, with many rich kids owning fancy musical equipment. Amateur bands are crawling all over the suburbs. But they all play the same crap: alternative rock. Most bands will have an effeminate vocalist with black colored hair, piercings and ‘red & black’ tattoos in visible parts of the body and he’ll gay with the microphone like he was seducing some other fag in the crowd, while the rest of the band jump around the stage and gesture at an incredibly small and bored audience! Alright, most of the bands are way ‘tighter’ than 12^th grade acts form Bangalore, but you see one, you’ve seen them all! What happened to punk, ska, reggae, jazz, blues, country & most of all WORLD music. What happened to originality, identity, creativity, novelty, freshness yada yada yada. Where is the California and LA Red Hot Chilli Peppers often speak about?

Typical effeminate Alt Rock vocalist

Things get better at the university level, where intelligent kids try and creative, but restrict themselves to alternative rock. My university’s annual music festival (bundled in a package called Mardi Gras) had some very creative acts. genres on menu ranged from classic rock to ska, from American folk to country, but these acts were few in number compared to the alternative rock bands hogging the main-stage. Most surprising of all, the acts were clean (no swearing what so ever)! Compare that to rage filled belligerent acts that one finds in every show you witness in Bangalore!

Heres the dope on Bangalore. We have a music festival on the first Sunday of every month! Free! Attendance to these shows are a lot more than one sees at big shows in the US!! My friend recently went to a Pearl Jam show in California, and only 6000 ppl had made it! The first Sunday Jam alone may draw anywhere close to a few thousand people in Blr! Then there is the mother of all free shows, the Freedom Jam on August 15^th, India’s Independence day. This is the Hippie convention of India, 20,000+ free spirited, intelligent & creative Bangaloreans huddle up in an area so small, that the term ‘population density’ is redefined every year! Three stages are erected for the event. One stage showcases the most popular bands on the national semi-pro/pro circuit, another showcases more amateur acts, the third is usually indoor and features alternative genres from fusion to jazz & ska! The show starts at 6 in the evening and goes on all the way to 6 in the morning. Between the wonderful (free) music, beautiful people, tasty food served up in the shacks & the cool August night, you start believing in the possibility of heaven OR the transcendence might have something to do with all the marijuana being smoked like we needed to send aliens smoke signals to save us!

Sunday Jam

Freedom Jam 2003

Karnataka School of percussion@ Sunday Jam

Long time 'La Dude' organizer of Fredom Jam: Siddartha (Not the Buddha kind :-))

Guitar Prasanna & Co.

Other huge shows to look out for: Strawberry Fields (NLS fest), IIMB fest, IISC fest, St Johns Medicos fest, VTU fest (changes venu every year) and some of the bigger engineering collages in town! Most of these span over three days of competition and culminate with semi-pro acts invited on the last day! Again, crowds may number in scores of thousands on the Finals day! And yes, they are all hippies indulging in underage drinking & smoking (pot & tobacco). Its as if the flower child generation arrived in Bangalore three decades late! Sex, drugs and rock and roll all the way to 2010 and more.

Bangalore based Folk-Fusion BandOikyotaan.

Old time Bangalore Jazzers 'Jazz Revival'.

Karnataka's folk dance-music : Dolu Kunita is also performed in shows!


Esporonto (Fusion band from guruskool, the organizers of Freedom & Sunday Jams) stage set up

Esporonto

Bangalore has a multi-ethinic, intelligent and musically very aware audience at shows!

It dawns after a full night festival of music.

The first rays of soft sunshine, Qawali & the lake in the background! Bangalore + Music = Heaven

My most memorable show: tough to choose between the 2000 Strawberry Fields. It featured our band (Shrapnel) on the 2^nd day of the competition. Heavy metal was new on the Bangalore musick scene and we embraced it like the desert embraces the rain. 25 minutes on-stage to offstage gave us time for three numbers and we played two covers and an original. Our day was made when the then metal army (Threnody, Kryptos, Mindsnare etc) complemented us and marked us as a band to watch out for the future. Of course, we disbanded a week after the show, so you never read of us in the papers today! The finals was one of the most memorable I’ve witnessed. Threnody, Zero, Cryptic, Kryptos etc were the semi-pro finalists while the invite band saw a blues act from Sikkim churn some good ol 4 by 4 numbers. The crowd (numbering upto 30,000) was enveloped in hashish smoke and love was ion the air, on the ground, in the parking lot, behind the bushes … you get the idea right? If not for birth control, we’d have a Y2K Strawberry Fields’ bastards’ association condemning their parents’ reckless night of passion!

The Blast Code

So, media dubbed it 7/11. Seven-11 is a convenient store chain largely run by Indians, most of them gujjus from Mumbai(kars). The whole thing is a celestial prank I tell ya!

Blast, from the past??

The below article was written 7 hrs after the blasts. Today, I found news reports pointing towards the same indicators as I thought were responsible for the attack viz the LeT, SIMI & Indian locals. Here is the video. Right click and save to download it.

Bombay blasts, bleeds & bides in helpless disbelief. It has happened before, & the state of affairs point towards its happening again. Six blasts in twenty minutes cannot be the doings of the largely unorganized, under-funded, & tech non savvy naxalite organizations. The underworld can be dismissed on this one as it only stands to lose ‘hafta’ from such acts. So here is my not-so-surprising guess on the perpetrators of this act: Islamo-fascists backed, trained & brainwashed by the basket-case of the subcontinent a.k.a Phuc-kistan.

Don’t get me wrong pakis, I’ve personally known you to be a nice people, but it is your government’s (elected like those of Nawaz Sharif or military lie Zia / Musharaff ) anti-India stance for the sake justifying its existence & your extremist factions (there is a sizable population of these considering the amount of hatred preached in Madrasas in Phuckistan) that celebrate the death of innocent Hindus/Christians in the name of religion. Quantitative justifications:

Providing safe heaven to organizations like LeT, Al Qaeda, Jamat-e-Islami … the list is unending. Why, you ask is this wrong. Here is the fact file on LeT alone, the cumulative effect of all these organizations on India’s economy & society are unfathomable. Terrorism in Kashmir is condoned by Phuckistan as a freedom struggle, but how the bloody heck do you stand by gruesome acts outside Kashmir, like the 1993 Bombay blasts? LeT even stormed my hometown, Bangalore, which is a good 2000+ Kilometers from Kashmir, and mercilessly opened fire on scientists in a conference!! Shootings on the Indian parliament is known to have brought the two nations to the brink of war (possibly nuclear), the situation was alleviated by relentless international diplomacy.

Although LeT is officially recognized by the International community (including the US) as a terrorist faction, Phuckistan lets its leader roam free in its territory! How about Dawood Ibrahim, the mastermind behind the 1993 blasts? His son got married to Pak cricketer, Javed Miandad’s daughter in a public ceremony in Phuckkistan! This after India submitted forensic evidence to Interpol implicating Dawood’s role in the ’93 blasts! Not to mention the 2000 hijacking incident of Indian Airlines Flight 814 which was refueled in Phuckistan while India’s request to deploy a commando unit to diffuse the situation was conveniently ignored. Inciting trouble in North East India, inciting secular violence to induce hatred between Hindu’s & Muslims phuck with the fabric of secular, tolerant Indian society.

At the forefront of this proxy or not so proxy war with Phuckistan are the Indian Intelligence agencies namely RAW & IB. Apart from the success of keeping India’s Nuclear test of 1998 secret from CIA, ISI etc, these agencies have failed on most other counts in recent times. The failure to warn the Indian govt. about the Kargil situation is their most famed hanging on the wall of shame, which now also includes the present blasts among countless other acts of terrorism backed by Pak.

Truth is that RAW officials are recruited from senior military / police personnel and it is no secret that these organizations are the epitome of corruption. RAW has been infiltrated (working against the agency) 4 times by the CIA, and we are not even in a cold-war with the US! The biggest & most recent case was that of Rabinder Singh, who is believed to have escaped to the US on an American Passport! Paul is also known to be involved in the same infiltration. The US must have smuggled Singh out of the country to protect the identity of other such moles which would have surfaced if he were arrested. Also, RAW is known to be strewn with ego issues between top officials hampering its activities considerably.

However, there is another piece to the puzzle of the terrorists’ seemingly smooth operation and sky high success rates. The following section borders on political incorrectness, but the truth refuses to stay shackled in emotive times like these.

The most disheartening fact is that every time a LeT act is fully investigated, one or more Muslims of Indian nationality turn out to be implicated. As much as I have tried to believe these incidents to be isolated, news only points towards their disloyalty to the Nation and fanatic following towards distorted renditions of what is actually a peaceful religion (at least I like to believe that). An anecdote closest to the heart & home is the case of the Muslim engineering student who interned at ISRO, Bangalore, in 2001/2002 only to indulge in espionage for the ISI. This kid was a close friend of a guy who lived on my street and his outwardly demeanor never ever suggested a fanatic streak! The IISc attack implicates Chand Pasha, a Bangalorean! Read the mission statement of Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI)!! What sort of losers even joins these organizations? Jackasses who have never ever made conversation with a girl, leave alone scoring, resort to porn, but one must have sand to the tune of the Sahara up ones crack to be fourteen and join SIMI and the likes.

Many may argue that a minority extremist faction gets more than its fare share of coverage in the media and the majority’s views remain unrepresented. I buy that too, but a lot remains desired from the majority. How come the Iraq invasion and Bush visit to India brings out lakhs (1 lakh = one hundred thousand) of muslims onto the streets in protest in strongholds like old Delhi or Hyderabad but an act like this never draws a response form their most vocal spokesmen? Is the cartoon of the Mohammed more important to you than the deaths of your innocent countrymen? Here is your big chance to prove the extremists wrong, speak out against such acts, issue your fancy religious Fatwas on the guilty, spread preach & educate religious tolerance to young impressionable minds & imbibe patriotism and nationality. Do your bit, don’t claim to be innocent by-standers and point fingers at fanatics. Their existence is your negligence!

Sex & the Country.

Sex: overrated; under-celebrated; tabooed; raped by servants of religion, society & “culture”; molested by barons of the economy; sodomized by crime & all in all battered in time. Just let sex be!

The country, it procreates the Kama Sutra, marries a culture left behind by a proselytizing, power wielding & murderous Abrahamic religion from Victorian England, & disowns its seed to be a Bastard child! Have you futhamucin forgotten that Hinduism is pagan & polytheistic; read as celebrating & worshipping the body, sex, procreation and nature; not read as infidel (as Christians would love to call us) or Kafir (as Muslims would like to call us)! So, if 82% of the country falls in this bracket, why is it still a Herculean affair to remove the stigmatism, confusion, obsession & ostracism associated with sex & go back to the old “Hindu” ways?

Indian politics does nothing to alleviate the sexual psychosis. The so called ‘secular’ Congress will never liberate sex as it will violate the Abrahamic religions’ emotions & religious beliefs. The saffron brigade has no clue what it means to be Hindu, else they wouldn’t torture couples on Valentines day, protest the show of skin or tear down theaters for screening movies (like Fire or Split Wide Open) that show things as they are, as they should and shouldn’t be. Take a hint from your own temple walls (below) ignoramuses, do some reading (assuming you know how to) and discover that acts classified as paraphilia today were the norm in the day of your forefathers!

Consider these socio-legal brakes on the sexual revolution bandwagon:

1. Buying, selling or producing pornography is illegal in India! Great going numbskulls, all it does is create an underground porn cartel that abuses women (adults & underage) regularly to have them star in these movies which BTW are produced out of the country, thereby necessitating and aiding the trafficking of women! All that the government does by outlawing pornography is push sexually deprived men to the brink of crime. Look for statistics (after the next point) for the advantages of legalizing pornography and prostitution.

2. Its no secret that prostitution is the oldest trade. Although it was scorned at by ancient India, it was regulated to protect the society and sex workers from STDs, abuse & social ostracism. (BTW, the Ayurveda & Kama Sutra provided prostitutes with effective contraceptives and STD drugs and vaccines. Eat that Durex!). Modern India neither outlaws nor legalizes prostitution. It forbids sex workers from publicly soliciting or practicing prostitution but doesn’t outlaw the concept of sex for money! So the pimps (Babus) set up clandestine brothels (which are illegal ) & force / lure poor, helpless women into the trade. The vague laws don’t make it any easier for these women to report abuse by pimps or customers as they end up being harassed by cops who often arrest them for soliciting/practicing sex in public places. By forcing prostitution out of places where it would more naturally be found, such as in brothels or near motels, the police drive that activity into the streets of neighborhoods where it otherwise would not exist, exposing residents to the activity against their will.

My take: make pornography & prostitution legal. Look at the statistics below to understand its impact! ( Source: Liberator ). The tables list crime rates, rape rates, HIV rates etc in countries where prostitution is legal in one form or the other (Saudi Arabia allows polygyny and Iran offers "temporary wives” while all others legalize prostitution.) and these countries happen to have the best stats in each of the listed categories!! (except for the US, next paragraph addresses the issue). Call that coincidence? I call you stupid.

The US is an aberration. Reason: prostitution is legal only in a few counties in Nevada. Duh, most of the US lives outside these counties, so how the phuck can you list it among countries where prostitution is legal?!! Its like putting India on the list for having the biggest brothel (Sonagachi, Calcutta), albeit an illegal one! Also, a majority of the US’ population is conservative, backward and follow rigid versions of Abrahamic religions. Why do you think abortion is illegal in most states here and Bush is in power for the second time!!

Recently, I had an argument with a fellow blogger about legalizing prostitution. Here is her take on the issue. She cites trafficking as one of the consequences of legalization. Some scoop: many poor young women are kidnapped from Indian villages, and sold into rape slavery to Arab countries with stringent laws on sex and prostitution (source Wikipedia). My point is, trafficking and legalization are independent issues, the former is a failure on the part of the authorities to enforce laws (much like smuggling or money laundering) and to comprehensively educate its populace on sex, sexuality, lasting relationships and reproductive health starting with adolescents. (now see the connection between conservative societies and sex crime?). She also argues that women who wouldn’t otherwise indulge in the flesh trade now do it legally as it is a legitimate & good source of income! Again, this is fallacious. Some women in Indian universities or for that matter, the world over, are known to double up as whores/strippers/escorts at night to make ends meet. (Duh, that’s the classic reason why women voluntarily enter the flesh trade!!). I don’t see how legalizing it makes it more rampant. It is only a question of the woman’s moral stand on the issue and not that of it being legal or not. If anything legitamizing the trade only protects these fragile kids from abuse. QED.

Here’s food for thought for all you religious people, sexual conservatives & governments. We become pubescent (religious guys, read it as God makes you pubescent) at twelve for one reason only: to procreate. Oh BTW, man is the only ‘animal’ known to indulge in sex for pleasure (we evolved to enjoy it, hence our success as a species that efficiently procreates!), all others do it only when the female is in ‘heat’. Religion comes along, and makes it the ‘original sin’, society comes along, dictates monogamy (while we are intrinsically programmed, like any other specie, to be polygamous ) and fixes ages for legal sex (lmbo)!! The last statement does not stand by pedophilia, just recognizes the fact that teens get pregnant because they were meant to! Humanity is taking the same direction with sex as it has with oil, pollution, wildlife, conservation of resources etc: the negative one, the one that’s not meant to be, one that’s marked in bright red as “Self Destruct Mode”

PS: I have included images of modern art that reflect perceptions of sex and related issues in modern society. I spent a lot of time in searching these fine pieces and have edited a few of them. I am too lazy to reference each of em, but give the creators their due credit anyways :-) (yeah yeah, against copyright laws etc, but again, look at the sheer number of images). Click on each for full size displays. Download, store, enjoy, learn.