Soul Rendition: Read Listen Enjoy

DeepGemini on Relationships.

2011-01-17T17:17:00.002-07:00

It is a miserable feeling to live with the realisation that you lived with a hollow silhouette. Most of which you painted for yourself and invested life-like imaginations into. It is painful to live with the insane hope that the silhouette will ever come touch you. The silhouette was real, your hope was not.

All that remains now is you. The easel rests in stupor. I am done.

Original post by DeepGemini

Of Street Fights!

2010-11-11T18:32:00.003-07:00

You're righteous so righteous
You're always so right
Go ahead and dream
Go ahead believe that you are the chosen one.

Right is wrong now
Ha, shut up your big lie
Oh, and the black is white lie
You comb your hair to hide
Your lying eyes

Hate is always blowing up
But I hope that we can break it down
So it's not so black and white, black and white
This is the last stop

Hate is more than showing us
I hope that we can break it down
So it's not so black and white, black and white.

(The Last Stop - Dave Matthews Band)

Half the 'Taare' rating for 'Tare Zameen Par'.

2008-01-24T00:21:00.000-07:00

Tare Zameen Par - 2.5 / 5 Taare.

No matter how much Bollywood jades you, the belief that the juggernaut is capable of dishing out sense, albeit, at the dismal rate of one (good) flick per annum, still lingers. This 'eternal optimist / gullible' side of me, spliced last evening's cardio workout with 'Taare Zameen Par' (TZP), expecting a sensitive and piquant treatment of a rather grave theme, 'The affliction of a dyslexic kid in a third world country'. Disappointed to say that it only half delivered. Sensitive at times, it turns out to be midway between mainstream and alternative (in the Bollywood frame of reference). Desis are touting it for the Oscars, but ain't we an ethno-centric bunch :-), lets just be happy with the 'awareness' the movie creates.

Here are the good parts without any spoilers: For a change, the protagonist isn't a big-name star, but a brilliant actor of a kid. You're sure to be smitten by middle-school nostalgia, with its treatment of teachers' idiosyncrasies, student indolence to homework, afternoon reveries in Hindi class, rebellion to authority (my favorite part) and wander-ous walks back home hauling a school-bag of back breaking proportions. The revelation of Abishek Bacchan's dyslexia had the audience in splits, no surprises there though. The highlight has to be the depiction of the boy's estrangement, when he's put into boarding school – pack em tissues, you might shed a tear or two.

Back to the scrutiny – India is a developing country of 1.2 billion. Roughly 25% of its population is below the poverty line, going by the the UN's definition, which simply accounts for daily income. The dismal reality is that rural India, which is roughly 60% of the populace, has little or no access to clean drinking water, sanitation, health care, education, proper shelter, access to information, and sometimes, human rights like right to free speech, religion etc. The many religions, castes, ethnicities and languages that make India, cohabit the ancient land as a bitter-sweet symphony of love, hate and apathy, tipping points and clashes being the norm rather than the exception. The 35% classified as middle class, live in high stress, high density urban sprawls with disproportionate access to infrastructure. Heck, the silicon valley of India, Bangalore, receives water once in two days, for 3 hours only – without overhead tanks and domestic water storage mechanisms, it'd collapse. Not to mention the 2 hour daily power cuts in summer, crumbling-clogged roads and drains, rampant corruption, ETC (Yes, et cetera in caps, for the roster of disasters are infinite). What relevance does all this have to TZP? The point is, India can be ruthless to the normal, leave alone the disabled.

True picture of the Majority Life in India.

The strain of Indian living fails to percolate into the characters. The insensitive dad, whose role in the family reduces to that of a provider, more than a father, although a universal concept transgressing national boundaries, has unique factors influencing it in the 'family-centric' India culture, that are drastically different from the 'time deprived working professional' kind of scenario endemic to the west. It has deep connections to the challenges of eking out a living in the hostile aforementioned conditions that lead to unrealistic competition in all spheres of life (this message never comes through). The teachers' inability to spot a classic case of dyslexia reflects on the rickety base of our system, built on the shoulders of unqualified and untrained teaching professionals. And then, we wonder why we suffer from a corruption epidemic -- it starts in the schools, with the average and below tormented by teachers and peers, battered by a system that only rewards rote learning, subject to poor financial conditions at home, all adding up to a breakdown in the moral and emotional fabric of the person.

The plot could have used a few more accents - India, or other wise, kids with the slightest of quirks are given hell. A couple bloody fights, with seniors or the class bully, leaving the boy shattered, would have been a credible addition. Highlighting the kid's evolution into a borderline sociopath, would lend an insight into how social norms can pressure a normal person into dark corners -- A scene in geometry class, where the boy stabs the class bully with his compass, would set this up nicely. An abusive martinet of a Resident Assistant in the hostel, bending towards pedophilia, preying on the less abled, driving the already estranged, sociopathic kid to the brink of insanity, edging to the point of no return, would have been a nice place for the healing process to begin – a chance to portray that no one is beyond remedy.

Lacklusture songs with cliched visualizations wastefully lengthen the movie, other than adding to the 'uncalled for' masala index. Amir's entrance spiked with grandeur, immediately has you guessing that hes a case of dyslexia gone bad.

**==== End of Formal Review====**

Speaking of which, don't you think Himesh Reshamiya was/is dyslexic? Heck, hes a borderline retard even. He apparently stars in a show called 'Sa re Ga Ma', with other such simian characters, making it rather amusing to follow. Tell me if you find videos of his antics on the internet!

Himesh: Dyslexia Gone Bad

If only Mira Nair had made the movie, Sigh!! (Did you guys watch Namesake, its brilliant. So is Salaam Bombay, Monsoon Wedding, Kama Sutra, Bollywood Calling, and every thing else from the woman with the Midas touch. Shantaram should be mouthwatering!).

Toy Soldiers: On Courting Habits Of Nubile Indians

2007-10-25T00:29:00.000-06:00

Title says it all.

On a Personal Note

2007-08-20T02:46:00.000-06:00

I don't know who holds the reigns to ones future. The self or things like fate, destiny or God. I would love to believe that the key lies with me, but more often than not, I find myself locked out of entry points to opportunities, personal or professional, even though I earnestly earned them. They say, such times make one tougher. If by tougher, they mean 'desensitized', they are probably correct. In the end, the things that society validates most is what we all crave to attain, in a mad rat race. Inexplicably, some have it easier, even though they aren't any better.

How or why do some have it simpler, while others have an unending chain of impediments to normal being, none of which are their own making. I think we are all pawns of a celestial game of probability. Some of us happened to fall into the sample space where success is harder to come by, for no apparent reason. Are there fixed rules determining the outcome of this game? Can we, as mortals equipped with science, extract (model) these rules and live better lives hence? For now, add these questions to my eternal quest list.

Blue Sky Adventures of an Adrenaline Junkie

2007-06-17T00:31:00.000-06:00

My summer travels with the Mater brought me to the San Francisco Bay area, where I pitched tent for a fortnight at my numerous cousins' places. Like Bangalore, the region has a salubrious climate, a HUGE immigrant/multi ethnic population, is peppered with tech companies and is very urbane. However, in stark contrast and far cry from its South Asian counterpart, THE Silicon 'Valley' (aptly so, as the region is surrounded by small mountains) does not have issues with pot holed roads, paucity of water, irregular power supply, unrealistic traffic (jams) and extremists shutting the city down every other time they decide to 'salvage' their culture and language, which, in their books, include matinee idols!!

One fair day, with highs in the early 20s (degree centigrade), we decided to dodge the famed Six Flags of Northern California a.k.a Discovery Kingdom previously called Marine World. For those of you unfamiliar with Six Flags, it is a chain of amusement (well mostly thrill rides) parks in the US serving the most ardent of adrenaline junkies while also accommodating the kids and family. So if you are to choose between Disney Land, Universal Studios and Six Flags, unless you have kids under the age of thirteen or prefer to 'fudgepack' in lines of Tirupathi fame or just outright prefer Gay rides, opt for Six flags.

Now, before I went to Six Flags, unfortunately, family did drag me into Disney World and Universal Studios. These places do offer some thrills, like Space Mountain and Indiana Jones in the former and The Mummy in the latter. In fact, if bad fate does land you in these places, do check for the rides marked in red for 'Max thrill' and do them before you move on to the other "useless" attractions. All said, these parks do serve the family well, and if your mom's visiting, she's better off here. So no guesses on how hard their toughest rides are, veteran Six Flaggers would have them as appetizers, at most. None of them have inversions (rider is hanging completely upside down), Dive Loop not exceeding a few feet, no Zero G Roll (feeling of weightlessness due to accelerated falls) and no Flatspins (commonly known as corkscrews, where the ride goes in spirals at high speeds). While rides here are easy to handle, some people still chicken out, leaving the ones who brave it feeling rather heroic and unconquerable. Just you wait till you step foot into Six Flags.

The build up to most of the Six Flags is intense. You can see the GIANT towering rides from at least a couple miles away, even with all the hills! Note the plural, there are at least 4 mammoth coasters in most of these parks. The North Cal one is no different, green coloured Medusa with its 150 feet elevation and almost 4000 feet in ride length stands out distinctly with its many loops and twists. Kong, another juggernaut is a red King and holds the record for the longest inverted coater on this side of the coast. V2: Vertical Velocity is not only massive, but startling in its unique shape and awe inspiring in its 70 miles per hour speeds within seconds of launch!

Having never before done rides with 'inversions' and suddenly being pushed into the lap of the roller coaster Mecca, I had to validate my pre-notion of being an adrenaline junkie before mounting the Goliaths. I started off with the Hammerhead ride. Think of a fast moving Ferry's wheel (Giant Wheel in Cubbon Park lingo), except that your seats are not hanging, but fixed to the chassis, meaning when you get to the top of the ride, you are upside down!!! Now this rather extreme ride was given a 'moderate' thrill level by the park map!! Although the cries were loud and speeds high, I decided to get aboard with the confidence of a million other people having emerged 'alive' from it! And after doing it, didn't feel all that bad. This is how riding it feels first hand:

A little further down Hammerhead was 'Boomerang', and living up to its name, it 'catapults' you into a roller coaster at super high speeds, and then brings you back (yes, backward!!) the same effin way!! This had a rating of 'Max Thrill' and fully lived up to its expectation. Apparently, each of the Six Flags parks have this ride. Check out the video!

So, if you did the Boomerang and didn't emerge crying, throwing up or shivering, count yourself as one among the adrenaline junkies. NOW you're really ready for the biggies. The ones with 4-5G accelerations (1G = acceleration of earth / 9.8 m/s), top speeds of 7o miles per hour, prolonged feeling of weightlessness or extreme weights and free falls of upto 200 feet!! Yes, we're talking about the limits of human endurance, and still millions line up each year to test theirs.

So, we decided to do Medusa next, the biggest and fastest in the park and this side of the coast with 7 inversions including a Vertical Loop, Dive Loop, Zero G Roll, 2 Flatspins (commonly known as corkscrews) and the first and only Sea Serpent Roll. The line to the ride was short (yeah, not many people think they'll come out alive) and surprisingly, was filled with a myriad of people, from the visibly thrill seeking rock and roll kinds with their goatees and goth-black attire to overweight housewives in everyday clothes to 14 year old kids above 55' (that's the height limit)! Before you enter the ride, the dock is filled with people getting on and off the 3 simultaneous 'snakes' serving the line, each having 7 rows with 3 seats (well, they are hanging supports without a floor, dunno if you can call them seats) and with loud alternative music. Just the setting to pump that nitro-boosted, high octane adrenaline you need to endure such, ahem cataclysms. And then, much against the will of a doting concerned Mater for her only bairn, I boarded it! Haven't you always wondered how it is inside of the cocktail mixing cup/shaker, how it would feel for one to be thrown vigoursly from side to side and up and down at lightening speeds, at nauseous angles and orientations, at zero gravity or 5 times that of gravity . For 2 whole minutes:

Oh, Check this out too

Yes, Medusa is worth 3 videos! Right next to it was Kong. No less scarier, but having done Medusa, the decision to do it wasn't hard coming.

And then there was the traditional wooden coaster, Roar. Good, but not worth spending videos on. It does vibrate a lot more than the new age steel coaster and can bruise your bum. The ride I did chicken out of was the Vertical Velocity. It will

Rocket forward through a 45-degree inclined tower (up one hundred and fifty fucking feet at 75 miles/hr)
Shoot backwards down a 90-degree vertical tower
Fly through the ride with nothing but air below your dangling feet!!

Now, that's a good days fun. And for approx $50, its your moneys worth. Unless you chicken out and decide to do the elephant ride, with the other kids :-).

Its Evolution Baby!

2007-06-13T01:48:00.000-06:00

Change is the only constant. While religions past, present and future will wipe themselves out in denial of this very fact, the Hindi movie industry has taken to it with surprising gusto. All of a sudden, movies actually have strong characterization, mature plots, stunning visuals (and im not alluding to skin) and cinematography and lean more to the alternative than ever before. Omkaara is a perfect example of the flux. For a change, Saif Ali Khan has his shirt on, and doesn't wear lipstick. In fact, his performance as the Machiavellian, malicious limp is almost as good as it gets. Others deliver well too, but the real star is Vishaal Bharadwaj. This guy is has been nowhere near a film school, but still writes, directs and composes (music) better than any other in the business. Talk about genius! If you havent yet watched his previous work, Maqbool, you have most certainly missed the seed of the Indian movie renaissance.

Metro is another one bending towards the semi-commercial arroyo, but lacks the meticulousness of Omkara. While the background score is mostly good and resembles that of a Hollywood drama-thriller, the songs are a huge waste of time. Somebody decided to hire a highly unoriginal, not to mention bad looking, rock act for all the songs. Their visualization in the movie is even the funnier, the 'unkept' vocalist bawls, punches the air in front of his face, and slowly moves it down a la a boyband vocalist/Micheal Bolton, all this for soul-less ballads sounding like the lizard, Celine Dion, in Hindi. The plot is audacious and performances strong, but still very predictable. The style is a less meritorious version of Crash/Babel (disconnected story lines purposefully intertwined in the bigger picture), and reaks of imitation. Still, very Maverick for Bolly. Just dont watch it with your mom!

Here are the (kind of) songs I'd have put:

Artist: Antaraagni / Raghu Dixit
Song: Mysore Se
Comment: Hope these guys get to go Big. Still very underground in Blr.

Soul Renditio n

Song: Woh Lamhe

Soul Renditio n

Artist: Fuzon
Song: Aankon Ke Saagar

Soul Renditio n

Song for after Break Up Blues

2007-06-05T17:38:00.001-06:00

Artist: The Killers
Song: Mr Brightside
Album: Hot Fuss

Soul Renditio n

Coming out of my cage
And I've been doing just fine
Gotta gotta be down
Because I want it all
It started out with a kiss
How did it end up like this?
It was only a kiss
It was only a kiss

Now I'm falling asleep
And she's calling a cab
While he's having a smoke
And she's taking the drag

Now they're going to bed
And my stomach is sick
And it's all in my head
But she's touching his chest now

He takes off her dress now
Let me go
And I just can't look
It's killing me
And taking control

Jealousy
Turning saints into the sea
Turning through sick lullaby
Joking on your alibi
But it's just the price I pay
Destiny is calling me
Open up my eager eyes

I'm Mr. Brightside

Pride and Identity

2007-05-23T00:17:00.000-06:00

I read somewhere that if one doesn't rebel at 20 and conform at 30, ones grey matter is absent. Over the past few weeks, a cascade of events have left me pondering about my identity, and I have been making a concious effort at discovering it, now that my age is midway between that of a rebel and a conformist. A part of this process has been digging up works of near and dear ones, when I stumbled across art work of Dr D Venkat Rao, who as a Samaritan, professional and artist, was way ahead of his time, especially by Indian (well mostly Bangalore since Bombay had a lot more exposure in the modern arts) standards.

I have been living with his daughter and grand-daughter (who is now my sister in law) for the past week and have come to learn a lot about Dr D V Rao. He was a medical doctor by profession, once he retired from it, actively pursued literature and photography. He has published 15 novels in Kannada and 6 popular science/medicine books with the intention of bringing medical awareness to the layman. He started a magazine on Home Science (cannot recall the exact title) and actively pursued photography. I intend to write about him on wikipedia, but am in the process of collecting and verifying information. Until that time, enjoy his futuristic photography.

Some of these snaps are close to 5 decades old. Judge them with that in mind. And yes, presently his family (whom I'm now a proud member of) owns the copyrights :-).

His daughter, Anuradha Rao

His Daughter again.
His grandchildren, the one the left is now my sis-in-law

Sis-in-law in Algeria. Photo not by Dr D V Rao though.

Connections: Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence.

2007-04-11T03:50:00.000-06:00

Artist: Touching Grace
Song: Eastern Sky.

Soul Renditio n

If there ever was a time when the prognostication of Frigyes Karinthy ( of 'Six Degrees of Separation' fame) could be declared true, it is NOW! Social networking sites are shrinking, no squeezing and choking the degrees between us. While the concept of 'keeping in touch' is affable, being forced to do so among acquaintants is a bane. For the instinctively reclusive, networking can be a concoction for perdition. Most of all, networking is fallacious and a whim at best, which is why teens fervently embrace it and 'grown ups' generally don't.

I recently discovered that a genial acquaintant and me were connected on many more levels than what met the eye. In fact, she knew my family well. Suddenly, we were a lot more comfortable and spoke of commonalities, 'old days' and home. Which brings into purview the concept of home. Its where the heart is and hence should rightfully be in Bangalore. Where the rest of the 'heart' clan resides. Where many people know me but few know me, where I chose to keep few 'friends' ( unlike my friends' list on networking sites), thanks to my general tacit demeanor. The fact that I left home, where there was and is no dearth of employment or education, for no real good material reason, got me thinking on why I did so. And the more I think, the more it dawns that I have a penchant, yearning for solitude and change. An overwhelming sense of ennui grips me every time I get comfortable with people or places, even when there is a lot of fun and work to do. Wanderlust is what the Germans would call it, and those in its grip often throw away everything they have (ever) earned, in friendship, love and wealth, for the opportunity to elude familiarity. To go somewhere no body knows you, to go away from 'home'.

Wanderers are the personification of existentialism, the idea of the precedence of existence over essence, the essence of love, belonging, identity and familiarity. The inexplicable conviction with which one denies to consummate love into marriage, pushes away dear ones for strangers, leaves home and family for foreign shores and refuses to associate with tags, castes, religions or creeds. The constancy of solitude even when in a crowd, the chronic feeling of ubiquitous disjunction, the surfeit of poignant anxieties leading to any lack of emotion thereof, the quest for everything in nothing is existentialism.

Coming back to my tryst with the acquaint-ant turned friend, while it gives me immense pleasure to relate, it pains me to explore more. And so continues my masochistic experiments with networking, the bitter-sweet symphony of communication, the bete noire of a shrinking world. In the words of Bruce Springsteen:

Baby this town rips the bones from your back
It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap
We gotta get out while we're young
'Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run.

Artist: Bruce Springsteen.
Song: Born To Run.

Soul Renditio n

Artist: Greg Baumont
Song: Respire the Devrish.
Comment: Alluding to Deva-rishis ?.

Soul Renditio n

Artist: Vangarde
Song: Oissa.

Soul Renditio n

Artist: Indus Creed
Song: Pretty Child.
Comment: Beautiful use of the tabla. India's first rock band.

Soul Renditio n

Artist: A R Reheman
Song: Tere Bina.
Album: Guru (OST).

Soul Renditio n

Artist: Touching Grace
Song: Wild Spring Apples.
Comment: Buy these guys: http://magnatune.com/artists/touching_grace

Soul Renditio n

Artist: Touching Grace
Song: Sunday Driver.

Soul Renditio n

This Nigga Cant Sing

2007-03-25T04:24:00.000-06:00

While I've never ever seen the show American Idol, or its crass-er Indian counterpart, I am constantly FORCE-FED news about it from all forms of media, giving new meaning to the prefix, 'multi'. And by God, if you forget to keep the remote next to you while trying to have a peaceful (CNN) news dinner, you'll pass out when the entertainment section comes up. And I did, the other day, when the so called 'counter racism' by Indians on American Idol was covered, and in those opiate moments before my senses gave up, the name Sanjaya Malakar seemed to have been etched in my memory. The next day, when I finally got over the fact that 'entertainment' was actually called 'news', especially the like of American Idol and its counter-racist dramas, I thought I'd see for myself what the hoopla was all about. While Google is still struggling to scan its videos on youtube (BTW, what gave this crap site a value of $550 mil?) and google-videos for copyright violations and having its legal representatives fight off the sharks of the entertainment industry, namely ViaCom, Turner Broadcasting, Rupert Futhamucker Murdoch et al,. I thought I'd dig in while the free 'shit' lasts and searched for Sanjaya Malakar. I'm not misspelling his name, yes, the A at the end of Sanjaya is on purpose. I guess his 'Indian' dad and 'American' mom knew they'd procreated a fruitcake and said, "Well, we might as well give him, what is traditionally, a GIRL's name". And boy, does he live up to his parent's purposeful misnomer-ification. Apart from incessantly fixating a 'plastic, Beverly-Hills-Princess' style smile, this androgynous creature also 'does his hair' and takes interest in the 'culinary arts'. Here is how he really looks/acts. I cant really tell the difference between him and his sister.

While I fight off a strong urge to 'Flag (the content) as Inappropriate' on youtube, I move on to the real issue of how the expatriate Indian community seemed to have embraced him! Yes, we INDIANS are a homophobic people (though I don't subscribe to my community's cliches :))). It isn't 'cool' to be gay or meterosexual or androgynous in India. Heck, sensitivity is scorned upon as a lack of virility! No Indian dad dreams of his son growing up to be a (gay) hairstylist, Chef or popstar even. Have you ever heard of an Indian GAY parade or pride? And thats why it struck me hard when Indians in the US came home from their (moribund) software jobs, sat down in front of the tele with their daal-rootis and watched Sanjaya's show as a family (god save the kids), and promptly voted for him (over his sister!!! WTF were you thinking!) even though he was among the worst contenders towards the finals. Apparently, it was a knee jerk reaction to rednecks in Texas sayin 'This Nigga cant sing'. I dont buy any of that, as a people, we're as racist and separatist as they come, racially prompted or not, Indians would have voted for him!

And while a mediocre kid rides his luck for coming from an overly proud minority, I wonder what other American Indian kids are learning about 'idols', be it from their own or other communities. I wonder what their parents are gonna say when one of em goes, 'daddy, I wanna be like him'. Be what? Androgynous? Mediocre? Misguided? Although, I have to give the kid this, he is brave and unconventional for a person of Indian orign, albeit American. While his other Indian schoolmates are busy winning spelling bees and competing for 'American Nerd', he has the balls to pursue what HE likes. And he has great long-shaggy hair, like mine! Go Sanjay - aaaa.

Sounds and Thoughts.

2007-03-16T12:40:00.001-06:00

Artist: Baka Beyond
Song: Ngombi.
Album: Spirit of the Forest.

Soul Renditio n

Ngombi by Baka beyond is the sound of a tropical night over which simple acoustic melodies ride with ease. The rhythmic sound of crickets, the simplicity, the peace, all just take me to times suchlike, times of childhood tropical nights of yore, back home. Back when late evening summer power cuts had me lying on my bed, the soft moonlight making shadows of tree leaves on the room wall, soft breeze molding them in a peaceful dance. Back when the city wasn't crowded, back when the crickets and other sonant night crawlers could afford the luxury of being heard, without the din of modern life or vehicles preying on their freedom of expression. Back when power cuts were freedom, freedom from homework and study; a time for hide and seek with mom and the neighbor kids; a time for fantasies of nocturnal child-kidnapping demons (Rakshasas) a time for granny to warn against jumping and kicking up the dust lest Lord Krishna's milk be soiled by us earthly, naughty, nocturnal scions; a simple, peaceful, innocent & happy time.

Artist: Susheela Raman
Song: Sakhi Maro.

Soul Renditio n

Artist: Norah Jones
Song: Come Away With Me.
Album: Come Away With Me.

Soul Renditio n

Artist: Norah Jones
Song: Feeling the same Way.
Album: Come Away With Me.

Soul Renditio n

Internet in India

2006-12-28T19:49:00.000-07:00

Artist: Shakti
Song: Come On Baby Dance With Me
Comments: Absolute gem from retro Shakti, when they were acoustic, fast and spunky. Impeccable coordination between the guitar and violin. Absolute pleasure.

Soul Renditio n

Ever wondered why the internet sucks in India? While users in China, South Korea, Japan, USA etc have a pay per month model, wonder why you are subjected to the pay per month and byte (of more than alloted traffic)? Wonder why websites like youtube.com exist if one cannot stream in real time? The disambiguation follows.

As the name suggests, the internet is an interconnected - network of Internet Service providers (ISPs). The websites/servers are hosted in IPs (or internet addresses) owned by ISPs. For example, sify.com is most likely hosted by severs routed through the SIFY ISP. Routing basically means providing paths for the flow of internet traffic (bandwidth), much like routing vehicular traffic on, lets say National Highway 4 (NH4) between Bombay and Bangalore. NH4 & the railway line are similar to a couple ISPs connecting two points, lets say BSNL & VSNL, and much like the the two means of transport, the two ISPs may differ in speeds and quality of internet traffic.

Artist: Shakti
Song: Peace Of Mind
Comments: Mellow. Mellifluous. Masterpiece.

Soul Renditio n

A website is like a vehicle, limited by the path it is connected to the external world, much like how a truck cannot use rails to get around. In the website's case, the limitation is which IP it chooses to host its content on. However, a single website can have mirrors on multiple ISPs. When you access a website, you essentially get on the route the particular ISP prefers. So to access google.com, your request may hop from your house to Singapore to Tokyo to LA where the google.com server is physically hosted, the route assuming you are browsing through, say BSNL. The same website may take far fewer/greater hops if you browse through a different ISP.

The way an ISP reduces the number of hops (lesser the hops, greater is the speed) is to form a pact (actual physical connection) with ISPs in other countries. For example, if BSNL had a direct (physical) link with an ISP in the US, your request to view google.com might just take one hop, your home to their server in LA. Hence, an ISP with larger number of pacts would in theory provide faster service, assuming all other underlying infrastructure remains the same.

However, the above mentioned situation is not the most efficient way to hook up the internet and is for the most part antiquated, except in India. Imagine this situation: you are a BSNL subscriber and you try to access sify.com. Your request may have hop from your house to the BSNL server to its parent sever in Singapore to SIFY's parent server in Japan to SIFY's local server in Hyderabad. Basically, to access a sever located in India, your request hopped all over the world, which seems a little retarded. Hence was born the idea of an Internet Exchange: a connection/exchange between ISPs in close proximity. With this concept, your request to view a local website will now be routed to the requested sever through the local exchange and will not travel around the world. Also, it has a normalizing effect on speeds of access of the same location from two different ISPs as your request can now be routed through shorter paths acquired by other ISPs through the exchange.

Artist: Shakti
Song: Girija Sutha Part 1.
Comments: Composed by Mandolin Srinivas. Adrenalin meets Meditation.

Soul Renditio n

The internet can now be visualized as an interconnection of exchanges. So why (still) does the internet suck in India?. Two things: not all Indian ISPs fairly contribute to the National Internet Exchange and most of them route their traffic from other Asian countries, while most of the servers in the world are hosted in the USA (i.e most of the Internet's traffic is to servers in the USA). On unfair contribution to the National exchange, there is no definite solution as some ISPs have more local servers and better pacts with foreign providers than others, which affects the quality of service (which is their marketing pitch). To genuinely better the internet in India, ISPs / National Exchange need to have more pacts with US providers / exchanges as against Asian exchanges. Also, the physical locations of the national exchange is presently in the metros, which is again a retarded decision as most of the traffic in India is from its IT hubs namely Bangalore and Hyderabad.

Some interesting observations:

India was among the last countries to set up an Exchange (2003)!! Until then, what must have been local traffic still traveled all around the world.
While China has six Internet Exchanges, India has only one.
Most Indian ISPs do not have their own gateways (Physical devices used for traffic switching etc).
Indian ISPs do not have direct physical connections to US exchanges although most of the traffic to and from India is to servers in the US.

Artist: Shakti
Song: Girija Sutha Part deux.
Comments: Composed by Mandolin Srinivas. Adrenalin meets Meditation.

Soul Renditio n

Size and its Matters

2006-12-17T08:10:00.000-07:00

Artist: DropKick Murphys
Song: Cadence To Arms
Comments: Nice Celtic-Punk band. Buy em!

Soul Renditio n

'Size doesn't matter'. Its true according to at least one article that cites research wherein a blindfolded tramp couldn't tell the difference between a 2', 4' and 6' member! No wonder my short (prolly in more ways than one :D) buddy resorts to BDSM, of which blindfolding is a big part. This post, however, is not overly concerned with the accuracy of size statements suchlike or the tactful use of kink to overcome its shortcomings. What it addresses is the lack of brain size ahem power among the expatriat Indian populace in Britan. So the BBC broadcast-ed some juvenile findings on the size of the average Indian member which concluded it to be an inch or two lesser than the average denizen of the earth to which our desi brethren took much offense to and held protests online and outside the BBC offices accusing the reputed media enclave of perpetrating racism.

In this case, the adjudication is most clearly with the BBC. It is common knowledge that Indians and most other Asians have a smaller build, the reasons for which may be genetics and poverty (that results in under-nutrition). Logic says that a smaller build = smaller member, which gives much credence to the research findings. Why then accuse the (western) media of partisanship and hint at Paksitani conspiracies! Address the issue at hand v.i.z tailor making condoms for the Indian size to avoid tears. Refusing to change condom sizes is like jogging in Micheal Jordan's shoes to prove a point! You're the one who'll end up not enjoying the jog! :-)

A related article cites a person of North Indian origin blaming the rest of India for bringing down the average size. Aaaahh!! Another (educated) racist, cowbelt yokel tub-thumping the North superiority cause! Well, FUCK YOU!! The latest national Human Development Index (HDI) gives the first three positions to the south!! Also, the top 10 in the list features ALL the five southern states! That basically translates to the north being poor(er) --> under-nutrition --> small(er) brains, brawns and loins! QED bitches. Now enjoy the Music. And read my disclaimer.

Artist: DropKick Murphys
Song: Shipping up to Boston.
Comments: Feature on 'The Departed' soundtrack.

Soul Renditio n

About Soul Rendition

2006-12-17T07:14:00.000-07:00

Artist: BBC (In Our Time)
Song: Indian Mathematics (Documentary) Part 1.
Comments: Part 2 at the end of the page

Soul Renditio n

Soul Rendition's content, hence forth, aims to target the musically curious, intelligent thinker. Every post will contain audio from a single artist/theme that the author considers worth sharing. Although the author has a penchant towards certain genres, the showcase will be eclectic and novel enough for the most adventurous of musical aficionados. The showcased music tries to set a mood for the subsequent text.

The blog author, being a musician of sorts himself, refuses to critique or judge the artist in purview for he does not believe in subliminal creatures as music critics/journalists. However, the fact that the artists content featured on this page is indicative of the author's fondness and in all probability, it will go down well with the (intelligent) audience.

The quality of the streaming content, unlike other streaming pages, shall be EXTREMELY HIGH. In fact, a connection of 256kbps+++ is highly recommended for browsing this page or for any other site of consequence in the entertainment industry.

Soul Rendition is not intended for the faint of heart, conservatives, politically correct and people with mental make ups below the age of 18.

Soul Rendition does not host any audio/video protected by copyright laws. It merely points to material already available on the internet in a manner that protects/hides the links of the content from potential leechers. In a manner of speaking, media here is similar to any other streaming site (although superior in quality), except that the files themselves are never hosted here or at sites owned by the author.

Artist: BBC (In Our Time)
Song: Indian Mathematics (Documentary) Part 2.

Soul Renditio n

Bum of the Shipping Industry: India

2006-12-10T03:08:00.000-07:00

Soul Renditio n

The ship-breaking business is dirty, hazardous and too cumbersome and costly for the west. Following other outsourcing models, this industry has moved to India. However, unlike software,BPO or church services for the dead, it leaves the employees anything but rich or sexed out. In fact, the health hazards are a lot more serious than working ungodly hours or RSI. It ranges from severe asbestoses to irreparable damage to body parts resulting from sever injuries and in the worst case death.

Read more at this BBC link.

Listen/Download a documentary on the same here.

Soul Renditio n

Soul Renditio n

Manic Mani: Blog Wars

2006-11-09T06:05:00.000-07:00

“Knowledge is what is both true and believed, though not all that is both true and believed counts as knowledge.” - Epistemology. Let me make the case with Arul Mani as an example. Before that, let me brief you on the situation. The Torps wrote a critique about this Bangalore Quizzing celebrity in their characteristic vitriolic style, meted out the same treatment they provide to any other pretentious, self pontificating fame-hog. (It does not mean I agree with them, at least not till Mani went berserk.) You’d expect the 36 year ‘old ‘ to react with bearing reflective of his dandily-shabby, supposed intellectual English Lecturer stature. And he does with this. Well written, mature, point made against the Ts and the kids. But the critique does give him a sleepless night and he gets down and dirty with another rebuttal filled with angst, satire, paraphilia & the likes, however keeps it between the parties involved. And finally, paranoia consumes him when he publishes THE CRANK, work that can only be attributed to a man deeply insecure, ravaged by a gargantuan inferiority complex. Not only does he assassinate the characters of innocent bystanders (people who comment in T’s post), but also exhibits deviant traits like hiring detectives (who BTW were thoroughly incompetent and unprofessional) to ‘investigate’ the whereabouts of bloggers! He publishes details of their locations, age, email etc. Whats with the disregard to privacy? What are you gonna do Mani, come after us with a suicide bomb? All this for not thinking of you as a quizzing genius? (My comment in T's post was: "Both guys got mothered at the BBC Mastermind competitions. Their prowess is only in the collage circuit, that too with the below par Bangalore engineering/arts/science collages. I've never seen them or their proteges win against NLS/IISC/IIT/IIM. In fact, I've always wondered why the metaquizzers (at least most of em) never made it to the aforementioned institutes.").

Back to how Mani is a good case to prove Epistemology.

Beliefs about him: Quizzing Genius, intellectual e supreme, Khadi clad non-corporate rebel.

Truths: Never won a quiz of consequence (Mastermind etc), never published anything significant (literary/political/scientific/philosophical) to prove, leave alone supreme intellect, but above your average collage grad abilities, did not graduate from big schools ( CKP/NLS/IIT/IIM .. etc), quizmasters for a hefty cheque (hows that for corporatizing quizzing?).

Do the math. (The Venn diagram below might help)

A closer look at his ‘dignified’ post:

It starts with: “A Dutch psychologist who profiles juvenile delinquents and the criminally insane…”. Hmm, ironic beginning for a post that blatantly throws Mani’s psychology into the abysmal realms of criminal insanity & (online) delinquency (attempts to publish private information without permission, character defamation). Remember, the delinquency in question is non-juvenile as our guy is 36 years old!

It goes on to mention the author as Dr. H. Bladiebla from the ‘Psychological Profiling Department’ of the “Karnataka Electronic Intelligence Bureau” (KEIB). So Mani works at Bangalore University and organizes quizzes for the RICH. He can pull a few strings to intimidate us ‘kids’. I personally call it bluff. Anyways, the point is that Mani is NOT the President or PM or anybody significant for our government to raise ‘threat levels’ and send special task forces to protect his, lemme guess, hairy, greasy, unkept ass. If you really do know people at the KEIB, do something good, fish for moles in the armed forces or warn people of terrorist threats/activities . Quit flaunting your 'connections'.

His article continues as:
“...KEIB President S. Patel with support of the board has decreed that this action warrants a Preliminary Mental Status Report (on the Torps), conducted by the IFBCA” What the heck is the IFBCA?? (You are writing an article, not holding a quiz, so quit using obscure acronyms.) He goes on to threaten the Ts in classic Indian bad cop style with this "Although we are at this moment not aware of the identity or whereabouts of the individual, we are confident that our Electronic Intelligence Response Unit (EIRU), in coordination with Karnataka Law Officials will shortly identify the individual and bring him or her in for questioning and further tests." At this rate, the IFBCA, whatever it stands for, needs to warrant “Preliminary Mental Status Reports” on the entire blogosphere and bring them all in for questioning. My suggestion is to start with Mani. His interests are ‘assassinating everybody’. After what he tried to pull off with his post, I completely believe his 'interest' to be genuine and hereby INCREASE the threat level to the Ts, me and other bloggers to Red.

Here is a good question for your next quiz Mani: "What detective/profiling agency not to hire for blog authors' details". Turns out, all the contact details-dope your agency exhumed about me is on my ‘blogger’ profile, free for all to see. (Einstein! Did they filch you for this 'info'?)

Further, the article lists associates of BT, all involved in a diabolical plot to behead Mani and other civilians. It deduces that ‘Muslim Hate Videos’ are posted on my blog and classifies me as a Muslim basher. Ironically, the ending of the post reads “Only positive note: IAmMine dedicated article on reunification India/Pakistan. But even so, no desire to know if the Pakis want re-unification. Bleddy Nazis.” Notice how this ‘government agency’s’ grammar and spelling is as evolved as its investigation, its slang up to date with the latest trends in the Bronx and its political correctness conveniently misplaced. I didn't ask the Indians if they wanted a re-unification, did I? Does that make me an uber Nazi, traitor and a dictator scheming to occupy one nation at a time? Notice how the message of Hindu-Muslim coexistence in the article was conveniently ignored.

Which brings up two issues:

1> Political correctness in the modern day overshadows truth. The videos on my site might as well have been about Sai Baba and his magic, VHP/RSS fanatics addressing Hindus or the jackass evangelist Benny Hinn who apparently healed 3 million Bangaloreans. (Too bad Mani and the agency were not among the 'healed'.) Either one of em would have me associated with one extremist ideology or the other. Apparently, criticizing extremism classifies you as one.

2> Freedom of Speech/Press in India is next to non existent. For all the attention India gets as the ‘Worlds Largest Free Democracy’, it ranks in the dismal 70s in the Freedom of Press Index. “The Indian Constitution, while not mentioning the word "press", provides for "the right to freedom of speech and expression" (Article 19(1)a). However this right is subject to restrictions under subclause (2), whereby this freedom can be restricted for reasons of "sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, preserving decency, preserving morality, in relation to contempt of court, defamation, or incitement to an offence”. Although Mani's post was a a supposed 'prank', it wouldn't surprise me if a power wielding Mani kinds actually put the govt. against a blogger who critiqued him. As for censorship in the name of religion, remember the ban on blogspot.com after the Bombay Blasts? This is the same country where the DaVinci code (the movie) was banned in many states (AP, TN etc) for breeding, apparently like me, hate towards a particular religion. So now the REBEL MANI concurs with these jackasses eh? What happened to the rage against the machine, are you a slave to the grind now??

Continuing with the ‘religious hatred’ theme, this is what Mani had to say in his rebuttal part deux:
“While i try and shower and all, i can see that i don't quite make the clean-cut with shaven-shriven-shining -non-shagging brahmin engineering-college types who alternate between obsessive washing and GRE-List word-wanking so that they can then fellate everybody at the US Consulate, leave, join the Repubicking Party and return to shower us with the oh-dear-cologne of their many arrivals, and their limited technologies for dealing with anybody who doesn't get into a suit". If the videos make me a Muslim basher, this makes Mani a Brahmin bashing, HOMOEROTIC fantasizer. Or a homophobe? Okay, the Brahmins fellate the consulate, US President, bribe the GRE agency and land a boat to the US. While you(Mani) mug the Manorama Year Book(s), jerk off to Mastermind, shag fish curry and cream your hair with it after you are 'done', ( point 'd' in the link provided ), research the mating habits of earthworms, finger the corporates (by what, organizing quizzes for them for 30K ? That I agree, sire, is a fine fingering.), not wear garments of their (corporate) slavery but buy Khadi (and since when has Khadi not been taken over by corporations?) spun by sweatshops employing child laborers (whose yearly perks are a handsome doses of molestation), fellate Siddarth Basu and still not make it big in Mastermind or any other quiz of consequence.

Too bad you dragged a bunch of guys in your muck Mani. All you had to do was act your age. After all, I'm a young, 'lonely', hormonal male ganging up with others of my kind with BT playing leader of the pack, while you are the 'stoic', 'OLD', dreadlocked, rebellious, non-corporate paraphiliac. Shouldn't you do better than come down with severe epilepsy and bouts of inferiority complex? Get a guy/girl/thing your own age to heckle and leave us 'kids' alone.

And here is the Brahmin bashing Manic Mani’s contacts. I did not have to befriend a government agency, the mafia, Mani's fan club or his germs to get it. Call him on his birthday. Or any other day.

Arul Mani: Brahmin Basher.
Age: 36.
DOB: Go to http://al-lude.livejournal.com/profile
Phone & Email: 98452-06XXX and 080-2542-2XXX arul_mani@hotmail.com
Source: http://anuragjain.blogspot.com/2004_06_01_archive.html

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Priceless Prayers: Inspiration for Jihad

2006-10-18T23:32:00.000-06:00

Note: if you came here form Arul Mani's Blog, Read THIS.

Here is the answer behind all that hatred

I say, throw a knife into the bald guys hands!

Just when you thought that was an Oscar winnig act, here is a cameo that breaks all ground in the word of acting.

Unification In The Face of Animosity.

2006-10-12T20:45:00.000-06:00

India and Pakistan are (estranged) children of the same mother. One would expect them to have a lot in common, and if you look hard, you will be amused at how much they share in culture, food, traditions and societal/national issues. What you don’t have to look hard for, however, is the blaring similarity is their mutual hatred for the other. With both countries going nuclear in 1998, turning a blind eye to resolving this blatant hatred and concentrating on differences is playing into the hands of cynical political agendas on both sides of the border. Here is a RADICAL proposal that might actually work!

Look at the European Union. The unthinkable is “working” there! A communist East Germany unified with the West. France and Germany, the epitome of hatred decided to put aside their differences and work for the good of a greater Europe. Underdeveloped countries of the East merged with the developed West. The result: a win-win situation for all parties involved. So what if the Euro is not as powerful today as the founders of the EU had hoped it to be, it is still the second most powerful currency in the world, far more powerful than the Mark/Lira etc were or ever would be. Most of all, the human impact of the unification is alarming. Virtual borders have created a wealth of opportunities to the Eastern nations, while the Western conglomerates enjoy much cheaper costs. In a way, outsourcing to India has suffered from the formation of the EU!

What if, we had a unified India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. A subcontinent union? While we are at it, why not think of a unified country as against just an economic zone? Have a strooo…ooong urge to dismiss it as being non pragmatic? Brace yourself, for it has happened in Deutschland and the EU and as preposterous as it seems, its potential to alleviate a number of problems on both sides of the border, like the nuclear standoff, is gargantuan. Sure there are hurdles, but are they impasses?

I am no economist, and don’t want to go into the micro-differences in each countries’ economies. But at the macro level, differences seem minimal. Per capita income of Pakistan and India is not very different (128th vs 122nd position!) but Bangladesh is a little (not too far) behind at the 143rd position. Bangladesh and Pakistan may have a lot of state control in the economy, but hey, India only got liberated in 1990. If the EU can integrate economies of varied strengths, integrating those of three similar ones doesn’t require an Einstein.

Religion and minority rights were pawns used by the British in a classic example of the divide and rule policy for the creation of Pakistan and thereby a weak subcontinent. I am of strong conviction that the overwhelming sentiment of oneness between the Hindus and Muslims after the Dandi march would have carried over into the new united India if not for the Nehru-Jinnah power struggle and the British exploitation of the same. The seeds of Hindu-Muslim hatred might have been sowed by Mughal tyrants, but its fortification was in the 1947 riots. Sure the Koran preaches death to polytheists, but the Bible holds polytheism in the same light and Christians and Hindus don’t seem to “hate” each other like Hindus and Muslims do. And as has been stated before, the events of 1947 have a lot more to do with it than actual ‘religious’ differences. What is needed however is a ‘reform’ in Islam, the same way that Hinduism was reformed in the 1880-1947 (Undesirable elements like the caste system, sati and polygamy were abolished). A reform in Islam would preach tolerance and deplore extremism, would not take the Koran verbatim but would preach its significance in the MODERN WORLD and work towards abolishing practices undermining women.

Fact is, the religious problems faced by modern India would continue as is in a unified greater

India

. And why is that still NOT a reason for Muslims from Bangladesh and Pakistan to oppose unification? Because there is widespread (illegal) immigration from Bangladesh into India (which seems to suggest that life in India, irrespective of religion is better) and if the Pak-India border were not a militarized zone, the case would have been the same there. Pakistani Muslims claim that their condition is better than the average Indian Muslim. They cite literacy levels and per capita income of Indian Muslims to be lesser than the Pakistani national average. That is NOT true! Pakistani national average is 54% as against 60% of Indian Muslims!! I could not source information comparing per-capita income of the Indian Muslim community, but I do suspect it to be VERY close to the Pakistani average.

Let me make the case for unification stronger for Pakistan and Bangladesh. Free speech, free press, freedom of religion (especially for their minorities), free and prosperous economy (fourth largest in the world) with extremely high growth rates in the service sector (white collar jobs!), a liberal rendition of Islam and a STABLE democracy are unimaginable feats in the near future for either of the two nations.

What is in it for India? A lot. Geographies which were Indian since eternity shall once again be a part of the mother land. In fact, the Sindh valley was the birth place of Hinduism! By land area, Greater India would be the third or fourth largest in the world and by human capital, numero uno! And no more defense spending on the LoC!! No nuclear standoffs!

I am certain that the extremist factions on both sides would vehemently pursue a partitioned India. But how long should/will we let religion get the better of the state and humanity? How long will vested political interests blind the masses? What we need is a prosperous, democratic and secular Bharath (Greater India), not a Hindustan or an Islamistan. I have only presented the benefits of getting there, how to get there against religious extremism is for a later post, or audience interaction.

Carter Beauford: The best out there?

2006-09-27T01:41:00.000-06:00

The advantage of graduating from Jazz (if thats ever possible) is mastery over your instrument (perv, i know what you are thinking). Disadvantage of staying in Jazz: being mistaken for Cuba Gooding Jr screaming "Show me the money" repeatedly as if he suffers from OCD, Tourettes & foaming epilepsy at the same time.

Lets look at the most illustrious drummer grad from Jazz class of 1991, Carter Beauford. When I meant 'look', I really did mean it. So.... LOOK:

Now now, dont be shy to press play again & again & again. Watching this bloke drum is almost as good as..... sex!! Ahhhhhhh ... after my millionth 'multiple orgasm' watching him, I declare/judge Carter Beauford be the best drummer of our times. Give him a tune and he'll weave a drum solo around it without killing the song's harmony (like the one above) and still wont seem ostentatious or soul-less like those faggots from Dream Theater who seem to make music for the glamor of being 'excellent' at their thing. BTW, if you still dunno who this guy plays for, I dont blame you, they aint big in rock or pop or jazz or any of the known genres, so I created one for them and its called 'creative'. I'd rather watch you kids walk in your Anti-Christ, Black, heavy metal T-shirts or look at you 'mature' jazz/blues fans stay smug in your own gas and have a hearty laugh at what your insular choices have you missing than give out the dope on his band. But I know you asswipes will google him! What a bane search engines can be.

Say of The Day

2006-09-25T23:45:00.000-06:00

President: I do not negotiate with terrorists.

Terrorist: I do not negotiate with heads of states, so go do what I say.

~ 24 Sesson 3.

God is a Binary computer

2006-09-07T00:31:00.000-06:00

Coz Analog Rocks!

OOP Sucks, MAC rocks

2006-08-08T23:45:00.000-06:00

I hate Object Oriented Programming. I do not see its need in the Electrical/Electronics engineering world. As much as I try and run, it shows up around every corner, behind every bush, under every rock and in every vein of the computer (enabled) blood stream.

Just when the dark clouds descended, a small opeining in the sky shone down upon me in the form of a MAC Laptop and the world was dark clouds spiked with small but bright tunnels of light, much like the view below.

(Photo shot by me in Fall 2005. Right Click on the snap and "Save link As" for a full size rendition that can be used as desktop wallpaper etc... Longest title for a snap ever :D )

B

2006-07-31T19:35:00.000-06:00

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

Music Becomes Eclectic

2006-07-21T19:27:00.000-06:00

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

!! 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

2006-07-16T04:52:00.000-06:00

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??

2006-07-11T22:55:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-07-07T00:17:00.000-06:00

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.

2006-06-28T19:14:00.000-06:00

Aditi Niar & the volleybaal.

You will understand the nitty-gritty’s of this post if you are a SAMS alumni.

The '97 batch will pleasantly remember Aditi Niar ma'am as much for her idiosyncrasies as for her pedantic abilities! In a teaching staff infested with bored housewives and recruits from the "Bengali Quota", here was a lady that personified erudition!! How about a journalist position at Outlook for competence?? (Oh those vivid stories she shared about her barrages (interviews actually) with asinine Bollywood stars and politicians)!! We had this suave, intelligent & ravishing femme as our history teacher through much of high school. (Lucky ain't we?)

It was a hot summer afternoon and we were at the end of the much awaited 'games' period. Note that the period's title is an allusion to the 'game' (tired, dehydrated students) hunted by the sweat thirsty PT master (Mahesha in our times), whose arsenal mainly comprised of his rhythmic 'leapt, leapt, leapt-right-leatpt' ballad for which we marched a good 30 minutes of the assigned 40! After the release from the military drill, a few enthused but exhausted classmates of mine salvaged the remaining time with a little volleyball, while I fervently ran about the sandy Basket ball court chasing the elusive "assist" (SAMS basket-ball lingo for a 3 pt shot that didn't rebound off the board). One of my ambitious tries from half way down the court promptly sent the ball flying towards the volleyball section of the field where my 'big-built' friend experimented with his finger strength by trying to volley the ball to me in a move often used in the sport called 'fingering'. This moment of valor cost my buddy more than just failure to launch the heavy ball, he hairline fractured his left thumb.

Pic of the Basketball section of the field. Now it is all cemented! No more dirty White unifroms for the new genereation.

Aditi Niar's class was next on the time table & the fractured soul kept quivering and whimpering in her class. Patient and tolerant (add these to her infinite 'list of good qualities' [:P]) that Nair was, she ignored the ruckus often made by big built last-benchers like my pal and after much deliberation, sternly said "Mr XYZ, is the WW-2 genocide sending shivers down your spine or are you mocking the passion I try and teach you guys with??". XYZ stood up like a docile dog issued a 'doggie, stand!!' command and muttered something about a possible grave injury to his finger. Being the faithful & supportive friend of last-benchers, known dacoits & communists & also sensing an opportunity to get away from the class, I stood up and declared "Ma'am, he tried fingering a Basket ball & hurt himself. May I assist him to the sick room?" While I expected a reluctant 'yes', what I faced was a torrent!!

To be continued...

2006-06-28T19:06:00.000-06:00

Thinking of you

Thinking back, thinking of you
Summertime, think it was June
Yeah think it was June
Laying back, head on the grass
Chewing gum, having some laughs
Yeah having some laughs

You made me feel like the one
The one

Drinking back, drinking for two
Drinking with you
When drinking was new
Sleeping in the back of my car
We never went far
Didn't need to go far

You made me feel like the one
The one

I don't know where we are going now

Wake up call, coffee and juice
Remembering you
What happened to you
I wonder if we'll meet again
Talking about life since then
Talk about why did it end

You made me feel like the one
The one

So take a look at me now

2006-04-23T07:33:00.000-06:00

Blog Gas

The blogging phenomenon has really caught up among suave Indians. Internet is a costly technology for a country like India & people who have access are usually from the upper crust of the society. What initially started as an indulgence of computer nerds to hype the free software modules they developed (which don’t seem to work anywhere outside the developers computer) caught up with the rich & trendy internet surfer wanting to fart his pseudo-intellectual commentaries on other peoples’ faces. And now, the gas released by pretentious fame-hog bloggers from urban India is threatening to be a big factor in global (or India) warming.

Gas released from Banagalore Blogs is already a significant part of the smog in the city. Having the highest ‘computers per person’ ratio in the nation, police maamas are forced to carry Gelusil to battle blogging which is reaching epidemic proportions here. They adopt a simple formula to combat gassy bloggers: the ones in denim and T-shirt have a couple pills shoved down their throats; ones wearing cotton kurtas and flip flops lurking around the many coffee cafés get the double dose of pills and a bottle of the liquid forced down their pie-hole; students from the popular downtown colleges (like Joseph’s, Cottons, Christ …) are known to be the gassiest and have six of the suppository version of the antacid piped up their bum. (That’s what you get for being ANAL on your blog.)

(Edited from www.londonstimes.us/toons/cartoons/richdiesslin_gas_mask.gif)

The smart entrepreneur in Bangalore is profiting from the phenomenon. Competing with the up-market restaurant “A Pinch of Jazz” (located in Manipal center) is the restaurant amenable to neo-bloggers named “A Pinch of Gas”. Challenging “Purple Haze” on residency road is “Gas Haze: The Bloggers Pub”. Even the Gay pubs in Bangalore are adopting the new blog mantra. If you are a faggot & you blog, try “UrAnus”, newly opened next to “NASA” on Church Street.

Due to Global warming (attributed largely to Blog Gas), ice in the upper Himalayas is melting at alarming rates. However, environmental scientists at IISC have found an upside to ‘all that gas’. In a joint research project with the civil and geology departments, they have found a way to route the burgeoning rivers in the north to southern rivers like the Krishna and Cauvery, making them perennial. Rumor has it that the Indian intelligence agency, RAW, is planning to fund the gassiest bloggers in the nation to increase their posting rates to cause a surge in blog gas whose effect will melt enough ice to flash flood low lying plains along the Indus river located in Pakistan!! Go RAW. Go India, blog fart the pakis to perdition.

2006-04-23T04:08:00.000-06:00

Debutant

Yes. This is my first ever post online. Not a very good writer, but have a few interesting opinions to share. How this blog will shape up is still a mystery to me. A number of posts may be surmises, if it seems plausible to me, shall pen it down. Your critique is welcome, but keep it clean.

Speaking of surmises, read my next post. Cheers .. Soul Renderer.