The 10 greatest myths about classical music

If you, like me, are a lover of Art music, you've probably had to deal with loads of ignorance about the object of our love. You may have frequently found yourself outnumbered by groups of sissy pop fans or  pseudo rockboys - each group insisting vehemently on a particular classical music myth - even going as far as to ridicule your taste. This may have slightly annoyed you, but you know that educating the rockboy and the pansypopper is a task that will take some time. Further, when the right stuff is swirling around inside and banality of chord progressions eludes you, you actually enjoy some of their music. So you put up with them and present the stiff upper lip.
But when a wannabe rapper come along and start expounding, that's when you draw the line. Enough is, so to speak, enough. You draw back the arm and let go of one of the solidest right in the face of the little shit. You witness with satisfaction, his collapse to the ground and the ceasing of nonsense from his lips. And later, perhaps you go home and play a little Rachmaninoff. Nothing  better when the blood is flowing than good old Rach.
Yet, at the end of the day, however much the wannabe rapper deserved it, it is you who have set yourself up for assault charges. Furthermore, you have attracted the attention of one of the lowliest sets of beings in all creation, one which will now be very angry with you and might cause trouble for you later.
It is with this in mind that I have have taken it upon myself to Educate. In the hope that it may have some effect on the pansypopper, the rockboy and the rapshit. And, hopefully, provide you with some entertainment.


Myth one: Classical music is necessarily old

The slow bastardisation of the word 'classical' has lead to this widespread belief. 'Classic', when used in the context of cars, cameras and many other objects implies an old, dated model which is quaint and amusing. Does it apply to music? Nothing could be further from the truth.
Classical music is music of an advanced form, structure and complexity. As a genre, it has gone through more than fifteen periods over seven hundred years, many of them running simultaneously and a some of them running right now. There are 'classical' composers living today just like there were 'classical' composers living five hundred years ago. Two famous examples of living composers are Karl Jenkins and Philip Glass. Much of their music is more recent than the rock of Led Zeppelin and Guns n Roses.
[Note to the educated: I don't want to confuse them by telling them about the Classical Period under this heading. It would be too much for them to process.]


Myth two: Classical music is slow, soft and peaceful

Rockboys this is for you. You think classical music is a large collection of lullabies, right? Very peaceful, pastoral and calming to the nerves, ideal for 'relaxation'.
Well I've got news for you. Classical music is the only music that frequently demands playing twenty notes or more per second. Furthermore, much of it was written to communicate a disturbed individual's turbulent mental state. And with the likes of  Beethoven and Schumann (who had much greater cause to be upset than  Kurt Cobain) regularly communicating thus, the music is often passionate, uncomfortable and nerve wracking.

Myth three: Classical sopranos make a sport of glass breaking

The ridiculous cartoon of a prima donna holding a wine glass  and screaming an unearthly note to shatter it is one that seems to have left an indelible mark. One frequently encounters an 'imitation' soprano performance by a drunken man who shouts in a falsetto that shatters eardrums, not glass. That the wine glass  also shatters can be attributed to his tight grip made still tighter by the condition of his bladder.
The fact is, the highest note in operatic repertoire is F6. Glass cannot be shattered at that frequency. Mariah Carey, who frequently shrieks in her 'whistle register', is much more likely to break bad quality glass than any operatic soprano.

Myth four: Classical musicians are rubbish: they cannot 'play by ear'

Replaying music by listening to it as opposed to reading notation is not a wondrous skill. It is simply a different skill, a useful skill, and one which most musicians should acquire. The skill that really distinguishes an extraordinary musician from an ordinary one is the ability to create good music - to compose. 'Playing by ear' - merely reproducing what someone else has created requires just as much skill as learning to read notation and play it well.
Most people who 'learn music' are taught the notation method of learning; this is a direct outcome of the division between composers and pianists that occurred in the nineteenth century. Often teachers completely neglect the second method - to reproduce sound without notation. This has resulted in a large number of so called musicians who seem unable to play ba ba black sheep or Happy Birthday on request, but can perhaps play a stern Liszt Rhapsody.
Turn the tables - ask them to play a different Liszt Rhapsody 'by ear' - they will be absolutely and completely stumped. Their inability to play by ear has nothing to do with classical music - if they cannot play pop, rock or folk music by ear they most certainly cannot play classical by ear. Give them notes for folk, rock or pop and they'll do a decent job (Probably a better job than they are doing with the Liszt Rhapsody)
These exclusively-notation-musicians can be found in large numbers in all genres of music. Some of them rise to prominence in classical music performance because among all the genres, classical is the best documented and scored. It's not the Art which encourages their one dimensional view, it is they who feed off a positive characteristic of the Art to succeed despite their significant limitation.



Myth five: Lifts(elevators) play classical music 

This is just silly. Lifts play 'themes' from classical works, often monophonic and in a different key. And if you've found an elevator that actually plays CD-recorded music, it is most likely soft saxophone music by Kenny G which is about as close to classical music as Sly Donkey is to Bridge.



Myth six: Orchestral/choral conductors are just for show 

Apart from composers, conductors are the most revered members of our field. And with good reason, too. The conductor has to shape the music of an orchestra or a choir - both of which are composed of multiple performers. He needs to give the music a unique, individual character. While most of the conductor's work happens before the show (during rehearsals),  his role is critical at the time of the performance too. Without the expressions on his face, the movement of his arms and his general body language, the ensemble would likely perform substantially below par.

Myth seven: Classical music is elitist and pretentious 

One cannot blame the general public for believing this myth because there are plenty of elitist and pretentious people who make a show of enjoying classical music. However, true music lovers will soon note that these people often know as much about music as Jains know about the taste of meat. Most of them are unable to hold a tune or sing in correct time. Their greatest contribution to the art is the righteous indignation with which they turn around and censure fellow concert-goers for shuffling the feet or whispering during a performance.
The true patrons of classical music are the community of performers, composers and teachers. These people are generally humble because they are consciously aware of how very little they know and of how much more there is to learn. Furthermore, they just don't have the money to indulge highfalutin whims as music is not the highest paying line of work. In the vein of the composers whom they dedicate their profession to, they are frequently strugglers searching for a way to express themselves. There is simply no time for pretentiousness and idiocy.

Myth eight: Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra performed classical music

Here, I find myself having to perform the painful task of distinguishing between old pop music and classical music. It is a very insulting task, rather like distinguishing between the localities of Bandra and Bandra East. Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra are crooners. Their music is great if you want to be thrown back in time into a 20th century music hall or if you want to fall off to sleep. The way they sing is not only un-classical, it is anti classical. Frank Sinatra, in particular, seems to delight in consonant clusters and zero resonance. Enough said!

Myth nine: Nobody is interested in classical music 'any more'

A prevailing myth is that 'in the old days', everyone listened to classical music and that now, with electronically enhanced sounds available, classical music is in some sort of decline.
The truth is, the enlightened percentage of the population that patronised classical music in 18th and 19th century Europe was just as small  as the one that does so now. But it is a loyal, consistent percentage - one that will never increase or reduce dramatically.
In fact, in this century and the previous one, with the expansion of classical music to the far east, countries that never had a chance to be a part of the tradition have started producing the greatest virtuosos. The loyal, small percentage I talked about is visible in more and more nations and cultures. Furthermore, with the population explosion worldwide, it is safe to say that there are several hundred times more people interested in classical music now than there were two hundred years ago. It is the other percentage of the population that has changed - 200 hundred years ago, they listened to sea shanties and folk songs. Today, they patronise rock, pop, funk, trance, dance, hip hop and much more.

Myth ten:  Classical music is from Tom and Jerry

A delightful show is Tom and Jerry and one of the reasons is the fabulous music. Who can forget Tom's solemn, ridiculous cat concerto? Or Jerry's Hollywood Bowl?
While the music makes the show adult-watchable, thinking that it was originally intended for the show should get you classified as slightly simple. Liszt, Tchaikovsky et al were not seers. And even if they did visualise a Tom and Jerry filled future, they most certainly did not attempt to provide the background music to which that future would march. Their music was composed for a live concert audience; it has been simply put to good use by MGM.
Yet, the frequency with which this myth is entertained is truly remarkable. Just the other day, a work mate of mine called Beethoven's 5th Symphony a 'Tom and Jerry tune'. This with a look of delighted recognition on his faces as he heard the urgent motif sounding somewhere in the distance. It is to him that I dedicate this final myth - in the hope that he and all like him may soon see the error of their ways and vow to reform. 

The Real Entertainers

Guest Blog, by David Vaz

The noise in the arena is deafening. The two athletes in the middle of the ring glare venomously at each other; their bodies battered, bloodied and bruised. Separating them is a steel ladder atop which a golden belt is suspended from a hook. Egged on by a sea of fans chanting their names, the men slowly ascend either side of the ladder, every step taking what seems like an eternity. They reach the top and both attempt to knock each other down, firing wild but tired blows at each other’s skulls, their will to go on seemingly fuelled by the strikes. Finally, the larger of the two knocks the other off the ladder and watches his torso fall to the bottom with a dull thud. The triumphant 7 footer, visibly exhausted, detaches the belt from the hook and raises his hands to the heavens as the crowd goes berserk.

It wasn’t long ago when such a spectacle was considered nothing short of barbaric by many. Widely acknowledged to be ‘fake’, professional wrestling is regarded as a childish activity not worth one’s time to watch and certainly not a form of entertainment. After all, who wants to see grown men in their underwear throw each other around and pretend to beat each other senseless. It’s much too violent. And let’s not forget the sexual themes that the women involved with the promotion partake in, not to leave out the mature language used? Certainly not appropriate for one’s child to watch and imbibe. It’d surely be a terrible influence and train their subconscious to become violent in nature.

It’s rather amusing that the same households that admonish against this have televisions which quite frequently air Jerry Springer, the Bold and the Beautiful, Mixed Martial Arts and 300 and their equivalents depending on the country of viewership. Apparently none of the above contains objectionable content and all provide for good, wholesome, family entertainment. People can be a real bunch of hypocrites can’t they? Yes we're talking about the same people that adore Tom Cruise, that worship Lady Gaga, that go bananas over Sunny Leone, that wait eagerly with eyes glued to the local news channel for some sort of verbal or physical confrontation in parliament just for a laugh or two.

Wrestling is so much more than that. Yes, matches are indeed scripted, blows artistically exaggerated, results known and dialogues, confrontations and moves rehearsed weeks in advance.  But then what is acting all about? We all know Gerard Butler doesn’t get impaled by a thousand spears, we all know the contestants on the ‘Bachelor’ know what they have to say during the show the previous night, we all know Ridge Forrester isn’t fortunate enough to be able to sleep with his sister, mother, daughter and grandmother, twice over the course of a week and we all know that apart from Jackie Chan, you’ll be hard pressed to find a single actor capable or willing to take a hit/fall. Wrestlers aren’t just actors, they’re their own stuntmen too. Each and every athlete puts his/her body on the line to get a chance to walk out to that ring and do what he/she does best. There are no cuts, no retakes, no alternate endings. What you see is what you get. Careers and even lives have ended in the ring but a wrestler’s heart will remain strong.

Professional wrestling, admittedly, during its 5 decade odd existence, has undergone several changes in terms of the nature of content delivered to its audience, most notably, during the 90’s, a decade where wrestling was synonymous with sex, drugs, foul language and rock and roll. But one thing has and always will remain the same. The Professionals involved, truly are, entertainers. And to the disbelievers, the doubters, the critics and the cynics; as the Rock, the self proclaimed most electrifying man in all of sports entertainment would say, “It doesn’t matter what you think!”

Money, and what dogs do.

There is something extremely offensive about the presence of dog poop on a footpath. It's not so much the fact that a turd is in itself repulsive - it's more about the fact that we all know what sort of dog the turd has come from. Certainly not the much maligned Indian pi dogs that form the populous of stray dogs you see around the city. These dogs, besides being extremely hardy and well suited to the Indian climate are very clean in their behaviour. They don't do their thing in the middle of footpaths; they choose an inconspicuous location most of the time, a tree in undergrowth or a gutter that has seen worse.
No, the dogs that make our footpaths a living hell to walk on typically belong to citizens. Well fed, pampered citizens who yet manage to bear a striking resemblance to the ten million slum dwellers that surround them in the city. Indeed I will be so bold as to affirm that for a majority of them, were they born under similar circumstances as these unfortunate souls, there would not be too different from them.
Sound like a grandiose assumption? I will justify it.
Bombay's slum dwellers are some of the strangest human beings one could encounter. They live in squalor of a kind that's terrifying in its magnitude. Most of them share their premises with scores of dogs, bats, rats and other vermin. They eat filthy food a few metres away from where the fresh poop from their most recent defecation resides. They practically swim in mounds of wet, stinking garbage. And during the terrible monsoon, they literally do.

When looked at from a compassionate viewpoint, it seems very sad. Yet while pitying them, there is that chord of revulsion that is struck in all of us. For these people surely don't need to live in this Kafkaesquely regressive manner. For the same  the slumlord (typically a local politician) demands, they would get a pucca house, (even if it is a  chawl) in a more remote location like Mira Road or Nalasopara. Which would afford them a much more dignified and hygienic living.
Yet they choose to live in the filth that is the centrally located slums.  They seem to be willing to endure what should be termed a subhuman existence just because of the fact that city living affords them an income convenience that might have otherwise been more difficult.
What has made them this way? Sadly, it is the very Indian idea of money-worship. Money is so important, that one may compromise one's dignity, one's principles, one may compromise one's very being just to have more of it. Have a look at our  richest billionaires - the word 'philanthropist' is practically alien to them; I doubt they even know how to spell the word. In some cases, this is a family legacy. After all, the 'great' Dhirubhai Ambani once stated that the only thing important to him in life is his 'business' . He didn't need a hobby or a target for benevolence, he never felt enough was enough - Oh no! He had made his fortune all by himself and he wanted every single penny of it.
In many ways, Indian culture views money not as a means but as an end. If you have made your fortune, that's where it stops.
This is the bond that connects the slum dweller in Dharavi to the rich man on Pali Hill possessed of a troop of St Bernard's who mess up the footpath on my road. They both see money as the end. They are both willing to endure all sorts of disgusting conditions, physical and moral, to make that money. And once they have it, they don't give a damn. For law, for order or for improvement of the world around them. As a matter of fact, they never did.
One, you see, is the owner of the dogs. The other is the servant that walks them. 

Too much testosterone

A point about my beloved hometown is starting to irk me. This point has always had the capacity to irk; however, now it has come to the fore  and is causing me to no longer be the cheerful spreader of sweetness and light I am known to be. I speak of the nasty presence of too many of my own species (men) wherever I go.

As I was heading to St Andrew's church for mass yesterday, I passed a group of people, presumably returning from their walk on Bandstand promenade. I felt an sudden, unexpected surge of annoyance that made me look back to determine its cause. Then it struck me; the entire group of twelve people was composed entirely of men. That some of them were (rather ironically it may seem to outsiders) holding each others' hands while ogling at passing girls is beyond the scope of this post. I will go into it another time.

Why is a group of twelve grown adults, merely going for a walk (not a game or anything  else remotely virile) composed entirely of men? That too on a Sunday, a day you'd think they'd want to get away from their male-dominated work places? It's beyond comprehension in a normal city. Alas, in Bombay, it is easily explained. You see, for every 1000 males in the city, there are a mere 866 females. And in the migrant worker population, this number drops to 153. What I saw was a mere manifestation of this unfortunate trend. A manifestation that does not occur only occasionally. Try going to Bandstand on any Sunday evening. For every member of the fairer sex, you are guaranteed to see ten penis-possessors.

If it is so easily explained, then why is still so irritating?

Firstly, it is an eyesore. Secondly, it is extremely unsafe for more balanced but smaller groups of young people, for couples or even for the occasional girl gang. Testosterone ridden males, starved of good physical and social relations with women and only each other for company tend to spend most of their time talking about what they do not have. And when they see something their tiny minds consider provocative, they often react like rabbits in the mating season.

Thirdly, and most importantly, it is a constant reminder of a much deeper and bigger problem - a cultural one. Ours is a society which revels in its penis preference. One does not have to comb too far through a newspaper to come across a horrific female foeticide in which both parents play an equal part. Dig a little deeper and you find cases of abandoned baby girls; if the abandonment is injury enough, the place that is chosen(generally a dustbin or a railway station) is insult served up in copious proportions. And of course, there is that which all of us are immune to by now: the staple dose of rapes, molestations and brazen Indian arrogance from authorities who claim that 'dressing' actually has a part to play in it all.

The ideal way to deal with this nasty state of affairs is a long term project - one of mass education and exposure in the proper sense of the words. But at any rate, given the diversity we are so proud of in this country and the large numbers of subhuman vote banks that can be manipulated to do the bidding of any corrupt power, this project would likely see tangible results after at least another three generations. And that's being optimistic.

In order to supplement this idealistic strategy, something more concrete needs to be done. Something even a subhuman can understand and appreciate; something centred around money. I can think of a dozen welfare schemes to promote the girl child. I'm sure you can, I'm sure our lawmakers can. I'm not talking about quotas or reservations, I'm talking about solid monetary rewards for producing females. That it may inherently be flawed to have a scheme that promotes one sex over the other and encourages 'choice' is a point worth debating. Nonetheless, it is flaw I am ready to bypass. It will anyhow be a long time before Indian couples start terminating male pregnancies on account of the monetary benefit girl chidren are going to afford them. And we can deal with that eventuality when it is closer at hand.

Water

No matter how many resolutions I make to maintain consistency in the publication of my posts, I seem unable to avoid at least a three month break from any sort of writing once a year. I am at a loss to explain why. It may be because of the foul weather and the fact that I am too busy changing my clothes several times a day. A month back, these daft blokes in the BMC were talking about water shortages. Water shortages my left foot! Just send a couple of workers to give my T-Shirts a good squeeze ten times a day and you'll collect enough water to satisfy the Mankhurd slum. Or at any rate, as much water as the Mankhurd slum deserves.

I fail to understand why we human beings have evolved so pointlessly(Take that, Dawkins, Darwin and the rest of you chest thumping evolutionists). Sweat does not evaporate after the humidity has exceeded a certain figure; no evaporation means no cooling mechanism; therefore we remain as hot as we were before we started sweating and as a result, continue to sweat more! Damn stupid if you ask me. The solution would be to have the sweat glands evolve NOT to belch out saltwater when the humidity crosses that threshold. Given that human skin was so quick to turn black when the excessive hair fell off and so quick to turn white when confronted with ice and snow, one would expect this little adjustment to not be too much trouble for Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Unfortunately, it is.

However, earlier this year I was in Rome, Florence, Vienna and Salsburg. I encountered no such problems there. The weather was absolutely beautiful; I could have used the same clothing for my entire stay. This may be one reason why the average European does not undertake the daily shower/bath that we Indians cannot do without. This European habit, however, is not valued by everyone. There was a Prince Archbishop of Salzburg in the 16th century named Marcus Sitticus who apparently enjoyed trick fountains and drenching unsuspecting people. One such trick fountain was at his dinner table; there was a fountain outlet on every seat save Marcus Sitticus' own. At a time he deemed opportune, old Marcus would press a little button and royally drench everyone's behind. They find it very funny in Salzburg that the man would play a trick like that, but with my Indian background I think I have an insight into Marcus' mind that most Salzburgers lack. I think Marcus Sitticus had an ulterior motive. Some things are just not meant for dry cleaning, if you get my drift.

Anyway, today is the Bandra Feast and in hours we shall have the Bandra fair upon us. I have been rather slow to develop Bandraphilia(as compared to the rest of my neighbourhood) but after returning from Europe and witnessing Aamchi Mumbai afresh, I am convinced that this once sleepy village is the only place around Bombay worth living in. Hope it remains so forever and a day. To all my fellow Bandraites, I have two words for you: Happy Feast.

And to all non-Bandraites, two words for the next week : STAY AWAY.

What surprised me about 'Hugo'

Every time I chance to watch a realistic depiction of the world in the 20th century, I get a bit of a shock. This shouldn't really be the case, considering the fact that I was born a good eleven years before the century ended. Also, most of the books I have read - be it Enid Blyton, Wodehouse, Agatha Christie or more recently,  James Joyce and Salman Rushdie - have been set in the 20th century. And the world I read about in these books never seemed so vastly different from mine. True, there were no cell phones or computers but I too have lived a life without either of these gadgets and  that life is one I can easily identify with even today. Much as I can identify with the 20th century world portrayed in the books. There were cars then, there are cars now. The same goes for trains, buses, electricity, T-shirts, shorts, pianos, concerts, microphones, rabies vaccines and everything else that makes our time different from those dark, historical, medieval times where people used oil lamps, wore long robes and hewed their musical instruments from single pieces of wood.
Yet, when yesterday, I saw 'Hugo',  my initial reaction was : 'Ah! 19th century France'. And I wasn't the only one who thought so, she did too. Then, when within the film, talk of 'the cinema' began, I adjusted that reaction to 'Ah! Early 20th century France'. Soon 'the war' (which was clearly the First World War)  was talked about in the past tense; yet again I found myself pushing forward my consciousness of time, and then finally, my curiosity piqued considerably, out came the droid, straight to Wikipedia and I confirmed the actual year of the film's action: 1931! Which was a piddly fifty eight years before I was born into the world I have been repeatedly claiming familiarity with. Quite disturbing.

Has the world really changed beyond recognition since 1931 or is this the effect of Scorcese's superb use of 3D? To confirm it either way, I'm going to list three differences between the world of Hugo and the world of Andrew.

1. Gare Montparnasse Railway station : Since most of the film is set at the railway station, this is easily the most glaring difference. Pictures say it best :

                                                                                                       [Copyright Jean-Marie Hullot]

                                                                            vs

It's not just the fact that the trains in Hugo's world look like they are fresh out of James Watt's imagination, it's the entire station. Most of it is lighted by fire, the clocks  are possessed of quaintly elaborate winding mechanisms and in spite of what the station master had to say as regards the correct type of non poetic activity proper to it, a lot of people seem to come to the railway station only to socialize.This Master(plus his ugly dog)  is wholly responsible for handling security in the huge station. And his only security related activity  seems to be mopping up homeless children and sending them off to the orphanage. An almost inconceivable scenario in today's terrorist threatened world. 

2. Paris' streets : Having never been to Paris after birth, I cannot provide the most accurate account of its streets. I am, however, reasonably sure that they bear nothing but the barest-bones resemblance to the dark, dingy, cold bylanes portrayed in Hugo where the tallest building is three storeys high. And where the frequency of cars in what should have been a crowded area is so minuscule that a small boy can run amok without the slightest respect for objects that could make French toast of him. Not that small boys on the streets of Bombay are any different; that however, is another concern and will be dealt with in a later post about 'proles'.

3. People: There wasn't the most in depth examination of 'life' within the story of Hugo; most of the film is centred around two characters. There are, however, a few insights. One is children's rights - if France's could be like that, I dread to imagine the rest of the world.  Another is courtship; the station master actually got himself a wife by doing what he did - today he'd probably end up with a lawsuit. Yet another is the fact that people seemed to be less sophisticated and more easily pleased - however novel and pioneering George Melies' techniques may have  been, I don't see modern audiences being amused by the silly dances and disjointed sequences within his films. These days, if something is innovative, but stupid and pointless, it is generally declared so and scorned. Like Siri by Apple. 

It is safe to say two things : a) that macroscosmically, film well made portrays life  far better than any book can possibly hope to  and b) that the world has changed more in the last hundred years than  in the previous three hundred; indeed a middle aged man living in 1912 would be more at home in 1612 than in 2012. This may have something to do with the fact that a war, more devastating than the one mentioned in the film soon followed and changed the world forever. 

                                          

The West Indian Axis: Behind the scenes

The dubious antics of Tiger Woods and Shane Warne have long had me wondering if sportsmen have a different definition of the word 'commitment' from the rest of us. And now, just as my doubts were beginning to be put at bay, Chris Gayle comes out with this:
"I wish to advise that as of today, May 2nd, 2012, I have written to Somerset CC and advised them that I will not be honouring the commitment I made to them when I signed a contract with them for the 2012."

Lots of advising Chris, and thank you for that, but the 'not be honouring the commitment' part of the statement has me confounded. Doesn't a 'commitment', by its inherent nature, have to be honoured?  Andrew Strauss thinks so; as his rejection of a  6 million dollar IPL offer in favour of a county stint for Middlesex proves.

Nevertheless, Darren Sammy's reaction to the contract breach was nothing short of ambiguous, and we  like our precision. We caught up with him and demanded a justification of his lack of enthusiasm towards the forthcoming return of the prodigal IPL prodigy.
 "Of course I'll justify it" said the amiable Sammy. "I regularly justify matters far more fundamental than that".
(Note to the reader : He means his place in the side)
"Winning games (single-handed, on talent alone) is something Gayle has become used to since leaving the West Indies team a year ago. This is the antithesis of the Hilaire-Gibson-Sammy vision for the team.
 "This team works hard a a unit, loses as a unit and introspects as a unit. We always decide to do better next time, but most importantly, we reaffirm our commitment to staying within our limitations. This is often difficult  (here Sammy's eyes began to flash) - it involves sacrificing one's dreams of bending a ball like Waqar and embracing one's role as a stock bowler. It involves staying focused on doing what one does best : bowling 120kph straight deliveries."
We were somewhat confused by the last statement, so we've set it down as is, and invite debate upon it.

However, Sammy's view isn't shared by all West Indian cricket lovers. A reporter got hold of Tony Cozier and asked the grand old historian what he thought of the new 'disciplined' approach  of Team Sammy. Here's what transpired :

Tony :  Ottis Gibson and Ernest Hillaire are trying to change the way cricket is played in the Carribean. The uninhibited Carribean style which has, for years churned out great talents, the likes of Malcolm Marhsall, Michael Holding, Sir Vivian Richards, Brian Lara ..... "

Reporter : So you don't think any of the current West Indians have the potential to emulate the feats of these former greats ? How about Narine? " ..

T:  Dinanath Ramnarine's contribution to Carribean cricket has been questionable. But cricket, played in the good old days when West Indies dominated world cricket had names like Clive Lloyd, Gordon Greenidge, Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Everton Weekes .. "

R: "What about Darren Bravo? General opinion in the Carribean is that he is a fitting replacement for the Prince himself .. "

T: Opinion in the Carribean is as fickle as  the standard of domestic cricket is low. Most of these fans  have not even seen the truly great West Indians play. Players  of the calibre of Desmond Haynes, Alvin Kalichharan, Sir Frank Worrell, Sir George Headley...

(The rest of Tony's interview consisted of a monologue of proper nouns. It lasted five minutes and most of it can be retrieved by querying statsguru for dead West Indian players of the 60s and 70s)

To round off our set of interviews, we chose Coach Controversial and asked him his goals for the England Test seires. His was of the opinion  that  slow is the right way to go as long as the West Indies are improving.  "We aim to lose the  test series  2-0, assuming one match gets rained off" said Gibson, . "However, we intend to take heart from the manner in which we lose. This will be the difference between us and teams from the last fifteen years."
"Our goal is to last four days in the matches we lose. Bowling wise, we intend to address our problem of keeping numbers 8,9,1,0 and 11 to less than 200. Batting wise, our goal is to pass 300 at least once. If we can achieve this, we will have progressed well since the Australia series. I'm confident the boys will step up and give the fans something to cheer about. "

That's a lot of goals, coach. A real taskmaster is our Ottis. At this rate, the West Indies will be storming into the top six by the end of this decade.

Talking (Rant One).

Browsing through facebook yesterday, I came upon a lovely picture :

It cast me right back into the days of St Stanislaus. I could very well picture the same expression on the face of the man who made the post: Karan Sinroja . And I also remember the number of times we had teachers tearing their hair, throwing chalk pieces, dishing out slaps, making boys slap themselves and a whole host of other things teachers in boys schools regularly do when confronted with this vicious activity in which young minds will insist on participating - talking.
I particularly remember two instances when my mother (whom I never enjoyed seeing around my school because, well, apart from a few Rushils and Thomases, the school presence of a mother is extremely embarrassing to the young male mind) was summoned to the school to be encouraged to chastise me for this terrible habit of mine. Time one was in the third standard when my class teacher was Angela, a young teacher who called my mother 'Fleur' . "Fleur" , said Teacher Angela "I don't know what to do, he's talking so much" , while my mum looked disapprovingly at me. "I've made him put his finger on his lip, I even gave him a slap in front of the class, but he refuses to not talk!!" And my mother continued to disapprovingly shake her head; I think she even tried to fake an angry expression.

While writing this a thought occurred to me - in these ridiculous days it is very possible that Teacher Angela would be hauled up by the state for  subjugation of the will (placing my mouth under finger arrest), torture (slap) and if I were in the United States of Americanism , trauma (public slap) . Nevertheless those were more sensible times and Teacher Angela was politely informed by my mother that she'd get my father to speak to me.

Fast forward three years and my class teacher is one Teacher Neeta who entertained notions of one Darryl D'souza following in the footsteps of Anu Malik as chief composer of the Bollywood film of questionable quality. This Darryl, however, has one composition of merit to his name; I remember it like it were my very own admonition-of-the-discourteous-while-studying-Maharashtra-Board's-'Value-Education'. Here are the lyrics:

"Dirty clothes and uncombed hair
Make people say, 'He's so uncourteous!'
But clean clothes and combed hair
Make people say, 'He's so courteous!'
And that is why we say
'A clean and tidy person
Always finds success' "

For the music notes, you will have to contact me in person because I am too lazy to score them and upload them. Nevertheless, while Darryl's melodic line began to lose it's way at 'And that is why we say .. ' , up until then it was of sterling quality and I have a good mind to petition Philip Glass to write a minimalist composition entitled 'Variations on a theme by Darryl D'souza' . Remind me about that in case I forget.

Teacher Neeta, however, was shabbily disappointed by this piece of music. Like a raucous critic, she sent Darryl's composition straight back to the bench on the front row from whence it came. She then petitioned yours truly to 'teach him no ... to write proper song' . What did I do? Involved mummy of course, who plagiarised a popular hymn (and personal favourite of my then principal) "Oh Give Thanks To The Lord For He Is Good" and modified the lyrics with the help of a few of her friends which satisfied Teacher Neeta's lofty tastes most completely.

Anyway, I have rambled considerably, but the point I was making is that Teacher Neeta, after services rendered and brownie points with principal earned was in no mood to show gratitude towards yours truly. Oh, no. She met my mother on the school stairs (and there was my mother, just waiting to be met I tell you) , shrugged her shoulders, thrust out her eyes and exclaimed "HOW MUCH HE'S TALKING!" with the last word taking on an unusual sort of inflection which a particular brand of teacher at my school was very familiar with.
And again I was thrown reproachful looks at, TV watching was threatened, and all the usual results of such a situation descended. All because I engaged in that one activity : Talking .
                                                                                                       [To be continued ........]

Our National Language

A quiet man of  dignified  disposition can tolerate the occasional lack of enthusiasm towards his vocal exercises by friends and baby cousins. It, however, hurts him to the core, when each attempt he makes at a particular activity is greeted by loud peals of merriment, people delightedly gripping the back of their ears and and rudely uttering 'What, What?'. I refer of course to the language of North India, often wrongly called our national language and my perfectly sincere attempts to flawlessly render it. It seems to me that there is some sort of conspiracy among regular speakers  to make yours truly most uncomfortable when he attempts to blend in and speak this language.
I will narrate a couple of incidents to demonstrate my problem.

Incident One:
I am in college and have just scrambled into our under capacity lift with a bunch of my classmates. The only fellow who is not my classmate is the shady looking lift man who is smelling of urine. He opens his mouth and utters "Kaunsaa mala" . I reply with dignity "Chauthaa mala" which is indeed perfectly right for our classroom is on the fourth floor. Imagine my shock when my classmates begin to laugh like silly schoolgirls, one of them even collapsing to the floor. The unimpressed lift-man aggressively repeats his question and and my sprawled out classmate replies "Chaar malaa, bhaiyya" in what I consider to be an uncouth tone of voice. Yet the ill smelling lift man instantly lifts his grubby finger and punches that '4' button and we are on our way. My attempts to obtain an explanation from my fickle minded classmates are in vain. They merely look at each other repeating the words I uttered in unnecessarily European accents and burst into laughter again.

Incident Two:
I have been dragged kicking and screaming by Sanya to watch a Bollywood film. The film surprises me; it is suspenseful and exciting. The next day, in office, I  inform my workmates of my pleasant experience; I decide to surprise them by speaking the language itself. I begin at lunch; they listen with  foolish smiles. As my narrative advances their smiles appear to be growing wider and more foolish.  Eventually, I reach a point where I am quoting someone, so I begin, "वह बोला..... "

And the unrestrained expression of mirth begins. One particular chap, by the name of Rabi, is so delighted  that for the rest of the meal (spanning the period of a half hour) he looks periodically at my face at bursts into snorts of laughter. And is my face contorted into  ludicrous clown expressions? Is it reciting verses from Russell Peter? Is it magically transformed into Rowan Atkinson's face? Oh no. It is the same staid solemn face of Andrew, periodically shoving some Vistaar vegetable into the oral orifice. The only connection I could make is that my  two worded incomplete quote was somehow very very funny. And I'm at a loss to understand why.

When automen fail to understand my directions, it is because of a misunderstanding  on a level more fundamental  than language.  A fork in the road is approaching, I indicate my desire to turn right by saying 'right' , I repeat it after a few metres and just before the turning, I again repeat it. Yet when the turning comes, he turns round and roars "kahaa -- left???" ..Don't tell me that it's my language which is at fault here.

Mind you, when it suits people to appreciate my language, they understand just fine. Not so long ago, I was accosted by criminals with an interest in smartphones. I asked them their names, what they did for a living, where they were from and concluded with  a sound lecture on morality. Unfortunately, just as I was driving my point home, Sanya Kedar chose to phone me and the sight of my shiny,  new(and now vibrating) Samsung Wave 2 was too much for them. They snatched it, the ghastly chaps, and I haven't heard of them since. But I can assure you, if you happen to be bandying your smartphone about at 10:30 pm on a dark deserted Turner Road, you may meet Ajay and co just like I did. If you do, stop them and ask them if they remember me. They will reply in the affirmative. And there, there will be your proof that I speak this language just fine.

Eliminate Vegetarianism

A most interesting concept was introduced to me some time during my first year of engineering. It, was, of course, not remotely related to engineering; closer, in fact to the nobler line of catering. It was the concept of classification and discrimination between humans on the basis of the food they ate. More Indianly, it was the distinction between those that subsisted wholly on a diet of herbs and grass and those that did not. Vegetarian vs Non-vegetarian.

As a schoolmate of mine  eloquently put not so long ago, up until then, most of us had eaten, in a word, 'food' . We were aware of a distinction between plants and animals, but it did not matter so much in matters of food; most of us ate what was daily put in front of us (I was among the fortunate few who had a mother regularly dishing out gourmet delights) and the thought stopped at whether or not we enjoyed what we ate. Some food was more interesting than others - mutton for instance, being far more appetising than brinjal. We also knew that most foodstuffs tasty were going to cause problems in later life and all foodstuffs tasteless were going to guarantee a fruitful and productive oldhood. We lived in a bubble; an innocent utopia in which food differed only in taste and effect and their zoological v botanical origins were merely superficial differences.

Imagine my shock then, when the second question of the first girl I spoke to in class was "Are you a non-veg?" . The shock didn't register immediately for I was somewhat aware of the sinister concept of the vegetarian; my father had caught hold of me that morning by both shoulders and said these bursting-with-gravity words "Son, you are entering a new life. You will experience much and learn much more. One word of advice from your father : Watch out for vegetarians. Hitherto existing merely in the form of isolated Vivek Thackers and Phoebe Buffets, you may now encounter them by the score. See that you hold your head up high be not afraid to eat your meat".

With these inferential words ringing back in my ears I mumbled some sort of reply to the girl and tried to exit. It was lunch time and I had my sandwich of bread and bird to munch . After putting as much distance as  possible between the girl and my b-and-b, munching soundly for a few minutes and musing on the grave face of my father, a resolution began to form in my mind. "Damn the woman" , said I, "I shall uphold my honour". And so, I marched right across the room into the very centre of a group of shifty looking boys whose cynosure had now become the girl with the unconventional greeting. My entry had  immediate effect. The girl gave a little scream and pointed at my half eaten sandwich. Two of the boys stood bolt upright and hitched their pants up to their solarplexa. One of them began to cough rabidly, the other one, by way of remedy, gripped his nose and began thumping him on the back.  Eventually there were retching noises, sprints down corridors and projectiles of puke in and around Indian toilets. Rather rummy, thought I.

However, that was my first day. I subsequently spent four years in that place and have now realised the true nature of this malady called Vegetarianism. It infects as much as forty per cent of the country; an additional twenty per cent profess to not be vegetarian but in reality consume, apart from herbs and grass, only the semi-vegetables, chicken and fish.  Indeed, consumption of anything more meaty than semi-vegetables will instantly get you classified as a bad boy. Many such meat-eating bad boys revel in the fact that they are pork/beef eaters; they parade around with smug expressions on their face and talk incessantly about the 'non-veg' they are going to consume. Similar to the breathless excitement accompanying a gang of silly fourteen-year-olds on their first surreptitious journey to the local bar. All rather, at odds with what was clearly a very irregular ideology that I'd been brought up with - that of food being food and nothing more.

I wonder why people make such a song and dance about sexism and racism when a far worse evil threatens to burn the very fabric of our nation. One can't point at someone and say "BOY!" without being accused of racism and told to shut up. That, even if you are pointing at a girl and saying it. Yet, these dreadful vegetarians are allowed to pull grotesque faces, run away, shake their heads, hold their nose and in some cases even prevent you from buying a flat near them, should you be a fearsome "Non-Veg" . I think it's time we stood up for our rights, fellow meat-lovers. I am not proposing anything Hitleresque (I'm a nice boy and also genocide is illegal) ,but we must do everything in our power to eliminate their ideological plague. Steps will be outlined in further posts.

That awful airport

People are ever ready to scream about the traffic problems in the city. And they are not entirely unjustified. Whichever way you look at it, our Bombay is a tiny, tiny city. The entire area of the city stands at a mere 450 odd square kilometres; as opposed to London and New York, both three times the size; both containing fewer people.
Furthermore the city is shaped all wrong - it resembles a pear or I daresay even a banana to the poor souls that need to travel from Churchgate to Dahisar daily. And to make matters worse, half of the city's area is occupied by :
Lakes (Vihar, Powai, Tulsi )
A National Park teeming with vicious leopards.
Airports.

Of the three, I can't say I object much to the first two. Since I'm griping about transport alone I will not venture into the criticism of our municipality for being unable to transport water from the lakes to the nearby, yet waterless suburbs of Bhandup and Mulund. I like the lakes. However much area they occupy, however many crocodiles they contain and however many pesky school children go thither for picnics , I would never dispense with them. Use them properly instead, says I.
National parks teaming with vicious leopards are the sort of constructs that merit a hearty pat on the back. Vicious leopards often snack on the nasty pariah dogs India is home to, occasionally bumping off the nasty pariah humans that caninely co-exist. Altogether, behaviour to be highly encouraged.

And now, to put it proverbially, I come to the point. Airports.
In the plural. Already , dear reader , if thou art not from Bombay, thou hast sensed something wrong. Why should a city of 400 million square kilometres, lakes and national parks contain within its city limits this Wright brother creation in its plural form?

Yes, Bombay has two airports. The main one occupies the area that would have been Vile Parle East and serves as the office for glorified waitresses and glorified taxi-drivers. Also, aeroplanes directed at the rest of India and the rest of the big ballsy world are fired every two or so seconds from this region. The necessity of this expanse of land that was never named after a dead British Queen (whose name we are making our business to eradicate but whose sexual code of conduct we obstinately refuse to part with) is debatable; I myself would have it just outside the city but smartly connected to all parts. But as I said, it is debatable, what would have been Vile Parle East is any way a nasty place and I am never one to deny the non-thinker his point of view.

What is not debatable is the presence of another, wretched, dysfunctional airport on the other side of the Highway and railway line. One that erodes into the life within a precious haven of residential beauty - I refer to the grand western side of the suburbs of Bandra and Santa Cruz, the conceptual suburb  of Khar and the beach blessed neighbourhood of Juhu.
While this stretch of paradise is undoubtedly the best place in Bombay to live in, commuting from one end (Juhu) to the other end (Bandra) is rendered virtually impossible by the presence of this monstrously repugnant bit of marshland called Juhu Airport.

As a result of this overgrown toy airport, we, the south suburb commuters have to make do with two roads. Travelling on SV Road is always a tortuous business; travelling on the Juhu Tara road used to be all right but has ceased to be so since Amitabh Bachhan acted in his first chick flick. And the only thing that separates these two hellpaths is the subject of this rant - the pointless Juhu Airport.

Imagine there were no Juhu airport. We'd have a lovely five-lane highway right in the centre of this region flanked by beautiful parks on either side: vast open spaces of land for the elderly to reminisce about their naughty old days, the little ones to run amok and the name of God to be praised. And our suburban paradise would then be complete.

To sign my petition for the removal of Juhu Airport, please continue to visit here, I am unpredictable and may take a few years to make a complete draft in flawless Marathi.

The Preciously Talented Wall

Not so long ago, I had posted a facebook status update indicating that I thought the phrase 'The Wall' was rather a poor nickname for someone who has arguably been the most effective Indian of the past decade.

This status update was made the subject of plenty of Inference and yours truly was upbraided in no small measure for using the 'F word'. Indeed this little word has caused plenty of heartache, plenty of debate and much Russell Peterhood as regards its versatility when it is in fact no more versatile than any expletive that implies the fascinating things it does.

I choose, however, for this post to dwell upon another more Inferentially acceptable F word : Fortress. And I intend to use the same Rahul Dravid for this purpose.

I first saw Dravid on TV in the Lords test of 1996, where he was overshadowed by Ganguly (my silly seven year old mind thought so anyway). He seemed rather too inclined to lean forward, plant the foot and halt the progress of the ball, in a word - defend. Furthermore, the expression on his face was rather uncomfortable; he looked to me like a toothless crocodile - menacing but incapable of causing damage.

Fortunately for me and the historical record of my intelligence, this opinion was not to last very long. Within a year, Dravid had become my favourite Indian batsman , within two years he became the reason I still supported the Indian cricket team on a few occasions. And now that I know Rahul Dravid is never again going to walk in for India at number three, those occasions are set to diminish further.
But enough about me. Let's talk about the man himself. A man who has been cliched by people as 'Lacking Talent but making up through Sheer Hard Work' .
I don't know precisely what the Oxford dictionary's definition of 'talent' is but I know very well what I consider it to be. To me, an exceptional talent is one capable of performing what very few others can. And in cricket, the ability to score of  quality bowling, particularly quality fast bowling on a helpful track, seems to be the single most elusive one.
Dravid possesses this ability in bountiful quantities, as he has proved on countless occasions, the most stark being last year, his thirty-ninth in this world and last as a Test batsman. That lightning response when he saw a fast bowler attempting to bounce him out, be it a 6'6" English Broad or a 5'8" Barbadian Edwards. That wonderful straight bat with the perfectly soft hands when  a tricky good length delivery swinging away outside the off stump approached. That rock solid defence when they tried to slip in a yorker to break through his fortress. Ever so often, that glorious square drive, never hit too hard, as authoritative as a Supreme Court judge and as balanced as the Tied Test. And occasionally, the commanding  pull shot  no one else in the team dared  play. All these are indications of an exceptional talent made all the more phenomenal by the fact that fast bowlers and greentops in India are about as sparse as hundreds have been for Tendulkar in the past year.
Yet, Dravid will continue to have patronising words like 'gritty' and 'technically perfect' associated with him. And the primary reason for this is because if he lacks one quality, it is the (quite unnecessary) ability to make his innings look spectacular. He possesses neither the crease-grace of Tendulkar  nor the flashiness of Sehwag. His style is a down to earth and practical with everything geared towards effectiveness for the team. And it is this, which is perhaps his greatest talent, which has lead the  cricket-watching flock to bandy their ridiculous adjectives around.

But then, he is a possessed of another great gift and that is wisdom. And therefore, unlike me,  while he is aware of all of this, he very likely gives not a damn about it. 

Opera Time

Unusual as this may sound in a city whose Western musical taste is largely herd-motivated, February is turning out to be a very exciting month for something rather different. In a first, the NCPA has managed to tie the tiny, egotistical and infighting western classical music community of Mumbai together, to combine them with a bunch of Kazakhs, a couple of 'maestros', two trained opera instructors and some fabulously talented soloists to stage what is easily the largest undertaking of art music the city has witnessed in a while.

Saturday , the 18th of February saw the first of three runs of the double opera performance - Pagliacci by Leoncavallo and Cavaleria Rusticanna by Mascagni.  Both operas demand large choruses - the Paglacci set was  designed for seventy five and that of Cavaleria exceeded a hundred. The Carmina Burana, a profane, repetitive work by Carl Orff which is to be staged later this month demands a huge chorus as well; this is what will wind up the entire festival and is an appropriately loud ending to it all.

In Mumbai, many of us who have studied music for years, indeed a large number of music teachers in the city, bypass opera completely when it comes to musical instruction. We are taught our respective instrument, the pretentious and the interested attend the occasional concert for that instrument - at the very maximum, Zubin Mehta's symphonic concerts are given some importance. In a city which has an entire area known as 'Opera House' , opera has remained a caricature for most of us - the word invokes images of a fat lady singing F6 and breaking wine glasses in the process. For others it is viewed suspiciously , as something dandy and elitist. Still others look down upon it as being overblown, over-dramatic and altogether ridiculous.

What most us who have been a part of this experience( I was singing in the chorus too before I was chucked out in absentia) have  realised, is that opera IS all those things. The stories are ridiculous, the emotions they invoke are overdone and the results are virtually  impossible. Furthermore, the plots are mind-numbingly similar : Tenor wants to sleep with soprano, bass strongly objects to this (generally, bass is father/husband of soprano), contralto tries to counsel soprano, soprano pigheadedly  ignores counselling, tenor has his way with soprano, bass erupts like a microwaved egg yolk,  delivers furious harangue to wall or terrified manservant,   challenges tenor to duel, kills tenor (sometimes tenor kills bass)  and soprano is left weeping .


Stop to think for a minute. Can anyone take repeat after repeat of this, albeit to different music and sets, seriously? Indeed could anyone, even the most eighteenth century of eighteenth century Italians have been actually entertained by it all?
The answer is no and yes. For here lies the true secret to the fascinating world of opera love - opera is never meant to be taken too seriously. The very characteristics that make it foolish and ridiculous are the ones  that make it so very spectacular .  Just suppose the Queen of the Night had politely told her daughter that she had had enough of Sarastro and it was time to administer a spot of  arsenic in the evening soup. Altogether a much more plausible scenario than the mixture of yelling, singing and brandishing of  knives that Mozart actually used; but ask yourself : would the divine notes of Der Holle Rache been possible had it actually panned out this way? I think not.

There is a lot one can find in opera when one does go into its finer points, the most notable being that it is the closest one can get to complete live art ( I quote Wagner) - a combination of music, art design and drama. However, appreciating completely each aspect and then appreciating the whole is still some distance away; we are just beginning and it is certainly an acquired taste.

I genuinely hope that this does not end up being a once in a decade event about which we reminisce, misty-eyed, in our dotage. I would even be so bold as to wish the NCPA  make this Mumbai's yearly opera season - progressively bigger and grander. And most importantly, I hope that this is the start of an opera culture in our city. Mumbai needs it.

Eh?

Apologies to the millions of avid readers who have been breathlessly awaiting this moment, but I have been somewhat occupied in the past month. Several tasks contributed to this state of occupation - the most notable being my attempt at mastering the one handed push-up. For those of you who aren't quite sure what this is, prostrate yourself on the ground, shove an arm dead in front of your nose and let the other one dangle limply by your side. Then push for all you are worth, making sure not to let the mid-riff lag or the spirits sag. Either one of these will cause you to end up with a premature slipped disc, a malady that  one of my fifth cousins regularly suffers from.
However when you achieve complete control of your buttocks and their  corresponding frontals you will experience the joyous sensation having executed the one handed push up. Your arm will experience tremendous pain and you will be unable to shake hands with a German woman for a week.