(Love) Marriage vs Arranged Marriage

vs

In the majority of Western society the latter phrase is archaic. Quite simply, arranged marriages have died a natural death - the idea of the families deciding the fate of a young couple was one of the casualties of 20th century culture.
Yet in India, a society as diverse and interesting as the entire Western civilization, arranged marriages still have their place. This is to be seen not only in the primitive backwaters of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar but in the metropoli - places like Delhi, Bangalore and our own Bombay.
South Bombay and Bandra are two of the most westernised localities in the world. Take a jog in Jogger's Park or watch a film in Sterling and you'll understand what I mean. The clothes, the accent , the choice of words, the outlook, the atmosphere - it's all western. Yet the prevalence of this one idea - that of the arranged marriage - is a solid reminder of the fact that you are very much in India. The richest and best exposed part of our society largely still chooses to treat marriage as a journey for two families - it is to be expected that the rest of society finds no cause to change either.
There is a slight difference in the way it is executed now. The marriage itself is not arranged; rather, a meeting between couples is arranged and the two young people are given some time to get to know each other. The families already approve, so it is like a family sanctioned courtship. If the couple decides that they are meant for each other, the next step is taken and they get engaged. If they decide that they are not, they meet some opposition from their respective families for making up the mind too hastily, and are asked(forced) to give it another try. If they are still adamant, the courtship will cease and the next family on the applicants' list will come up for interview. All quite businesslike and smooth.
While I don't have too many issues with this modus operandi and I admit that love can be found in such a situation, I must state that it puts a lot of pressure on the two individuals involved. For them, it is quite suffocating ; some of them could end up getting pushed into a marriage they don't really want simply because they are tired of the whole process. This approach also views marriage as an event - one that needs to be got out of the way at a particular time in life. If one were to draw an analogy, it would be
BRUSHING TEETH : DAY      just like         GETTING MARRIED: LIFETIME
And I have an issue with this outlook as well. Human beings are complex creatures - indeed some may be ready for marriage at 20 while others may not be till 40. Our characters and personalities are vastly different and depending on what else we do with our life, marriage may or may not be welcome. In this sense, a more realistic analogy for a day is having a shower: an activity that varies depending on when we exercise or when and where we travel, unlike our first brush of the teeth which is almost always around breakfast time. Which is why a good social life and healthy interaction with the opposite sex is all parents should desire for their grown up children. The 'm' word should not even enter into the picture.
So, to answer the very Indian question posted by the title of the blog: Love marriage or arranged marriage = Love marriage.
Despite this, I'm not a fellow to deprive a family of indulging their love for arranging. My family is welcome to arrange my wedding reception.


[Images courtesy British FCO home and The World As I See]

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.