HANG HIM TILL DEATH !!

I suffer from himeshophobia !!! My worst nightmare is to get caught in a room with Himesh reshammaiyas songs on and the doors get jammed. Damn I can’t even imagine what I will do in that situation… ill definitely need a shock treatment later in the morning!! So heres a post dedicated to all the crap happening n the Indian pop music scene… its flighting with baba sehgal in the late 1990’s and decline in the early years of this decade

I remember my brother used to have these huge stacks of cassettes filled with pop songs and Indian pop industry was at its peak with players like Shaan, Daler mehndi, Sunita Rao, Anamika . Bollywood music was badly hit by the arrival of this genre of music. Singers like lucky ali, silk route, euphoria were like a real rage. But then Punjabi birds flocked together – Sukhbir, Mika Singh … it was as if Punjabi was our national language and every where, all kinds of people popped up to become a pop singer … it felt really awful, well being a Punjabi my self I could never relate to Punjabi music reason being it all sounded so same!!!

Then came along something that ruined music as a whole “REMIXES”. It seems Indians always run behind things, which are easy… just put some bass, increase the tempo, and here you have the song ready. Get some half clad women dancing and it’s a major hit!!. So the pop industry has failed … we rarely hear some strings, euphoria, lately heard silk route is all ready to come up with its new album… Mann I am a big fan of them and all the best to the crew.. I believe they are the most modest and the best group band India has ever had!!

The biggest reason that can be attributed to the fall of pop industry is PIRACY. I read somewhere that the music industry was reduced to Rs. 500 million from Rs. 1000 million in one year in 2005. so who are the culprits its “us” . Where do we get our music from nowadays? Internet, prated Mp3’s and nowhere else and mainly who is the major target audience these pop singers is “the youth”. If their main target audience is lost out, for whom would they make music then? That’s why these pop singers are left with no option to either get into playback singing or get into production. So that’s why we saw this huge eruption of remixes. Who bought them Auto wallas and Truck wallas they are quite loyal to their singers and they buy original cassettes!!!

One more reasons that could be attributed here is: easy money in the playback-singing world. Most of the pop singers have ran into that kind of world. Likes of KK, Mohit Chauhan, well they are paid well here and also the risk of taking the whole album on their shoulder doesn’t lie here, so less risky and more money.SO the next time you buy a pirated CD or download music from the net …think of the sad state of indian music scene …think of the west and artists like enrique, madonna, metallica, bob dylan and compare it to the quality of music produced here, Himesh Reshammaiya awful comparison, isn’t it?SO bottom line is “either become pop singers urself or reduce piracy or Himesh Reshammaiya, hang him till death!!!

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The Hunt is on …

Cricket has always been a key interest area and it’s quite surprising this is my first post pertaining to this topic, yeah like all avid cricket fans I have the patience to watch a whole test match ball by ball, so If I haven’t scored well in my college or degree here’s the biggest culprit, I loved cricket more than exams, quite obvious!! Rather that was something I concentrated more than anything else, so if I were to write down my favorites in the cricketing world they would be  

• Favorite batsmen – VVS Laxman, Ricky Pointing, Rahul Dravid
• Favorite Bowlers- Shane Warne, Glen Mcgrath, Anil Kumble
• Favorite fielders- Ricky Pointing, Mohd. Kaif
• Favorite captains- Ricky Pointing, Stephen Flemming, Saurav Ganguly

           Enough of my likings, this post I want to discuss with a real serious problem facing our country’s cricket. Anyways we’ve not been doing great overall but heres an issue that’s really important and needs to be addressed quickly. 

 All the while we’ve been known to be great players of spin, batsmen like Ganguly ,Laxman, Azhar, Sidhu, Tendulkar have been nightmares for the likes  Shane Warne and others. But if we see the present day players… Yuvraj Singh can’t even dream of playing spin, Dhoni is too risky a player, Sehwag thinks spinner is a 2 year old bowling at him loses concentration and in turn loses out . So is there a reason behind the downfall?? Yes there is, last 5 years we’ve seen this sudden downfall in quality of spinners available in the country. 

 This is the same place that has produced E. Prasanna, Bishan singh Bedi, Anil Kumble who have more than 1500 wickets together. Our recent spinners have struggled real hard. Murli Kartik has been given countless chances, Romesh Powar has got less chances, Piyush Chawla is too young to comment, so what went wrong !! suddenly we have countless fast bowlers- Zaheer, RP singh, Shreesanth, Munaf Patel and none of them are bad. I remember this quote by Abdul Qadir he said “ in Pakistan players like Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis are idolized, that’s why we have always have good fast bowlers lined up.” well in our country we have batsmen who are idolized that’s why we produce good batsmen. So what’s wrong with the spinning wizards, or is it that too much politics is keeping behind the real talent behind….Think about it

Some Cricket news !!

Yeah the recent times have been really exciting- Indian cricketers turning to drugs, we have a big competition to BCCI and I am sure Mr. Subhash Chandra has great plans for the Indian Cricket league, he’s my favourite entrepreneur! Also lately Graham Ford has turned down the offer to coach India !!! wow the richest Board in the world has been ditched !! Great work Mr. Ford !!

 Two BIG series coming up !!! Ireland is going to be tufff mann theyve got great bowlers and we are chicken at pace… ENgland is going to be a nightmare!! we dont have a stable team to fight england… twenty20 cricket well austrralia is a big favourite there !!

Let’s see how well you can predict the Indian cricketing scene, with no coach, no good captain, best of luck to the players

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TESTING TIMES…

19^th July 2001, a day I will always remember in my life, the reason: it was my 10^th standard board exam results and just this Tuesday my cousin had the most memorable day in her life, last Tuesday 29^th May, 2007 was her 10^th standard board results, I had scored 78% then and she scored 85%, great, round of applause to her! Board exams a great experience, the anxiety, the excitement helps you grow as a person.  But there was this one strange thing about her results. My cousin was ill rather down with fever around the results, really very scared and cried a lot, well yes there is a lot of  pressure , but four days of illness, real mental trauma, stress and even after all this she scored a good 85%. She didn’t eat well, sleep well, her face had become as small as a mouse’s face   

             When I sit back and remember my 10^th days, things were completely different, well if you don’t know, in Mumbai you complete school after 10^th so 11^th and 12^th are college days, so a week around the results I was quite busy buying admission forms for myself, I remember I saw lagaan just a day before results and cricket was the top priority I used to play a hell lot, it was as if the clear blue skies were there forever so I never felt the tension or the pressure, I even remember on my D-day I was busy buying forms of few colleges sharing the fear and angst of the similar peers in a queue and wait for a long time, my mummy had taken my seat number and when I went home she was ready with the percentage!!! She had gone to this local cable waala who had the results of all the people. so at home, i had kept the door open waiting for her, those were “ABSOLUT SCARY” 15 minutes ever, lift reached the fifth floor, door opened she quickly came out, happy with a really wide smile on  and said “Nikhil 78% haii, i was like 78!! shhee i lost out. i expected more than 80 . wow ! Quite an experience it was!!             

 Well what I want to convey here is these are two very different experiences, even though I was low on the percentage  I was more relaxed and took it as a really good experience, I would say it was my personality that kept me floating on the situation and and just laugh it off, but my cousin almost froze out like a small chicken I personally was really shocked looking at her state of mind, how can you ever take so much tension, yes it is an important exam but why the tension during the results, its been more than a month since you gave an exam, nothing’s gonna change now, no matter how much you cry or you are scared.  

            So lets go down memory lane and look at your experience, remember the day of your 10^th results or your 12^th results, write down the tension the anxiety that went in that day … my word it was a great learning experience, if government is thinking to scrap 10^th standard board exams they shouldn’t do it, 10^th actually helps you a lot!

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