Farewell is it?

People are saying that there are hardly few more weeks to go before we are done with our under-grads in this college. Its funny, but this statement is disturbing me nonetheless. I believe that this is not something to be sad about (since most people talk about it like its the end of the world). This is life! We are never in one place for our whole life, are we? People who have been living in different cities throughout their lives would understand what I am trying to say. 

According to me, we are all nomads (correct me if otherwise). We can never belong to one particular region, unless we are fortunate to be there from our birth to our death. When I was doing my schooling, I had shifted six times, six different cities. My mom and I, helped to pack and unpack more than 9 houses and in my 3 years of hostel life, I have shifted twice already. Please do not misunderstand that I cannot stick myself to one particular place, for I am a very adaptable person. However, it is the situations that force me to change my locations; my dad's job and so on. And so is it for life. 

You are never fixed to one particular place. Lets see...

What if your town was facing the crisis of being submerged under the rising ocean, or the volcano was about to destroy the whole land; or your entire hometown is being attacked by some random group of people and staying there would be a threat to your family? Would you still continue to live in the same place? Of course not! It may be hard to leave behind all that you acquired during your stay there, but situations make you do things you wished you never had to do. 

And the same theory holds good when it comes to matters of life and death. You are never truly from this Earth. One day we need to leave this life we live and return to our heavenly abode. If so be the case with human beings, why should the last few weeks of college bother someone? Relax... this is life :) 

A Day To Remember

I was in my 11^th grade when I was called to perform together with my school orchestra for the World Diabetics Day at the Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) campus, a brilliant place near the beach side. I thought this was going to be an amazing opportunity for me to perform outside school and so I joined with a lot of enthusiasm. Well, only after I reached there did we realize that it was more of a DJ party arena than a place to play few Indian classical pieces. I was shocked seeing the kind of crowd that dint look too happy when the DJ was turned off for our performance. Worst of all, there were no microphones. Apparently they had thought that Indian instruments could make really loud sounds which wouldn’t need amplifiers (since in Oman bagpipes are used extensively which need no amplifiers). We began playing. I couldn’t hear what the keys were playing, nor could the tablaist sync his beat with the chorus. The mandolin and the sitar were trying hard to catch up to the rhythm and the entire thing, at least to me, was like a cacophony of blabbering cows.  But I did notice a Korean Couple who could catch the beat and rhythm in our seemingly bizarre music and they looked like they enjoyed it. After the program, they came up to me to tell me that they really enjoyed the music and that they had not seen most of these instruments ever before. And for the next couple of minutes my friends and I were busy explaining to them about each of the instruments that we had and they listened with keen interest.

However, I returned home late that night with a bottle of ice cold pepsi and a Big Mac from McDonalds and collapsed in my room and thought about my day. I realized that there were two kinds of people in this world of music. The first group is an adamant one, who would not budge for whatever novel matter is prevalent around them. They do not appreciate or respect other cultures and their music along with it. The second group consists of people who are always willing to acquire as much knowledge as they can about anything and everything about music and musical instruments and they are always blessed to enjoy every bit of music around them, even if it meant the ‘cacophony of blabbering cows’.

Music Today

The present state of music, according to me is one that elicits discomfort to a music lover like me. What we have these days is only an imitation of  popular culture and not of purposeful talent. Everyone believes that the youth is the future of this world. Well things are not very different when it comes to music. Most of the movies made today try to focus on the large proportion of the youth. At least in this country we live in, things are youth oriented or beginning to be so. And these days, music means movies. Therefore, what is reflected in movies today is what seems to be the youth of this country. This holds good for the music they produce too. Yes, i am talking about the kind of music they produce in movies these days which is seemingly 'the new generation genre'. Nonsense! is what i would call that. Agreed, movies are made for a large audience. but what makes the music producers believe that 'rock' is the only genre of music that the youth prefer today. A majority of people I know, despise such movie songs. I am not well versed in bollywood, however, i can talk for the Malayalam movies produced (yeah, thats right, I am from Kerala). One of the latest additions to this list of hilarious songs, according to me is from the Movie 'Ustad Hotel'.

Set initially in Dubai and then in Kerala, the movies tells a simple and wonderful story of an uneducated grandfather and his well educated and ambitious grandson, both linked by their common love for food. I loved this movie and I would happily rated it as one of the best movies I had watched in recent past, had that 'rock song' not been added. The music and tune of the song is addictive and beautiful, but the lyrics of the song just don't make sense.

Have songs in our country gone to these extreme levels where nonsense verse actually becomes songs that are played every where you go?... I was actually in a disbelief and wouldn't accept that this was a song of a real movie. rather i thought this was just some funny lyrics composed to make people laugh. Perhaps such songs would be re-sung at occasions but they would never compete with the all time favorites 'QAYAMAT SE QAYAMAT TAK' songs like 'papa Kahte hain bada naam' and the like.

Well, let me make this clear. The youth of this country and even this world are not just obsessed with 'rock'. There exists other genres of music like folk songs, country side songs that we still enjoy. I would personally enjoy John Denver's Country Roads than listen to Lamb of God screaming their throats out.