Music --- Indian v/s International

I again get back to writing on Music. This is THE topic which interests me a lot and which interests me most.

The main reason of the Title is the things I have faced this situation a lot now. Its definitely true that I am overtly obsessed with the Indian Music specially Bollywood, but there is a point which I would like to put by writing about the Title I've chosen.

We go malls, cafes, restaurants, hotels in lodges and many other places, excluding pubs and related places, and we find only and only International music played everywhere unanimously. But have we ever thought why it is has become THE only obvious choice? Even though they play every genre of International music but do everyone enjoy it? There are many many people who definitely like to hum or tap to many of the Indian music, not only Bollywood but many others like classical fusion, regional and many others.

Can some people not change this and be an ideal to others and show even Indian music sells. We do have a lot of genre here, I do not want to list it coz the list is endless and I am sure I can list every single genre. I have not seen a single cafe playing Indian music, though some restaurants do play. I would definitely prefer going to them coz there atleast I can even enjoy the food.

The reason to write on this topic was my recent visit to Gurgaon and the lodge where I stayed for a week. The cafeteria which the lodge has played only and only International music. Every night during dinner I listened only these. I agree there were foreign visitors in the lodge who stayed there and this was probably for them which may be relaxing to them. But c'mon do we not have the responsibility of projecting ourself to them when we are host them? We meant Indians. We can show them that we have a vivid variety of music and which is THE TREASURE we can boast off.

We can present some melodious fusion music and who knows they may even like it. There are many who would like to explore our music. Will they not like it?

Unable to hold my emotion before leaving the hotel while checking-out I made it a point to give this as my comment on their feedback form and immediately the front desk person was at it and reacted to the comment saying "Sir would you like Indian music?".

Hope they consider my comment and if I happen to again I would like to go and see if they consider the comments made or is it just a formality. And I vow to give this comment and suggest people and make them aware of this wherever and whenever possible. This is possible, for sure, but this requires a bit of change of vision nothing else. There can be a mix of both the music. I am not against it completely. I, for sure, do not like it at all, but will definitely support it but will expect the same enthusiasm for our own music too.

Something

Its again a long time i wrote about something, of course I have written less but still once after starting again took a long break. I was waiting for a nice topic to express my views on but in vain, I could not find any topic so thought better to write something than wait for some real topic.

So just the normal days going on. Home-work-home and some orkutting, some facebooking. I dont know I have stopped even playing FarmVille. Dont know why. Did not get bored of it. But finished all the seeds at my level and the remaining ones are not worth growing. But still some of my friends are going gung-ho about it.

Thinking of reading something, as also seeing the Shantaram book daily as soon as I come from work, but havent made the mind to pick it up and read. Its always there in the back of my mind. But somehow its still pending. I will start it very soon.

Radio

The FM stations has revived the listeners of Radio. There was a time when only we had the GOOD OLD Vividhbharati. We used to give the listeners every single information. Be it Sports Commentary, old bollywood music, news and what not.

They still continue to do it and with a pride. Perhaps the only radio station which reaches every nook and corner of the country. Tune into 102.9 FM at 7 PM you will have our soldiers from some corner of the country requesting some very beautiful songs and I bet you would love to hear them.

But the modern Urban FM stations have brought a great twist in radio world. Definitely appreciate them. I am proudly can say I am listening these new-gen station from the day they were launched and have seen them evolve for both better and worse. 10 years back there was only a ONE private FM station and they were ruling for almost 2 years, if my memory serves good. Now we have about 12 odd FM Stations.

Thanks to some Govt initiative that there are 3 FM stations dedicated who share knowledge as Academic lessons, Classical Music, Devotional Music etc. The rest are purely dedicated to Money-making Business.

Yes in Bangalore we have around 5 stations who only and only play KANNADA movie music, and one station each playing our Bollywood music and the Western Pop/Rock/whatever.

I listen to almost all of them except the one who plays western music. Each and every, yes each and every station claims themselves to be the No. 1 station in Bangalore.

There is a trend followed by every single station. They have gags between songs to attract people, but not sure how many people do get attracted. These gags are the worst things to listen. Some are even embarrassing to listen in public.

Forget these gags, the songs, which are the main part of the radio, main part of their business, have become now just as fillers between these gags or the advertisements. Tune into Radio One the only station who plays Bollywood songs, anytime of the day and if you listen to one song, just one song right from the start to the end (from start I mean even the starting music, similarly for end) and I will bet anything for it. You have your most favourite song (your all time favourite song) or a song which you haven't listened to for a long time, on air and you would be feeling on heaven listening to it, when you had not even expected it, and there is every chance you wont get to know listen in full. Some part of the song is sure to be clipped off.

And you wont believe every time the songs are being played there is sure to be a gag/a traffic update/an hourly time check to end the song, because these gags are programmed to be played at the exact intervals.

You will never find any advertisement ending up halfway through or ended by these gags/traffic updates/hourly time checks. These are all cleverly programmed. Then why are they programmed when there is a song being played and not anything else?

I definitely believe that these ads are the ones paying these stations heavily. But does that mean they compromise with the songs being played? Isn't that (playing songs) the main reason for running a Radio business with a little bit of added attractions.

But the other things seem to be more important the songs itself. There is also a competition of playing maximum number of songs in an hour. Whats the use of playing 13 songs in an hour when neither of the songs are played in full. Are these just for records? For ratings? To show their position in the competition?

T20 and India

Did India really deserve to be a T20 champion in the opening rounds?

I guess the world was not completely aware of the T20 format, which played in the hands of India who won the championship by FLUKE. India too was not completely aware of the T20 format but still they had this league called the IPL which again was another money-making game where only Indian players and the franchisee.

I remember there were Australian and Pakistani players who were a part of this madness. But now they have made a wise decision of not participating in the IPL. Now Pakistan is no more part of it. Thats again a different story.

This IPL has cost us both the succeeding T20 World Cups. Neither in '09 or '10 have the Indian played to the potential they are boasted about. Everyone exaggerates about the STRONG Indian batting line-up. But see how they have faltered like anything when it was most required.

Both in '09 and '10 championship our Najafgarh ka Tendulkar pulled out just before the championship started and the reason pretty much the same. Shoulder Injury. The replacement for him was Murali Vijay whose average is meager compared to the likes of Robin Uthappa. And guess what Robin despite showing a better performance in the so called IPL is not even in the SQUAD.

Yes, there are other "World-Class" batsmen in the team, rather SQUAD the likes of Raina, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Gambhir................. list is endless. But everyone failed to keep up the so called "STRONG Indian Batting Line-up". Add to these the strong faith of CHASING by the CAPTIAN COOL after winning the toss. It was a time when Indian players were really good at chasing but the times have changed. Above that the bowling is always a concern which will always be no matter who the bowler is.

Another T20 world cup is coming to an end for India. Are we still crazy about T20? If we go by statistics Indian players play more T20 than any other team and a very less number of Tests and even ODIs, whereas these are the ones which our players need to get on top of it.

The board definitely need to take care that our players do play more number of Tests and ODIs and more often.