Digital Violence, News Channels and Hypocrisy!

It’s a case of wholesome insensitivity, amounting to zombie-like behavior on which subject we dwelt over much earlier, of nearly all of the so-called digitally conscious citizens of the country, but also nearly all the stakeholders including the national media irrespective of how you’d like to describe them. Apart from this looming post-modern characteristic, the other equally portentous factor of hypocrisy has also been rampant across, primarily, the television news channels and other stakeholders. For the last few years at least the insensitivity factor has been colossal: any kind of tragic incident happening in public places is always ravenously video-graphed along with the selfies of the ‘proud’ beholders and circulated instantly in their digital spaces, instead of trying to help the poor victims many of whom stay alive during such digital orgy. The news channels then get hold of those clips, in direct or indirect ways, and start building ‘stories’ around those while putting the clips continuously on their screens. Therefore, the insensitive and the often sadistic citizens including us have been getting used to ‘treats’ of such endless clips relating to the most horrendous cases of lynching, murders and assassinations, police torture, accidents, shootings and even crimes against women in the last few years.

 

The hypocrisy of the news channels becomes bluntly obvious when they choose to debate on a particular tragedy that they never ever fail to do actually: while the ‘conscientious’ anchor and the panelists keep on emphasizing the need to keep such dastardly clips out of social media and any other public digital platforms the channel producers keep on running the clip in an endless loop, in a prominent window created on the screen.  Till even the most sadistic viewer gets tired and switches to a different channel! Doesn’t at all matter even if you happen to watch the same on many other channels too! Some still less-scrupulous channels even watermark the inhuman visuals as ‘exclusive’ or ‘first on this channel only’ and like that. Why such mind-boggling hypocrisy? Well, very simple. They know the dominant facets of the psychology of their viewers and so would definitely like to pander to them, just to generate more ad revenues.

 

I was shocked beyond words, sad as I was to hear the news of the assassination of Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, when I found the video clip showing the cruel shooting in broad daylight and in public getting much more importance across the screens of the Indian news channels than the tragic incident itself. Some anchors even wanted to draw our attention particularly to the violent clip being shown endlessly as if to make us understand the sheer audacity of the murder. Their justification was that this involved a huge breach of security. Well, from the Indian point of view this was indeed a breach; but you have to consider Japan where such acts almost never happened and the only news that we keep on hearing about the country is that relating to earthquakes. Had it happened in the trigger-happy and abortion-unhappy US such an approach could’ve been alright; but Japan’s been always trigger-wary and guns in public hands in the country are almost a rarity.

 

However, the glorification of the violent clip just cannot be justified on any ground. Shinzo Abe is one of the most prominent visionary statesmen-politicians of the world and has been a very good friend of India since 2006-07. He’s been a friend of the former Indian PM Manmohan Singh and a closer buddy to PM Narendra Modi. The Government of India had also declared a one-day national mourning in his memory. For some personal reasons this writer, Abe being an almost household name for him as he was actively engaged in the role of a news editor in a national channel during those years,  could not give a fitting tribute to Abe in time, and so is airing his thoughts through this related piece.

Disturbing Times: Renewed Madness and the Vicious Circle of the Absurd!

Photo: phrases.org.uk

The Pandemic, at best, seemed only to have kept the madness of the modern age in a tight leash as long as it raged, creating a mortal fear over the whole of humankind. So, once the humans had discovered enough protection against it and succeeded in keeping it at bay, the modern-day madness seems to have come back with renewed vigor—to get back what they’ve lost over the last two years in real quick time. We can hardly pinpoint anyone to put the blame squarely on; because it’s affected almost every section or individual of the society. Coming to India, once the COVID-19 restrictions were completely lifted life’s started becoming more than normal. From the daily wage-earners and the vendors to the topmost business tycoons—almost everyone started showing extreme hurry to get back what they lost. The local admin authorities, also full of human beings only, joined in too; even the most discreet procedures were thrown out of the window. Tragedies, conflicts, absurdities and so on began unfolding very fast, peaking in the last few days while also giving the virus one more chance to come back.

 

Caught perhaps in a pandemic-induced mad frame of mind the new government in Punjab, the CM being a popular artiste, suddenly withdrew the security cover given to one of the state’s most popular singers who had been under threat from different gangs for various reasons. And tragically, the very next day, singer Sidhu Moose Wala was brutally gunned down in his car by gangsters chasing him in another car. Moose Wala was just 28 and had all the prime future ahead of him. To add to his there’s been a string of targeted murders of locals and non-local citizens in Jammu and Kashmir by terrorists whom the experts describe as micro-level operators or a kind of hybrid terrorism. Greatly disturbing tragedies, anyway.

 

As we mentioned at the beginning, even the minimum public safety measures were thrown away, almost everywhere in the country. And another tragedy happened. Kolkata’s humid heat is known to all who’ve experienced it. The 31^st of May 2022 was one such humid day when the heat was sweaty and unbearable even inside homes, under the whirring ceiling fans or even the struggling ACs. And, on that very day a popular playback singer in Hindi and in several south Indian and other languages, Krishnakumar Kunnath (famous as KK) was invited by local organizers in Kolkata to perform in the gloomy evening in one of the city’s premiere auditoriums, Nazrul Mancha.

 

Reports, dismissed as rumors, say the hall was more than packed as there were no restrictions on controlling entry of the extra hundreds of avid audiences, and that the AC was not functioning properly which is not surprising because we find the ACs getting weaker as the attendees get more and more on various occasions. The singer was seen wiping his sweat away and complaining to the organizers frequently. But, as a professional and for the success of the glamour event, he sang for nearly three hours. Then he felt uneasy complaining of chest pain. Surprisingly, he was taken to his hotel, instead of rushing him to the nearest hospital out of sheer common sense. KK collapsed in his hotel room and was declared dead on finally arriving in a hospital. KK, only 53, died of a heart attack as per the postmortem report. But was there nothing that could’ve triggered it in a person who had no previous history of heart problems?

 

Also perhaps severely affected by the post-pandemic madness, one advertising agency in Mumbai released ads on a male deodorant that directly promote the gang-rape theme even as there’ve been reports of rapes and gang-rapes taking place all over the country almost daily. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has promptly suspended the ads ordering those to be taken out of air everywhere. However, the question remains as to how those horrid ads passed layers and layers of the approval procedures. Or perhaps, it clearly pandered to the ‘tastes’ of a great majority of the stakeholders concerned. The same madness to recover what was lost by hook or by crook.

 

As the latest to happen to the continuing saga of greatly disturbing proceedings, one lady spokesperson of the ruling party (BJP) made some adverse remarks to Prophet Muhammad on a public platform yesterday. One more major communal riot unfolded on the streets of Kanpur as a result. The BJP, obviously concerned by the reactions of Qatar and the greater Arab world, suspended her along with one more male spokesperson for giving provocative speeches. The lady said later that she didn’t intend to hurt anyone’s sentiments; she was only pained by the alleged insults to ‘her Lord Shiva’. The other complained of serious threats to his life.

 

And then, the absurd of the absurd! A party that came to power on the strength of its aggressive Hindu nationalism and being condemned as a communal party all the time, the BJP is now accused by some of appeasing the Islamists! Well, we believe in one God or one Creator who may have various forms as per the beliefs of various other religions. We advise people, irrespective of to whatever extent they are being driven by the post-pandemic madness, to desist from fighting for ‘your God’ and ‘our God’ which can only bring us all to the brink, the world making a full circle, probably heading for the End.

 

The megastar Salman Khan today has received a letter threating death to him and his father Salim Khan in the ‘Moose Wala’ way. This could be another ‘vicious circle’ of the singer’s murder involving various probable gangsters of an unknown quantity. While in the US, apart from the mad shootings, there was report of a security issue with President Biden even as the Russian invasion of Ukraine has crossed hundred days.

Tributes: Legendary Santoor Maestro Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma And Cricketer Andrew Symonds!

I did indeed have some regrets though as I couldn’t pay my homage to the legendary Santoor maestro Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma on time, and as an aftereffect failed to write about the Australian cricketer Andrew Symonds. Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma passed away in a Mumbai hospital on 10^th May 2022 after a prolonged period of kidney ailments and dialysis, at the age of 84. The glowing and flowing tributes paid to him from the music world, particularly the field of Indian Classical Music, and from all other fields which are still continuing show what a music stalwart he had been since the fifties. Panditji had introduced a folk string instrument called Santoor that used to be played in Kashmir and had Persian origins to Indian Classical Music and popularized it immensely with his learning, concerts and fusion all over the globe and through an invaluable collection of albums. At his very initiation to this instrument by his vocalist father Uma Dutt Sharma young Shiv Kumar observed the playing styles of the instrument that integrated Sufi notes with traditional Kashmiri folk music.

 

Born on 13^thJanuary 1938 in the Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir, then a princely state, Shiv Kumar was taught vocals and tabla from the early age of just five by his father. Later his father introduced him to Santoor and a legend was born.

 

Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma released his first solo Santoor album in 1960 and started performing all over the country. In the process he collaborated with the legendary flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia and legendary tabla maestro Ustad Zakir Hussain in many of his fusion concerts or jugalbandis and in various instrumental music albums. Before getting deeper and deeper into classical music he was open to composing film music too, and as early as in 1955 he scored a piece of background music for V Shantaram’s classic film Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baje. Settled in Mumbai he actively collaborated with Hariprasad Chaurasia that created the famous music director duo known as Shiv-Hari. They composed music for several of Yash Chopra’s superhit movies: Silsila (1981); Faasle (1985); Chandni(1989); Lamhe (1991); and Darr (1993). However, as we indicated earlier, he started delving into the depths of classical music, and famously said later, “Classical music is not for entertainment. It is to take you on a meditative journey”, which resulted into his moving away from composing Bollywood movie music. Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma has been showered with numerous national and international awards including the Sangeet Natak Akademy Award in 1986 and Padma Vibhushan in 2001.  

 

Personally speaking, I knew Panditji as a music director of the Shiv-Hari duo since the early eighties and saw Zakir Hussain as an young boy with long hair playing tabla like a magician on various Doordarshan clips. I didn’t know much about classical music those days. Only after my marriage to Ragini, a Hindustani Classical Vocalist herself, in the late eighties I began my guided initiation into classical music, both Hindustani and Carnatic, and started enjoying immensely. Thus began our musical journey in the musically enriched Mumbai environs, attending and listening to various recitations in various popular auditoriums in various localities of the city of dreams. We watched the classical legends perform live. The concerts of Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharm with Zakir Hussain were unforgettable and we never missed an event when the duo was to perform. In the meantime, Ragini too started her vocal recitations on various famous Mumbai stages and I got immersed into the depths of classical music, now understanding why Panditji referred to classical music as a meditative experience; although primarily for the performers it’s for the sincere listeners too.

 

A globally famous musician, but a very humble and modest human being, and with striking good looks and a tall astute figure. Being a disciple of Padma Vibhushan Dr. Prabha Atre, Ragini had several opportunities to meet and interact with the legend during music conferences and concerts, and she says till today what a great musician he has been; what a modest soft-spoken gentleman he has been; an imposingly handsome person, but with striking simplicity. Pt. Shiv Kumar Sharma leaves behind his wife and his two sons, the first son Rahul is already an established Santoor performer. We salute the Santoor legend.

 

Cricket Australia has been hit again with the third tragedy in the last few weeks as one of its most lively cricketers Andrew Symonds died in a single car crash on 14^thMay 2022, at the young age of 46. This comes after Rodney Marsh and Shane Warne passed away within twenty-four hours of each other. We remember Andrew Symonds as a feared Aussie cricketer as India fans, thanks to his ferocious hitting with the bat and effective attack with the ball—both pace and spin—and of course, and a fielder of extraordinary abilities and reflexes; former Aussie captain Ricky Ponting described him as the best fielder he had ever seen. During his active cricket career from 1998 to 2008 for Australia he played in all three formats, however, made his impact mostly in the one-day internationals, at a time when the Aussies were invincible. He had been a part of Australia’s ICC World Cup triumphs of 2003 and 2007. Symonds, unfortunately, had had his share of controversies mainly due to his alcoholic habits and the infamous ‘monkey gate scandal’ involving India spinner Harbhajan Singh during India’s tour of Australia in 2008. It is really tragic that still in the prime of his cricket career Andrew Symonds had to finally retire in 2012 and his life ended now by another fatal tragedy. We mourn his demise and pay our tributes to a great cricketer.

(With some inputs and photos from Wikipedia) 

Two Weeks Of Ukraine Invasion, The Sumy Rescue And Cricket Tragedies!

Russian President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has entered Day 14 leaving a trail of devastation and loss of lives across the country. We pointed out earlier that the war was totally unnecessary, and now it seems abundantly clear that it was in the interest of the West that Russia did invade Ukraine so that the latter’s strategic presence in Europe could be checked, if not eliminated. The surprising resistance by Ukraine is mainly thanks to the baits by the West in terms of entry into the European Union and a membership in NATO. Russia also made a mistake by not anticipating the support to be extended to Ukraine by the US, most European nations and other strategic allies to fight the war. The main objective of the Western allies seems to be the justification to impose the economic sanctions to isolate Russia in a bid to force it to submit. But unfortunately, they’ve decided to ignite a dormant volcano instead by ignoring its demands, also as strategic as theirs, and by abandoning the universally accepted method called international diplomacy.

 

President Biden has been maintaining that ‘Putin cannot defeat Ukraine’ which means that he along with his allies expect a protracted war so that at the end an isolated and economically bleeding Russia calls it a day. However, the Biden allies have conveniently forgot that by isolating Russia, a major supplier of natural gas, petroleum and weapons, they have nearly plunged the world into an economic crisis—a global economy just recovering from the Pandemic. Crude oil prices have touched almost $140 a barrel and with the US decision to ban all Russian oil imports can further accentuate the oil fire. Among other countries it could hit India in the most severe way because India has already been suffering from insufficient consumer demand to boost the economy. With the assembly elections over it’s to be seen how long the government can fend off the inevitable price increase in petrol an diesel.

 

President Zelensky has let the cat loose. First, he demanded NATO to declare No-fly zone in Ukraine; NATO refused, obviously because it would mean a war between Russia and America, possibly a Third World War which could be nuclear if Putin’s threats are taken seriously. Then, Zelensky wanted more arms, weapons and fighter aircrafts from NATO, in a way, directly asking NATO to involve itself in the war and to protect Ukraine. Thwarted on all requests, the Ukrainian President is now crying hoarse calling it a betrayal by the West and that he would give up his on his promised NATO membership. And, that’s exactly what Russia wants. Putin has been saying clearly that he would instantly end the war if Ukraine gives up on its aspirations to join the EU and the NATO. Well, at the same time the rights of a sovereign nation to do what its citizens desire cannot be repressed, whatever be the strategic interests of whatever power blocks.

 

In the meantime, a humanitarian crisis with unbearable consequences had been developing in the Ukrainian city of Sumy where around 700 Indian students were trapped in the bunkers as food, water and other amenities were drying out. As the attacks outside intensified they were even frightened to switch on the electricity at those endless nights. There seemed to be no way out to evacuate them as it was extremely dangerous to venture out in the missile-raining streets. We must commend the efforts of the Government of India by not giving up and resorting to the much-forgotten diplomacy. A tripartite diplomatic mediation between Russia, Ukraine and India resulted in Russia agreeing to declare ceasefire in four cities to ease the process of civil evacuation. Yesterday, the Sumy students were moved out to Poltava by road, then moved to Western Ukraine by trains and finally to be airlifted to India. We must congratulate the die-hard efforts the Indian Air Force, the officials of the Ministry of External Affairs and of course, the pilots and staff of Air India (now operated by the Tata group).

 

Moving to other fields of world affairs we must mention the double-tragedy suffered by Australian Cricket losing two of their veteran cricketers—wicket-keeper batsman Rodney Marsh (74) and the legendary leg-spinner Shane Warne (just 52)—within 24 hours on 4^thMarch 2022. Shane Warne, undoubtedly the best-ever leg-spinner in world cricket with his 708 Test wickets (the first to reach that mark), has been fully active in cricket even after his retirement in 2007. He played for Rajasthan Royals in the IPL apart from his other international assignments. We have been aware of him all the time as he never failed to comment on the performances of Team India in its international matches. Warne, fondly called Warnie by his pals, reportedly got three months of leave from Fox Sports for whom he had been working, and went to Thailand to start his much-deserved holidays along with his friends. Tragically, the very next day he was found unresponsive in his room. His friends did CPR on him and then it was done repeatedly at the hospital, but the legend could not be revived.   

 

It is indeed hard to put away Shane Warne from our cricket-loving minds. When he dominated the Indian batsmen, prominently Sachin Tendulkar, we admired him, and when he was hit all around and out of the park by Tendulkar, we loved his open admiration and wonderment at the living legend’s prowess. This had been typical of the essence of Warne’s personality who lived his life on his own terms and was not bogged down by the few controversies thus created. And we really feel great talking about the times of the greats. Shane Warne has been bestowed the 4^thplace in the list of Wisden Cricketers of the century along with the greats of Donald Bradman, Garfield Sobers, Jack Hobbs and Vivian Richards.

 

Earlier on 4^thMarch Rodney Marsh passed away—a cricketing great who excelled during 1971-1984 as a wicket-keeper batsman and created history of achieving a record 355 Test catches behind the stumps, mostly combining with the lethal fast bowling legend Dennis Lily. Of course, we could not watch his antics on the field as in those times our only means of tuning in to cricket had been the radio commentary. Interestingly, both of Marsh and Warne had had very ordinary debuts. And more disconcertingly, Shane Warne had twitted his condolences to Rodney Marsh’s demise, not knowing his own destiny. We cannot still believe Warnie is no more.

 

Meanwhile, India made mincemeat of a listless Sri Lanka in the first Test at Mohali winning by an innings and 222 runs. The highlight of the test match is the tremendous comeback of Ravindra Jadeja into the Test team after months of nursing an injury—he made a historic 175 not out in India’s defining first inning total of 574 and went on to take 9 wickets in the Sri Lanka two innings with a fifer in the first innings. Now, Jadeja could justifiably be termed as one of the greatest all-rounders in world cricket. Earlier, India swept the 3-match T20I Series 3-0 where Jadeja also figured prominently. 

(We acknowledge wikipedia.org, alzazeera.com and google maps for the images.)

Lata Mangeshkar Dies: The Nightingale Of India Flies Off Into Eternity!

A voice we grew up with. A voice unimaginably sweet and melodious, also trained in the Indian classical music tradition. A voice that transcends all the three octaves with consummate ease. A voice that became an integral part of an evolving Hindi film industry in the forties and has been one ever since. A voice that paired with almost all the great voices of the legendary Hindi playback singers ranging from the forties to the 2000s, from Mohammad Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Mukesh, Manna Dey, SP Balasubrahmanyam and Bhupendra among others to Suresh Wadkar, Udit Narayan, Sonu Nigam and many others. A voice that was worshipped by almost all of the music directors of the country during the same period of nearly seven decades, from Vasant Joglekar, Ghulam Haidar, Vasant Desai, C Ramachandran, Shankar-Jaikishan, Khayyam, SD Burman, Madan Mohan, Salil Chowdhury, Bhupen Hazarika, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Kalyanji-Anandji, RD Burman and others to Anand-Milind, Nadeem-Shravan, AR Rahman and so on. A playback singer who rendered more than 30,000 songs in 36 Indian and a few foreign languages, primarily Hindi and Marathi. A voice that earned the celebrated titles of ‘Nightingale of India’, ‘Queen of Melody’ and ‘Legion of Honor’ from France. A legend who remained a celibate all her life.

 

Bharat Ratna Lata Mangeshkar (1929-2022) has passed away today at the age of 92 after undergoing nearly a month of treatment for COVID-19 by a dedicated team of doctors at the Breach Candy hospital in Mumbai. Millions of her fans across all generations and ages have been disturbed by her hospitalization and then conflicting reports in the media/social media. Finally, the Nightingale of India has flown off into eternity with condolence messages pouring in from celebrities, political leaders and commoners across all fields of activities. The nation mourns the demise of probably the best female singer ever of India. COVID-19 pandemic thus has added one more star to its uncompromising tally.

 

It is redundant to describe the life of a legend as almost everyone knows about her. We can only mention that after losing her music-composer father Dinanath Mangeshkar at the early age of 13, Lata, being the eldest in the family, had to take up the job of earning for her family and started working as a singer-actor in Marathi. She sang her first Hindi song in 1943 and moved over to Mumbai in 1945. And then, there has been no looking back for Bollywood of yore and present. However, if one is looking for full details about the legend one can click Here.

 

When I joined Films Division, Mumbai on transfer in 1987 I was thrilled to know that the residence of the Mangeshkar’s larger family is also located at Pedder Road. So, for many years I had been used to pass by ‘Prabhu Kunj’ every day before reaching my office, and in ‘Prabhu Kunj’ building lived with her all of Lata’s siblings all of whom are accomplished musicians-singers: Meena Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Usha Mangeshkar and the only brother Hridaynath Mangeshkar. At times I used to walk past the building and showed it to all my relatives, friends and whoever happened to be my guests or visitors. During my years in Doordarshan News, Mumbai we had the privilege of meeting her live on some occasions,

 

It is well-nigh impossible to select one or two favorite songs of mine from the huge numbers almost all of which have been lovable and melodious, and it’d be a kind of injustice too. However, two songs of Lata Mangeshkar, fondly called Lataji (respectfully) or Latadi (elder sister), come to my mind at a regular basis. Although the songs are not from great and memorable movies, I’m putting up the songs for opinions of my readers, if any.

 

The first is a superhit song from a movie called Intaquam (1969) which has unusually strong and richly composed instrumental music, not typical of the music director duo Laxmikant-Pyarelal, and kind of a trendsetter that was later picked up by RD Burman and AR Rahman. The song is also unusual, because here Lataji sings for the brilliant dancer cum the famous vamp of Bollywood movies of yore, Helen. In almost every other movies only the heroines of get blessed with Lataji songs in their lips.

 

The second song is from a superhit breezy thriller movie called Victoria No.203 (1972) which has melody as well as strong and delicious music composed by Kalyanji-Anandji. Of course, here the legendary singer sings for the heroine Saira Banu (wife of the Dilip Kumar) who happens to be trapped by the villain of the movie in a frightening situation and is singing to buy time so that she could be rescued.

 

Our tributes and homage to Dada Saheb Phalke Award winner Lata Mangeshkar who would remain in the hearts of her fans forever and always fresh. Although not officially doing recordings for the last few years Lataji has been an active public figure, speaking on various issues, trends and events. We’d miss that too.