One of those evenings...

Just one of those days. Rather evenings. Sitting out in the open on my terrace, on my own, after a long time. What Delhizens call a barsati and get all orgasmic about. There's the pretence of winter in Calcutta's air. Some folks out on the roads wear winter clothes and others not. I'm not worried about the lack of winter in December. I know climate change is a reality. So my environmental activist friends tell me. And I tend to trust friends. I'm worried about having to do bullshit work for shit money for which they will pay me in February. I'm worried about having to pay the rent tomorrow, pay for utilities, for food and living decently, if not comfortably. And too I'm missing my daughter. I'm missing my girlfriend. Both of them far away in other parts. Like the state of my finances. Same.

Today is the the common birthday of two of my closest friends. The one I knew from childhood because of family connections and then through school and adult life, finally to the cusp of our dotage, went and died five years ago. The other guy I've known from school days is still around and I wish him a long life full of whatever he wants. Which leads me to thoughts of other dead friends. Naturally my own mortality is pondered.

So then I move to other thoughts. Thoughts of fusion music. And my considerable antipathy to this form of music. Especially the variety that attempts to put Indian classical in juxtaposition with jazz. Some of which may or may not be punctuated by rock and funk and overtones or undertones of a Western classical influence. Depending on where you're coming from.

And I say, hey, I want to hear you play your music in my country. Stuff I don't usually get to hear live. I don't want you to play or experiment with the music from my country and show me how skilful you are. Or how well you harmonise with the culture of my country. We are all in harmony, at peace. Have always been. That's a given. It's the politicians who have issues, who want war. And also the big business. They're worse. They also want branding. You're musicians who play a certain sort of music. Do that. Don't be politically correct. I know you're good, or so I've been reliably told. And it's why I pay good money to see your show. Then please don't play fusion. Or world music. Or stuff that is as confused as the politicians we elect. The ones who wage war on our behalf. Not just with other countries but with their own country folk too. Without actually consulting us. You, as musicians have a more definite purpose. It's to play music. IMHO, fusion and world music is somewhere on the peripheral fringes of music as I understand it. Not that my understanding is of any concern to you if you anyway want to do that crap. What does happen is that you lose out on a paying customer. A person who will pay exorbitant prices for a cheap beer just because a club with elitist credentials allows you to perform in their space. And lets you think that the sun shines out of your rear end.

And then I think of how rum is a good drink. It's the first alcohol I ever drank seriously. That is, to get pissed- farting-drunk. Which I did. And then I remember I first had rum with another friend who is dead. Whose final throes of a life half-lived took place in my room and ended on a hospital bed the next day. Six years ago. So then I contemplate on how very good the stuff from Himachal is. In combination with rum. And then I wonder how a litre of rum, in ratio, can be cheaper than its 375 ml bottled version. I know too I will never understand economics, even when it was my graduation subject. But I do understand cheaper booze when it is offered to me. Is that applied economics?

And I absolutely agree with the presently acting Telecom Minister of India, Kapil Sibal's orders to digital social media to manually filter objectionable content related to the Gandhis, the Congress and maybe the Sibals too. As a matter of fact I want Kapil Sibal to further ensure that social media companies filter and delete posts, status updates and the rest of the bumf on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter which lack intelligence, goodwill and cheerfully positive statements. Since I live in a democracy I want to be able to decide what qualifies for those standards. Just like His Capillary Sibilance (yuck!) can decide what is objectionable and uploadable. There's a good opportunity here for the Minister to ensure an abundance of employment. Especially for the dullards who are being technically certified in internet technology every year and are being projected as the future of our country. It is they who are posting objectionable content not being gainfully employed and in all probability devastatingly underemployed. Or becoming redundant as their jobs are outsourced to the Philippines. In fact this will, by extension, also take care of the inane posts from all our tech-friendly politicians and wannabe politicians like Shashi Tharoor, and Amitabh Bachchan. Even Suhel Seth – neither here nor there but wannabe with a capital W alright.

So this is one of those evenings of mine which come and go. This time, before it went, I wrote it down, literally dragging it into words on a page, imprisoning it in verbiage before it escaped me. Escaped my memory. My sloth. And indifference. So here, presented for your perusal, your commentary, your ignoring of it, your utter lack of interest in it, is a report of one of those evenings which make up my completely ordinary life.

In the Name of God

30 July 2011

This evening a screening of Anand Patwardhan's 1991 documentary film “In the Name of God – Ram ke Naam” was held at the Max Mueller Bhavan auditorium. Organised by a three year old magazine published from Calcutta called Kindle, the screening was followed by a discussion between the film maker and Tarun Vijay, the national convenor of the BJP.

The film was really all about the content and context in which it was made, a year before the Babri Masjid was destroyed and India was consequently polarised further into religious domains. As far as film making goes there's a lot I didn't care for, yet as a documentary film it's a solid piece of work and it hits the Hindutva supporters where it hurts quite a bit. Still, I found myself nodding off in a couple of places despite that... probably my fault.

The post-screening discussion, anticipated to be exciting, didn't disappoint. Once the almost sermonic Hindu/Muslim/anti-Indian posturing by both Anand and Tarun, and to a large extent the moderator as well took off, Calcutta's vibrant audience made their presence felt. Tarun Vijay as the BJP representative played his role well, grandstanding to an audience he could easily feel were antagonistic to him. Anand Patwardhan maintained his veneer of coolth and rationality as one might expect of someone of his repute. Neither of them though, can be held to represent the aam janata's voice. The moderator, Parnab something, apparently the Roving Editor of the magazine (whatever that might mean), was trying to be diffident and unbiased, but I suspect he was having fun watching the audience react the way they did. Calcutta-people can have quickly inflamed passions. You don't need much to set them off and if you try to be condescending and above them all, you're likely to get hurt. When Tarun Vijay walked off stage taking umbrage at Anand P's remark about black money in Tirupati and other temples, he was summarily halted at the doors by heated audience members and sent back to the stage. Back in his chair, Vijay realised that he had no chance with a questioning audience and proceeded to hog the mike as his defence. He had earlier stated that everyone in India was of Hindu origin regardless of what their present beliefs may or may not be.

It was obvious Tarun Vijay could only espouse the old tired party line of Hindutva, and that too to a Calcutta audience, members of an electorate which has historically never given the BJP or associates a chance. He spoke on and on and was not really amenable to questions. When a 16 year old schoolgirl asked him whether he knew Ram's date of birth and his real birthplace, he proceeded to be condescending with the young girl and then went off on a tangent wanting to know if his questioner or anyone in the audience could give their great-grandfather's DoB or name his birthplace! He didn't expect that a whole lot of people were actually pretty well informed of these details. He ended up saying that Ram was born “10 lakh years ago”! He finally stormed off the stage closely escorted by a confused and worried looking personal security guard. Some of his supporters who appeared out of nowhere effectively blocked off some raging audience members wanting to take the fight outside, as Vijay made his getaway behind their affronted, protective backs.

The audience, comparatively calmer, yet seething energetically sat back in their seats to endure a tad more of Anand's rational posturing. Yes, he has made this film which is important, significant and almost predicted the later violence of Babri Masjid, and and some other controversial films. He spoke of being considerate of other's opinion and always listening to what they said even if one didn't quite agree. He flaunted statistics about the minority community in his suave manner. He rued India's awful polarisation into the Hindu-Muslim centres of power and opinion, somewhere along the way mentioning Christians, Parsis, Sikhs, Jains et al as an afterthought. But his film was no different. I wonder how a person who makes the sort of films he does, can remain only in observational mode without being affected by the circumstances yet still stay inactive. The only activism he has reputedly indulged in is to fight a number of legal battles over the years to ensure his films are permitted public screenings and freely distributed in India, thereby garnering overabundant publicity for himself. His standard justification most likely being that of one trying to uphold freedom of expression as guaranteed by the Constitution. The anger and the concern of the majority for the minority. I thought of the stickers I had seen many years ago on the walls of Bombay's suburban trains, yellow horizontal strips with printed red letters screaming, “Garv se kaho hum Hindu hain!” (“Say it with pride: I am a Hindu!”). And then the repartee appearing a few weeks later on those same walls, sober black text on a white background: “Pyar se kaho hum insaan hain” (Say it with love: I am human”).

[Found somewhere on the WWW]

I sat there and thought of my family and our extended family in all its glorious permutations and combinations. I thought of how many of us had married not just Christians, but Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs; of the ethnic origins of our various spouses: South Indian, Marathi, Gujarati, Chinese, Anglo-Indian, Anglo-Saxon, Mizo, Nepali, Punjabi and not just Bengali, and how we all had offspring from this miscegenation, who, if I may be allowed a slight amount of pomposity, are truly Indian. As differentiated from people who call themselves Bengali, Tamilian, Bihari or... Hindu. I thought of my maternal grandfather, a Thakur Brahmin from UP, who met my grandmother and converted to Christianity of his own free will to marry the woman he loved, of how he adopted a Muslim orphan from partitioned Bengal and raised him as his own along with his four children. I thought of my paternal great-grandmother and how she adopted a Muslim boy orphaned on the delivery table of the hospital where she worked as a nurse and raised him along with her four grandchildren, legally willing her property in one-fifths to all five. I thought of how this same lady and her daughter, my grandmother, two widows, offered their house in Park Circus during the pre-Independence Calcutta riots as a refuge for anyone persecuted from any community, regardless of their ethnicity and socio-economic status, merely because they believed so strongly in their Christian faith.

And I knew then that both these men were so wrong. India was not polarised because of our beliefs or attitudes. We were forced into becoming polarised because of men like them who play their blame games, with their disturbing espousal of their black and white theories, aggressively asserting that it is either this or nothing. They want us to see the world as they see it, as two distinct parts: us and them. I found Tarun Vijay and Anand Patwardhan to be opposing sides of the same coin.

As the session drew to a close, I wanted to ask both these men a couple of questions, and I might add of the moderator too. They remained unasked mainly because only 3 or 4 questions were allowed during the entire fiasco. But that is as may be. Since they had spoken so eloquently and often referred to the Constitution, what I wanted to ask was: Where does secularism as enshrined in the Preamble to the Constitution of India in its very first line, come into your arguments? And what have you done to promote it actively and positively as a human being first, leaving aside your “Hindu-Muslim communal polarisation”?

Kaal Boishakhi

The wind has an anger to it as it slams shuts windows and doors, unprepared as they are for its onslaught. I have thrown them open as wide as they can be to get the sly comfort of southerly afternoon breezes which pretend to allay the summer heat.

There was no way I was going to remain in sweat-drenched slumber in spite of the whirling fan while the angry wind raged about outdoors. Out on the open balcony, one cannot at first make out the wind's direction, but I notice the steaming afternoon has graduated into a warm evening which is occasionally sensationalised by long streams of cold air. The huge vinyl sheet of the billboard flaps loosely on its moorings and I watch its wind-racked sail-like movements scare the birds away. Black clouds from the west race southbound over me and I know this to be a kaal boishakhi, the nor'wester, the stuff romantic Bengali poetry is made of. Every time I witness one, I know why.

The tea's made and a couple of digestives dipped in the hot liquor: like ambrosia in this weather. The perfect ending to a long hot summer day.

There's a quality to the light at this time which is eloquent. It is a brightness that does not blind but illuminates more clearly than sunlight can. There are no shadows despite the clouds. Smiles linger on faces hurrying past. A gang of exuberant youth raid the lonely mango tree growing in the empty plot of land opposite my balcony. Over the months, I have been watching the bright green flowers bud into tiny fruit growing larger with the days. Today, they are under attack by the weather as it scatters them from the branches on the land overgrown with shrubs and weeds. The young boys collect the fallen fruit with glee by and I imagine them salivating as they think of the sharp tart taste of raw mango which will soon fill their mouths, neutralised yet heightened in a wonderful way by black salt.

The high-flying kites which normally soar way up above the tallest buildings riding the thermals are almost down to my level now buffeted by the wind. It's amusing to see them flap their wings like crows and not be in complete control of their flight. They still fly around in circles though as they do higher up in more convenient weather.

The rain is just a spatter at first, instant vapour as it hits sun-baked surfaces. And then a shower followed by heavy rain blown about by the wind which has become arrogant and fierce from its earlier mood of angry and wild.

I scamper inside, spilling my tea as the enveloping clouds darken the evening sky.

It's been a strange summer of overcast skies and more than occasional rain. Temperatures have been bearable most days and surprisingly, often quite wonderful. Whenever the real summer burns through this strange weather overlay, we cringe and look for favourable conditions on the net, on TV and the newspapers. My AccuWeather app kept saying “scattered T-storms” or “partly cloudy” and I hoped and hoped but it was obvious the T-storms were being scattered elsewhere and the clouds were partly some other where.

And then the strangeness happened. Again. Or at least what should have happened earlier, happened today - a kaal boishakhi.

It will be a good night's sleep.

Likely Scenario: The music business here

This piece appeared in the Economic Times Calcutta edition's pull-out supplement ET Casual on the 7th of January 2011 in a suitably edited form. What you read below is the original piece I wrote without the edits.

****

But The Music Never Stops

Get a load of this: A band of sincere, dedicated musicians spend years developing their own sound, seeking audiences beyond their present fans, wanting to make their music widely available. Enter big name label with bigger smile: “Tell you what guys. You record the album and we'll cover the expenses, even throw in some mastering in the UK. In return, you give us the song rights in perpetuity and we distribute the album. Whatever sells we get 80% 'cause we've got overheads, you get 20%, after deducting what we pay for recording costs. Then we'll split 50-50 whatever you make from live performances even though we have no system in place to get you gigs. So you do the footwork, get the sponsors and we'll point you to our printers who can give you a nice rate for posters, banners and all that. Oh yeah, and we'll send you the email IDs of a couple of event managers who could help. Look at it this way guys, you'll be an artist with our international banner and label. A global star on the upcoming artists page in our website. What more could you want?”

Band guys scratch collective head, think, think... “Ok. So, uh, how do you like, er, our music?”

Label guy: “...Music? Oh, yeah, sure music...” Voice trails off, quickly ordering cappucino for all.

Another scene in a glass-walled conference room up on the 13^th floor with a 180° view of other upcoming 13 and more floorers on formerly agricultural land: “Yes, of course we want to sponsor events where the youth gather. You know our brand is totally directed at a youth market and they love, we know from our own surveys, rock music.” Eyes glint ferociously behind designer glasses as he looks steely-eyed at four earnest musicians, a couple of them not evidently stoned, all of them entering the chronological crisis space, wondering wtf are we doing here?

“Just to set things on an even keel, what exactly does the sponsor get from all this? I mean, all this so-and-so presents you guys in concert, prime positioning of our banners, standees is all normal stuff. What else?” He makes it sound like it's war.

“Um, mention of your brand during the announcements?”

“Yeah, yeah sure, and...? Ok, look, since that's all you guys can give what we propose is we come in for 15% of this budget you've given and we want our brand as main sponsor.”

“But that offer is for those who come in for 50% or more!”

Maniacal giggle emanate from designer wearing marketing jockey. “50%? Who's going to give you 50%? I mean you guys aren't filling up a stadium are you? It's just a 600 seater audi better known for theatre. Make it up from ticket sales, but give us 200 comps before that, we'll give it to our loyal customers. What? A hundred bucks? You guys are underselling! Charge at least 350-400 per! How will you recover your costs, man! Now if you guys did some Bollywood stuff, some Rahman tunes, you know? You can get sponsors just like that!” Fingers snap cruelly.

Consequentially...

The band's album is only available in 6 stores in four metros and two Tier 2 cities where ignorant salesfolk move the CD from top shelf to bottom shelf on the 2^nd day of display. After three months, the label says sales are dismal and they are not considering any further reprints. Band gets an accountant's statement saying whatever has sold has been adjusted against recording and mastering expenses paid by the label and that the band still owes the company a sum roughly equalling the combined investment the musicians made in their equipment over the years. In six months, once the entire stock of 250 units has been sold out the label tells the band to record another one at the same terms and conditions. This time the contract will have additional clauses allowing the label to use any or all their songs in other compilations and that radio play too will not entitle them to royalties. Ringtone sales will entitle them to 8% of the income generated from there. The band has no way of monitoring and auditing all this and Big Smile expresses grief when they ask him how this might be done. Nothing is mentioned in the contract about paid downloads from the label's website.

The 15% main sponsor who hogs all the prominence threatens delayed payment and penalty clauses as his standees are not correctly positioned in the 'high traffic' zone of the auditorium's lobby to get complete eyeballs from the footfalls. 350 bucks being a little too steep, the band has heavily discounted ticket prices even after having paid a 25% agricultural income tax to the government because ticket prices exceeded 90 rupees. The sponsor not having paid any advance, the band pays all expenses upfront, already exceeding what the main sponsor has come in for. Other sponsors who came in for less did so because they wanted to bask in the glow of the main sponsor's shine. And they felt no need to sponsor more because they believed the main sponsor would defray the bulk of the expenses.

Three months after the show, Designer Wear is talking about being busy at international conferences, internal meetings, year-end deadlines and key personnel quitting as reasons for not releasing their cheque that should have been paid 15 days after the event... “subject to conditions”. In the months after the show, as they waited for the cheque, the band registered themselves, got a trade license, a bank account, a PAN card, completed online documents, signed multiple hard copies and spent even more money on a dentist to repair the ruin caused by gnashing their teeth. The other sponsorships, reluctantly paid, seemed somehow meagre after TDS.

The last I heard the band was persevering, still doing gigs that came their way, a little persnickety about the ones they took. And they are on the lookout for a better deal from maybe another label. Or maybe they'll put their stuff up on indie sites on a favourable sharing arrangement. Maybe they'll just give it all away for free.

But the music never stops.