Deja vu

floating faces

fleeting moments,

held by silken threads

of

love, passion pain, excuses, lies, betrayals.

the symphony of life.

a resonance within

of deja vu.

floating faces

fleeting moments,

trail

a pathway to remembrance

Sands Of Time Run

hope of golden morning

turns muddy yellow,

as the sands of time drop

hour after hour.

the purple passion of noon

turns icy gray,

as the darkness of solitude invades

hour after hour.

the copper chrome cravings of evening

turns frozen red,

as the vortex of pain sweeps

hour after hour.

Reminiscence

Memories are like golden threads, woven round the soul.
They are like tiny droplets of mists,
Hanging from the evergreen foliage of time.
We collect them drop by drop,
Rainbow reflecting from the core of their heart.
It's the little bit of life's anodyne,
Left to heal our soul in the loneliness of ageing day.
They become the lovely poetry of life,
Lulling the pulsating ache of nostalgia.
They free our spirit from the corporal cage,
Lift our amorphos soul to the level of eternity.
And--we drink from these rivulets of memories.
The chalice, becoming the elixir of life.

Life is a Short Incident in a Long Story

They say, there is a story in everyone......

However cliche it might sound, but it's true. Throughout my life I have met people who had left indelible impression on my mind. When I look back down the memory lane, it seems each of them narrated their story to me and I can recount the pangs, the joys, the hopes and the pains of life through them. Sometime, I wonder, why I haven't thought of putting pen to paper to narrate those tales. But then, some memories are better when kept private and personal. So I have always fumbled, wavering between how much to write and what to leave out.

Lately, I reached a crossroad in life where I didn't know which road to take. The road less traveled or the one trodden by thousands. Eventually, I decided to take the middle one, a grassy, moss laden, cobbled path trodden by some, who sought truth, solace and bliss in unknown, but at the same time, kept their feet on solid ground of reality. Confused? I don't blame you. For, I have been searching for the soul so long that I lost track of my time. I wandered in the mazes of life's duty and forgot what I was seeking. Isn't it time for me to stake out?

I have decided to narrate the story.......the story in you, me, them, and whoever.....

Ok Folks!!!!!!! Time for a new series.........
My Jersey Diaries begin.
Jersey Diary 1
I landed in Hotel Sierra on Route 22, NJ, on a sunshine swept Saturday afternoon . It was 7 o'clock but the sun was still strong on our back. The Hotel front offfice was really nice. Max is a dream!
I was sooooo tired I just wanted to sleep. After refreshing myself with an hot bath I went down to the lobby to receive my friend Savitha who will be arriving from Bangalore. I settled her in and had Maggi for Dinner.
Next day, I had a taste of the American mall when my uncle tok me to a nearby mall. Its huge!!!! I got my grocery shopping done.
I started on work on Monday. The day went well and a colleague dropped us home.
My collegues are really nice!!!
The week went well. We have to reach office early here. So one of our colleagues took the responsibility of picking us up. And we work Fridays from the Hotel. The only significant thing is we went to a Japanese restaurant and I had Shrimp tempura. They are really huge.
The first weekend is neally boring. You are stranded here if you don't drive a car. So there goes my freedom of moving around!
Cokesbury is a small county. It has lots of greenery. The fall colours are coming up! But you can't move much from here. Everyday I feel stranded because I am not driving a car!!!!!
Gosh!

Plagiarism in Hindi film music

Plagiarism in music is long prevailant and rampant in our Hindi film music. It has been that way since the initiation of Hindi film starting with SD Burman and reaching its glory with composers like RD Burman, Laxmikant Pyarelal, Rajesh Roshan, Shankar-Jaikishan, O.P Naiyar, Salil Choudhary, Kalyanji-Anandji, and Bappi Lahiri. Most of the music composed by these composers were either plagiarized tunes or inspired by some foreign tunes. Sometimes the copied songs are intelligently and subtly modified while in some cases it is a blatant complete tune and even beat to beat copy. The catch is, all these plagiarized music became hits and became rage among the masses. In those times, before the era of television, the Indian masses hardly had access to foreign music or even music in English. The popular culture was to listen to Hindi film music and hum along. But they hardly knew that most of the hummable tunes are copied.

How many people know that SD Burman copied Jeevan ke safar mein raahi for the film Munimji from the song The Mexican hat dance? The great songs in the film Chalti ka nam Gadi, 'Ek ladki bheegi bhagi si' is inspired by the song 'Sixteen Tons' , while 'Hum the woh thi' is inspired by the song 'The Watermelon song', both by Tennessee Ernie Ford. Even Yeh dil na hota from Jewel Thief was inspired by the song River Kwai March from the soundtrack of the David Lean classic, The Bridge on the River Kwai. And finally, Saala main tho sahaab ban gaya is lifted directly off a 1957 Italian track, 'Chella Llà', by the legendary Renato Carosone.

RD Burman composed great music for Hindi cinema but his immensely popular song Mehbooba, mehbooba from Sholay is a direct copy. How many of us know that the song is a direct lift from Demi Roussos' Say You Love Me? Same can be said about the opening tune and the lovely harmonica tune played by Amitav from Sholay which were plagiarized from Mackanna'a Gold. RD was an immensely gifted musician and he kept track of world music with a penchant. That is how he used the tunes from English songs and transformed them to gold in Hindi films. Infact, he is the pioneer in this field of plagiarism.Though he gave us wonderful music in all his films, but it still remains a fact that he lifted. Do not forget the immensely popular songs from Hum Kisise kam Nahi, which has several lifted tunes from the popular band Abba's music.

Laxmikant Pyarelal lifted tunes for the film Rajkumar. 'Payaal Meri' is a good version of George Michael's Faith! And 'Tere Naam Ke Hum Deewane' from Judaai is a beat to beat copy from Boney M's 'Brown Girl in the ring'. OP Naiyar copied 'Yeh hai bombay meri jaan' for the popular film CID from 'My darling Clementine' by Freddy Quinn. And believe it or not, the Geeta Dutt number 'Babuji dheere chalna' is a direct lift from the song 'Perhaps perhaps perhaps' covered by Doris Day.

Salil Choudhary was more intellectual in his plagiarism. He mostly lifted tunes from the symphonies of Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach. His popular Hindi number 'Itna Na Mujhse Tu Pyar Bada' is inspired from Mozart's 40th symphony and the famous 'Dil tadap tadap ke' song from Madhumati is inspired by the Polish folk song "Szla dzieweczka do gajeczka". All the songs by this composer has been improvised to a large extent to suit the exuberant mood of both the films and the tracks.

The RD mantle is justly worn by Bappi Lahiri who lifted tune after tune to create hit songs. Don't forget the immensely popular 'Tamma Tamma Loge' and 'Mera dil gaye ja' from Disco dancer. By that time several people knew that he copied generously from English tunes of Modern Talking. His 'Hari Om Hari' is a copy of 'One Way Ticket to Moon' and 'Sochna Kya' in Ghayal has been copied from 'Lambada'. Though he has the title of disco king, the first composer to introduce disco beats in hindi music, the fact remains that he is still a plagiarist and has maximum hit plagiarized songs to his credit.

The music scenario has not changed a bit after Nadeem Shravan, Ram Laxman, or Anu Malik came into the picture. All of them fell back, at various stages of their career, to outside music as their inspiration. The popular Stevie Wonder number 'I Just called to say I love you' was copied in the hit film 'Maine Pyar Kiya' by Ram Laxman and became a rage of the generation. Almost all songs of Qayamat se Qayamat tak has been copied tunes. So has Anu Malik's lifts from 'Macarena' and 'Les Ketchup' as well as the Arabic and Lebanese tunes in the film Murder. And the opening portion of his immensely popular song 'Sandeshe Aate hai' in the film Border is inspired from 'With A little help From my friends' by Beatles. One good thing about Anuji is that he listens to tunes in foreign languages and gets inspired. And we must acknowledge that the songs are real hits and hummed by the generation. Nadeem Shravan's speciality was mostly soft english numbers from 50's and 60's english pop. They are the ones who introduced many of the Cliff Richard numbers in Hindi films, of course in its version.

And now there is this whole lot of GenX composers like Pritam, Vishal Sekhar, Salim Suleiman who practices the same cult left as a legacy by their predecessors. Pritam especially tries to bring in a newness to plagiarism by copying the music of regional songs and music bands. He bought Bangladesh singer James to sing many of his own songs in hindi as well as some from songs of Bangla bands. As Pritam says, "I told myself: ‘Don’t touch an English song since people have heard it’. I thought it would be better to be inspired by obscure songs without realising that the Internet has made the world smaller and even the most obscure song can easily be traced".

Lastly, our very own oscar winning music maestro AR Rahman has composed the song immensely popular 'Shakalaka Baby' inspired by the rhythm loop with an underground feel found in the track 'Flight IC 408' by State of Bengal and the track 'Aint talkin bout dub' by Apollo 440. And most of his Tamil hits are inspired by music from Africa, Osibisa, and Lebo M to name a few.

Lifting tunes is a trend one can't do away in Bollywood. Getting inspiration to compose fresh for every project is tiresome and difficult. The musicians too get music blocks (like writer's block). These English/foreign tunes act as saviours for them in those crisis hours of deadpan phases.

I am not condemning these musicians and composers, as the songs they copy have all become hits and rage among masses. Since the exposure to world music is still very little for the common masses, at least the public is exposed to some good music through these plagiarized versions.

Old is Gold

What is it with old friends? When you hear their voices, something in your heart flutters; there is a steady hum of old songs in your mind, and you are suddenly filled with a sense of happiness. I received a call in my mobile........a long distance call from my friend Supriyo from across the seas. We were in school together and not exactly that close I must say. He became closer when he was engaged to one of my best friends. But when I heard his voice after such a long time, my heart leapt with joy. And the other day Abhiru caught me in gtalk. He was in Shanghai, getting bored and searching for someone to talk. We chatted for almost an hour and re-lived those old days.

It's suddenly raining old friends. I talked to Reema over the phone. She is in US and is thinking of coming back to India. We talked about old friends and school days. And then I got a scrap from Tanay asking me if I am the same Shyamali from his batch of '89. and he also caught me in gtalk.

It's wonderful to have those old friends back in life. They are our true teasures.

I must owe all this to Orkut. Since last year I have found many long lost friends through it. I found Reema, Bilu, and Swati. Today I found Tanay who was the numuro uno bichhu of the class. And then Abhiru, Supriyo, Anirban and NP Singh. The list seems to be growing by days.

Life is really worth exploring........................everyday!

Background: Violence against Indian students in OZ. Within the last couple of days there has been rampant violence against the Indian students in Australia and many accuses these act of violence to racism.

I thought I would add my contribution to this flame war. My personal account.

I have never been a student in Oz. But last year, I had an opportunity to stay there for quite sometime and mingle closely with the people over there. I have seen how they behave with foreigners, especially people from asian countries like India and Pakistan.

Before landing in Oz many of my colleagues had warned me about this racism and I just laughed it away. I am going there on work, will stay there for a considerable amount of time, and will work closely with the Aussies.

But I started feeling a strong vibe of racism as soon as I landed in my hotel. The staff at the reception made me wait for at least 10 minutes though there was no other guest there. It was quite late at night and I had a long travel. When they finally handed me the keys to my room, they didn't even direct me to the floor and no one helped me with my luggage. I was hungry and had to make a phone call home to let my parents know about my safe arrival. I rang up the hotel reception to help me out with the phone call. The instructions written on the chart beside the telephone seemed too complicated for my fatigued brain. But they refused quite rudely. I finally figured out after much fumbling and was successfully able to connect to my parents. They were dead worried and the phone call was a relief for them. I thought of ordering room service but once again the reception people refused to help saying the room service is closed. It was a long night ahead and I was really hungry. So I called up the restaurant I had seen next door to the hotel. They immediately took the order and delivered room service. Thank god I survived!

I stayed in the hotel for two weeks till I shifted to my own apartment. And believe me or not, I received the same treatment throughout. Mine was a service apartment kind of a suit with facility for cooking. When I saw some of the cooking bowls provided by the hotel were chipped, cracked or broken at the edges, I requested the staff to change them. I explained to them that using these utensils in microwave can be harmful and carcinogenic. Well I got only one bowl changed, that too after a week, when the manager or one such executive came to check the room and I politely explained him the situation. But the funny part is, at the time of settling the bills, they billed me for a bowl saying I had broken it and that's why they had to replace it. The matter got settled though but I will never forget the way they behaved with me. Will you call it racism?

The next incident happened when I was returning from the office one day. I had to take a bus to my residence and was waiting for one at the bus stand. I was first on the queue and was reading my evening paper leaning against the post. The bus arrived and the driver opened the door. I stepped my right leg on the front foot board ready to get in. Suddenly, to my horror, the driver was closing the automated door on my leg and it got trapped. I was feeling the pain. I shouted and gestured at the driver to open the door. Behind the glass door he made rude gestures and when I was about to shout out for help, the door swung open. There was a volley of abuse inflicted on me. The driver shouted saying it would serve me right for getting into the bus first. I was so visibly shaken and humiliated I couldn't say anything. It wasn't even a month I had been there. Now I believed what they meant by racism. To top it all, none of the people standing behind me in the queue protested.

I would put these as sporadic incidents of racism which is not the usual behavior of the Aussies. They are a good race. People are usually very friendly. Some of my good friends now are the Aussie colleagues I worked with. I had a great land lady.But that doesn't mean I have not had my dose of racial discrimination in the office. A few of my colleagues ensured I had a very harrowing time. Their derogatory and insulting remarks and behaviour made me feel miserable in the first two months. It's only when I proved my capability (that was way above them) and the somewhat benevolent liking that the Program Director and the Implementation Lead bestowed on me that they amended their attitude. But I could feel the negativity till the last day. Even on the roads and shops there is an undercurrent of racism. Even if people are nice and friendly but drunken violence, and stray abuses inflicted on the Asians are rampant. I never ventured late in the evening as I was advised not to do so. The reason -- violence meted against the Asians.

I don't know how to put in words and whom to support in this hour of crisis. On one hand, I had wonderful time with my Aussie colleagues and still share great rapport with them. All of them are willing to get me back to Oz, so much so, that they even asked me to migrate. On the other hand, it's true that you are treated like a second class citizen and made a victim of racial discrimination.

But we also have to try to blend with them and their a culture a little. In that way, we will be much tolerant towards them.

Let's hope this spate of violence ends soon and let these be sporadic incidents and not repeated in future.

Australia is a great country to live and to work. Some people should not make outsiders unwelcome just by demonstrating their rowdiness and parochial behaviour.

Campus Novels: A new sub-genre in Indian English fiction

The corpus of Indian English fiction has been expanding rapidly in the last few years. Modern Indian fiction in English is exploring several new genres and sub-genre which is considered to be a healthy trend. It is no longer about colonial and post-colonial hangovers; neither concentrates on the anthropological, socio-economic or political canvas of the country. It is more urban and modern, exploring themes as varied as aspirations of modern youth, their achievements and frustrations, career stories, contemporary social trends, quest for urban roots, living life as a single woman in big cities, exploring sex and alternative sexuality and middle class Indian dreams set in the background of completely different characters and locales. There are many new players in the industry and writers are more experimental. A young brigade of writers is now carving a niche in the world of India’s new-age fiction, churning out corporate novels, thrillers, chick-lits and campus novels to name a few sub-genres. The books produced by this generation are "not about partition, or the Emergency, or three-generational family sagas written in Oxford English. Instead, the topics are populist and contemporary (college, finding a job, looking for love) and the English is as unpretentious as a call-centre cubicle. At the same time, these novels still do what novels have always done: serve as guides in a confusing world”, says New Delhi literary agent Renuka Chatterjee. "Suddenly, everything has changed so much," says novelist Namita Gokhale. "So people use these books to try to find where they're located in all this." And that has made the new pop fiction a runaway success. They have also been helped additionally by the low price tag and the high end distribution channel. Also, out-of-the-box marketing has been the new game plan. Another big change in Indian writing is that it is no longer dependent on approval by the West. The new authors talk exclusively to an Indian audience. In fact, a Western audience would not be able to comprehend the slang and similes used in their books. The Western audience is not in focus anymore. Indians want to read about themselves and write like they talk.

Recent trend has shown that campus novels sell well in India. Campus novel is a novel, usually comic or satirical, in which the action is set within the enclosed world of a university (or similar seat of learning) and highlights the follies of academic life. Campus novels exploit the closed world of the university setting, with characters inhabiting unambiguous hierarchies. They may describe the reaction of a fixed socio-cultural perspective (the academic staff) to new social attitudes (the new student intake).These novels may be simplistic, obvious, even banal, but is, perhaps, the most accurate description of campus life set in the country’s famed colleges and universities. These novels are managing a mix critical acclaim with commercial success. Most college novels have simple narratives and are spun around study pressures, social integration and a romantic twist. They have a comic undertone and deal with issues that college goers have often faced.

The university is a kind of microcosm of society at large, in which the drives and conflicts of life in the street outside are displayed and may be studied in a cool, detached way. Hence, campuses across the country have become a fertile ground for fiction. Most of these novels are based on first hand experience of the writers and hence exudes an authenticity. They might not be entirely factual and might often contain exaggerated situations, but most of the readers can relate to them in some way or other. At this point, we have to keep in mind the huge reader base of urban youth (the MTV generation mostly) who are ‘neo readers’ and take to books as a source of light-hearted reading at the end of a tiring day. These include college goers and those who wish to attend those campuses. These novels are also a success among the alumni fraternity who reads these novels for a sense of déjà vu and an alluring measure of nostalgia. All elements of college life like hostel humour, bad food, nicknames, depression, frustration at failures, manipulations, college romance, action, intrigue and friendship are woven into these stories.

The trend of campus novels, started with the phenomenal success of Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone, which is claimed to be a bestseller having sold a million copies worldwide. This is a campus novel following three best friends at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in New Delhi. It is a fun book but also taps into the pressures facing students at India's élite educational institutions. Chetan Bhagat's big contribution to Indian publishing has been to bring out a whole segment of readers that publishers had traditionally believed never existed, the college and high school students, the under-25s, who would rather buy a pizza or go disco-dancing than spend money on a book. It might also have earned itself a place in the history books as the trigger for a trend that might have shaken up the Indian publishing industry.

Close to Bhagat’s heel is Abhijit Bhaduri’s Mediocre But Arrogant, a campus novel set in the ‘Management Institute of Jamshedpur’, from where his hero graduates to land his first job in HR. The book is written in a lucid tone, interspersed with comic overtures, in class notes style. Harishdeep Jolly, an alumnus of IIM Bangalore is the author of Everything You Desire: A Journey Through IIM, a book, which deals with the issues of career and relationships. Joker in the Pack by IIM alumni Ritesh Sharma and Neeraj Pahlajani is another novel set in IIM campus. Karan Bajaj’s Keep Off the Grass is a novel that revolves around a Indian American investment banker who, in order to find his roots in India, joins the IIM and undergoes a mix of bizarre experiences -- smoking marijuana, travelling to Dharamsala, selling soaps and shampoos in Benaras and the likes.

Above Average by Amitabha Bagchi is a campus novel that traces the journey of Arindam Chatterjee, a middle class Delhi boy to IIT, Delhi, where life revolves around proving mathematical truths and chasing elusive high of rock stardom and campus fests. It’s a funny account of growing up years in campus as an intelligent, sensitive, ambitious and confused persona, all of which a modern day youth can relate to. Amitabha Bagchi says young Indians want to read about themselves "not entirely as an act of narcissism but also as part of a process of adapting to, and learning to live in, a social milieu that is evolving faster than most people can comprehend." Tushar Raheja’s debut novel Anything For You Ma’am: the love story of an IITian is another book that deals with the IIT campus. He claims it is a book on his life and friends. Sachin Garg’s A Sunny Shady Life is a novel about Sunny Singh who is a student at DCE (Delhi College of Engineering) and his engineering life. The book is essentially about the curiosity, the randomness, the entropy of highest order which a young mind goes through.

Bombay Rains Bombay Girls by Anirban Bose breaks free from the ground of setting novels in premiere IIT and IIM campus. It is set up in a medical school where Adi, a small town eighteen year old with a giant inferiority complex comes to study medicine. The author spins a fantastic yarn of campus life with bunch of quirky characters, campus ragging and campus politics, together with the challenge of learning the mysteries of human anatomy, discovering love and heartbreaks and interpreting new meanings of friendship.

There are campus novels set in the famous university campuses like the one in JNU. Sumthing of a Mocktale by Soma Das, a former post-grad student at the university is a book that takes a look at JNU politics and culture that is characterized by jeans, kurta and jhola. Srividya Natarajan’s novel No Onions nor Garlic is set in the University of Chennai campus and becomes the hub around which the story revolves. The story is presented in a hilarious manner and lampoons the academic world of the English department. In a true Wodehousian tradition, Natarajan has presented quirky, humorous characters, plots and sub-lots building up to an amazing climax in true Indian movie tradition. Also worth mentioning here is Tin Fish by Sudeep Chakravarti. Set in the elite Mayo College boarding school in Rajasthan, this novel has been publicized as a school story. Funny, wry and sad by turns it takes you through the pre-teen and teenage years of Barun Ray, the narrator. Three Makes a Crowd by Kaushik Sirkar is on hostel life at Dehradun’s Rashtriya Indian Military College. It’s a story of three friends and their escapades at IMA.

The uncompromising modernity of this type of new writing is so uplifting. Indian pop fiction might be banished to second-class status by critics, says Bhagat, "but it's not that to the people who read it." For them, it tells the stories of their own lives, and looks ahead to India's thrilling if uncertain future. That sums it all up. Campus novels are here to play a long innings. And the best deal of this entire new sub-genre of Indian English fiction is that reading is slowly getting back in fashion in India.