"Sathya Sai Baba"- The Most Successful Man (?) Ever Born

Preface: I personally don't believe Sathya Sai Baba or any mythological / historical person is/was God. In this article, I've used the term "God" to refer those religious / mythological / historical figures.

Follow or not, believe or not, agree or not, Sathya Sai Baba remains one of the most influential and successful persons (???) ever born on this planet.

People who have some opinion on Sathya Sai Baba can be broadly categorized as:

• Those who believe in God and believe that Sathya Sai Baba is a God.
• Those who believe in God but don't believe that Sathya Sai Baba is a God.
• Those who don't believe in God and hence don't believe that Sathya Sai Baba is a God.

Those who believe in him quote innumerable anecdotes, fables and stories to prove his divinity. Those against him and rationalists show equal number of scientific reasonings, youtube links of his tricks, research studies to refute all his Godly powers. This tussle between believers and rationalists, faith and common sense, proof of divinity and trickery will never end in an agreement. The debate is here to stay.

But I'm amused at those second category of people who generally believe in the existence of God but deny that Sathya Sai Baba is a God.

If one believes in avatars like Rama, Krishna, Sai Baba or believes in messengers of God like Jesus, Mohammed whats stopping them from believing in Sathya Sai Baba ? 

All the above mentioned great figures lived on this planet at some point in the history. People who revere them today do that because their fathers and forefathers asked them to do so. Forefathers got the legacy of belief from their ancestors and so on. Generations passed in that faith, belief and hence nobody asks the question as to why belief in somebody.

Rama is treated as God because one Valmiki wrote great things about him in Ramayana, the epic which influenced generations of mankind to be good. Krishna is treated as a God because Veda Vyas wrote great things about him in Mahabharata, the epic and Bhagavad Gita the holy scripture for Hindus.

Shirdi Sai Baba is treated as kaliyuga daivam because his followers and devotees have passed on the faith to next generations through books, stories about his miracles, his love and passion towards humankind.

Jesus is revered as an incarnation of the God the son, the messenger and healer, Mohammed is treated as a messenger of God; This is because of the transfer of faith from person to person and generation to generation. As per historical and religious studies, all these revered souls who are today regarded with utmost belief and respect have done great favor to the humankind by upholding righteousness, preaching good, justice, love. 

But no devout Hindu or Muslim or Christian or any follower of a religion has ever seen or questioned or suspected the existence or miracles of God. Everybody follows a faith just because they were raised in such atmosphere or belief and faith. So if they can believe in the God recommended by others, why can't they believe in Sathya Sai Baba and his miracles blindly ?

Ain't believing in God, but suspecting Sathya Sai Baba tantamout to hypocrisy and double standards ?

If nobody has an iota of doubt about Lord Rama's turning a rock into an woman or Lord Krishna's demonstrating vishwaroopam, Shirdi Sai Baba's lighting lamps with water, Jesus' resurrection after crucification, Mohammed's revelations - Why is Sathya Sai Baba alone put under scanner to prove his divinity ? When he proclaims that he is an avatar or Shirdi Sai Baba, why can't they just accept it like they have been doing with other Gods without getting into logic, sense, rationality, reasoning ? Why this partiality towards Gods, huh :)

Coming back to my first sentence, Sathya Sai Baba is great for reasons known to many.

When he proclaimed he was a God, people instantly believed him, flocked to obtain his darshan and never gave a damn about any kind of disbelief as if they were waiting for his arrival. Now his follower base ranges from 6 million to 100 million. Who else can pull this off so successfully notwithstanding any hullabaloo from atheists, rationalists who bang their heads with proofs in their hands ?

His miracles are amateur and bland compared to those of PC Sorcors, David Copperfields; his oratory skills are below average, his teachings are not remarkably new or different from those of other saints or gurus, his knowledge in philosophy or religion was never demonstrated; he was a philanthropist but no other philanthropist is ever called "God" due to their social work. Yet, he has the confidence to declare that he is beyond all investigation, reason, comprehension, scrutiny or senses. Whoa !!! Who else can show-off such confidence.

I think twice to claim I'm good at what I'm good at but this man (???) could claim so much and nobody had a gut to take him off his pedestal from last 8 decades. Amazing and astonishing.

His trust worth officially some  4,00,00,00,00,000 (yes that's 40 thousand crore) is exempted from all taxes, records, transparency; his VIP devotee list would be longer than this blog-post itself; heads of nations, most powerful industrialists, richest and most successful people form a beeline to get his blessings. Astonishing

Despite building a wealthy empire, he was good enough as a philanthropist to share a part to people who believed in him. Though he didn't preach anything distinguishably new, he never incited his followers for his personal interests. May he RIP.

If he is indeed God, he is eternal beyond description for having spread the message of love to millions of his devotees and healing them all out of their distresses. If he was a fake, he is even greater for scripting and creating an aura for himself which brutally fooled millions of common, rich, powerful people for 8 decades.

Either ways, he lived a life Kingsize..err...Godsize !

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Trivia (silly stuff which you can skip) :D

1. I wrote my EAMCET exam in Sathya Sai school in DD Colony, Hyderabad. Invigilators used to say "Sai Ram" before they speak anything and everybody thought my friend Sai Ram was cheating in the exam. But he got disqualified despite the name and exam center :-S
2. I always feel AR Rahman looks so much like Sathya Sai Baba minus saffron robes and that hairdo :D

Fans & Fanaticism - Movies & Politics

Some people take pride in claiming themselves to be "fans" of a certain politician or a movie star. The term fan is not seen as a negative connotation but as most people don't realize, it is derived from the word "Fanatic". For all practical purposes words like fanatic and fanaticism are taken in a negative sense which mean excessive, out-of-limits and prejudiced liking of somebody regardless of logic, merit and sense.

Politicians, movie stars and celebs generally suffer from an incorrigible disease called nepotism which they display by transferring their public image to their children or relatives. Politicians make their son / daughter / spouse as their successors as if political power given by voters is their private property. Useless and worthless heir apparents take on the mantle and plunge into the field of politics directly becoming an MLA or an MP. Sometimes even worse, they dream of becoming prime minister / chief minister just because they were born in a particular family.

We can't blame only the parent or the child who does this. Everybody wants to see their children or loved ones in a powerful and successful position. Rather its their so called "FANS" who should be blamed for this unfortunate situation. Without their knowledge, these bigots are rotting the society by accepting and helping worthless, ineligible, selfish successors to adorn the throne just because of their partisan favoritism.

Indira Gandhi became PM just because her father was an ex-PM. Rajiv Gandhi, who didn't know basic demographics about India, became PM out of the blue because of his lineage. Then the power automatically passed on to Sonia Gandhi and now to Rahul Gandhi. Its not limited to one political party. TDP, DMK, Shivsena, BJD, TRS, JD, SP, NC, now YSR Congress and every other party runs family show, thanks to naive fans and cadre. All these so called dynasties were established by able leaders. And his fans (and their generations) have automatically ended up becoming devotees of not only their idol but also his next few generations. So illogical !!!

If there is another angle for this senseless fanaticism, that's "CASTE". We are in a society where exit polls and opinion polls forecast the winner based on number of voters belonging to the candidate's community. Shame. Political parties field candidates based on caste dynamics and voters flock like herd of sheep to blindly vote for their "representative" without realizing what kind of benefit they reap just by seeing a person of their community winning. Weird and sad.

Today we have political parties unofficially affiliated to castes and religions. A Hindu party, a Muslim party, a Dalit party, a Yadav party, a Kamma party, a Kapu / Reddy party, a Brahmin party, a Velama party, a Gowda party, an OBC party, an Atheist party and so on. But the interesting part is that no such caste affiliated party has done remarkable service to the caste they represent. Its senseless fans and their bigotry which propels these polarization of the society, which is dangerous to the very secular fabric of the country.

Thus fans who get blind-folded by their prejudiced and uncritical devotion to their caste and favorite dynasty rot the society by disallowing worthy and sensible leaders.

Movie and entertainment industry is another area where fans give undue and inappropriate worth to people who belong to a certain lineage or a certain caste.

Bollywood, Tollywood, Sandalwood or take any wood, 90% of current lead actors are sons of yesteryear actors. Same is the case with directors, music directors, villains and even vamps. Again, we can't blame those successful stars for passing on the mantle to their children, but how can a movie goer so easily like or blindly worship somebody appearing on screen just because he is a brother or son of some icon. I can never understand this kind of devotion.

I don't really know if caste forms an important factor of liking a movie star in other parts of the country, but Andhra Pradesh suffers from this unfortunate tendency. And the worst part is that fans of those caste based icons spread venom against actors of other castes and this phenomenon has created a polarization which is directly transported to politics too as every caste based matinee idol is associated with some political party (due to fans pressure, they say), again unfortunately.

Younger generation stars of these idols become a massive election rally crowd pullers or are given a honorary title even before their first movie is released. And yeah, fans, fans associations, youth associations clamor at the very sight of their favorite hero irrespective of whether the piece of art is worth a clap or not.

Politics and Movies - These two fields are rotten big-time by self proclaimed fans who are nothing but a confused lot who get carried away by unwarranted bias for caste, lineage and such irrelevant affiliations. May they all get well soon !

Whom to choose between Parents and Life Partner ?

Marriage is THE most important event in anybody's life. It builds new relationships, changes lifestyle, brings more responsibility, matures you as a person. But some people inadvertently fall into a predicament of either compromising on their existing family relations and values to start a new phase of life or uphold old relations and end up not respecting the new relation it deserves.

Parent children relationship in Indian society is much different to that of other parts of the world. Parents don't wait for kids to get self sufficient and move out, they don't expect kids to work part-time to make their own living. From the time they give birth to their children, parents care, love, suffer, protect, pray for the well being of their children regardless of how old their kids are and regardless of the necessity to do so.

For a boy or a girl, parents will be everything; but with marriage, the dynamics tend to change. Attraction, liking towards that new important person of the life, a feeling of sharing the rest of the life, discovering new things about that person will drive a strong affinity which will make life partner as important as parents or siblings. Thats quite natural for everybody.

But just think from parents' point of view. They would be put in a situation to share the love, attention, affection from their child they were habituated to from past 25 years with a new person who came into their child's life some days or months ago. Parents will be mentally prepared, they know thats life, but still their heart always doesn't agree with their mind; it causes loneliness. Its just not fair.

Youth has to understand that parents need more attention and a feeling of possession in that phase. A boy has to assure his parents that he hasn't gone away from the family, but has brought another child for their parents. No guy neglects his parents deliberately, but proper care should be taken to ensure that his parents whole heartedly accept the girl as a daughter-in-law and not just as a wife to their son. It needs a lot of words and lot more actions.

The way of life should not be drastically different post marriage; Thats the first thing to make his parents feel "yes, he hasn't changed". He has to spend as much time with parents as he did before, do the same things, be the same. Thats very important. He has to help his wife in her trials to build confidence in his parents even at the cost of his own ignominy, thats worthy.

At the same time, the boy has to make his in-laws realize that he didn't separate their daughter from them. They have given their daughter away to an unknown family and would obviously be very apprehensive and nervous. Some words of love, some acts of togetherness will make them happy and content about their decision to get their daughter married to him. Treat them like your family. They need that love and care from their son-in-law to overcome the feeling that their daughter is away. After all, they are a family too.

Girl's role is equally important. When a girl enters a new family, she has three choices

• Be a wife to her husband and start changing him to make her dreams about married life come true.
• Try her best to show love to the family and treat her in-laws like the way she treats her own parents
• Try her best to show love to the family and treat her in-laws like the way her husband treats his parents.

Agreed that every girl enters a married life with lot of dreams and aspirations, but the day she decides to change or manipulate her husband to her tunes is the day when happiness in their lives starts waning. However loving her husband could be, no boy enjoys the feeling that he is being taken away from his parents.

The other two choices sound very close, but are different. Girl has freedom with parents, her parents can forgive if she hurts them or behaves stupidly. But for in-laws, the factor of forgiveness and taking it easy doesn't arise all the time. Its nobody's mistake, thats life in simple terms.

So a girl has to try treating her in-laws like her husband treats them or may be better than that. Initial months or a couple of years of such relationship will develop that mutual love, admiration and affection and parents tend to accept daughter-in-law as their daughter and not just their son's girl. That day, girl can not only tune her husband but also her whole family (including in-laws) to make her dreams come true as no in-law would not like to listen to the girl who came from other place to take care of them more than their son.

A girl always feels responsible for her parents too. So if a boy takes care of her parents, that reflects in a girl's behavior towards his parents. Thats a successful marriage. Happiness starts exactly there. And thats a lifetime of happiness.

Now comes the interesting part. How to behave with your life partner after the wedding.

Boy always speaks volumes about his parents to his fiancée, which is very common. Girl patiently listens to everything and says she loves to get into the family and loves the joint family. Even this is equally common :D

After marriage, the boy wants to show their parents that he is not a changed person, and thats really important as per the previous discussion in this article. At the same time, its also important for him to understand that a girl leaves her parents, siblings, old ways of life just to be with him. She arrives into a new family with lot of fears, apprehensions as she doesn't know behavior, attitude, tantrums, temperaments of the new family. This is a great sacrifice which she makes out of love and trust. She deserves a lot of respect and love just for that fact.

Dragging her into his world always works against the relationship. A girl who comes would be the youngest in the family in terms of age, maturity. She may or may not know how things work in his family. She may not know what irritates his parents or what are their ways of life. She may need to face ire of her in-laws. Sometimes she may get dejected, disappointed and would not even have her parents and siblings around to share. She comes into the family with aspirations and dreams and soon gets depressed and drags herself into a viscous web of negativity.

So a guy has to ease his wife into her new life by taking care of her, making his parents understand her habits, not forcing her to do anything which she doesn't like, not restricting her to talk or move freely with her parents, siblings, friends, not making negative remarks about her past life, making her feel free in the new atmosphere, doing things she likes, showering her with love and attention she expects. In short, a boy has to treat his wife as a princess, which would not be a herculean task (and especially if they got married recently) :)...she deserves it !

Girl floats in day dreams from the time the marriage is fixed. She starts weaving a wonderland with her husband and herself as protagonists. But she has to realize that her would be in-laws are important characters in her fiancé's life. She can't live a happy life by dragging him out of his family. A girl is brought up with the thought that she has to leave her parents after marriage. But boys aren't. So boys are not mentally prepared for any kind of transition and if something happens in that direction, they will be heart-broken (except if he is insanely selfish and ungrateful). So girl has to understand this predicament.

A girl also has to realize that her in-laws initially tend to get possessive about their son and hence expecting them to be super nice is only unfair to them. The quicker the girl makes her in-laws realize that she is not here to separate their son from them, the merrier her life would be. The moment she gets cosy and friendly with her in-laws, she can find her husband in her kitty in no time. It may take some time, but definitely happens. Thats the secret, not many girls know.

There will be lot of negative influencers like male chauvinists, ultra feminists, pseudo intellectuals, so called experienced bigots who try to brainwash youth as how to keep wife / husband / in-laws in "control". Beware, thats a slow poison. Heeding to those irresponsible pieces of advice will only turn the prospect of a happy family into a war zone.

A successful marriage need not be an arranged marriage or a love marriage. But it needs a union of two matured, understanding, loving people who can bring two families together instead of ripping apart their spouses away from their respective parents.

So the question in title, whom to choose between parents or life partner ?

Simple answer: You have to choose if parents and life partner are on opposite sides. Do you need to, if they are on the same side ?

So what can you do to get them on the same side ? Whatever on Earth it takes, its worth.

PS: After my marriage, my parents have gone out of their way to share their love to my wife and my wife bypassed me to become their daughter and she treats / calls them Amma and Nanna. So all of them are on the same side and pushed me on to the other side. They never cared and I don't complain either. Touchwood :)

How to be Bad ???

Life is all about actions and reactions and the kind of image, good or bad is created only by the way we act and react to situations and people. If we react favorably to others, goody good image will be condescended upon us or else we will be bad :) So the choice is between being good to others by reacting favorably to whatever others say or being bad to others by reacting according to our convictions. Since I'm not good by any means, I'm here to explain how to be bad :D

A decade ago, I read a book titled "Meeru Manchi Ammai Kaadu" written by eminent writer Yandamuri Veerendranath. It means "You are not a good girl" with a tagline which roughly translates to "But you are a girl with a good attitude". That's a must read not only for every girl, but for every boy too because that teaches how to mould a stable attitude without getting blindly carried away by others' opinions or directions.

World is full of people with perceptions and the bad part is that everybody perceives a situation in a different way. Everybody reacts differently, thinks differently, behaves differently and the definitions of success, happiness, failure vary from person to person. A solution for a problem would not be the same for everybody and everybody will be busy convincing others that their points of view are right :D This is the very reason for arguments, fights and negotiations

Just understand that like all others around you, you too are a person with an identity. You have tastes, thoughts, wisdom, experience, feelings which can guide you to behave in a certain way. Taking a piece of advice from others is always helpful, but the power of deciding what is correct and what is not FOR YOU lies only with you as you are the best judge of your sensibilities and senses.

If you continually live for others, follow their directions, appease and try to impress them, you will cease to live your beautiful life and end up being a pet. Even if you try to appease one person or set of persons, there would be somebody to find faults with you for sure. So never give much importance to what others think about you.

If you talk more, you will be called a chatterbox and boring, if you are composed, you will be called moody and boring :D; if you are dynamic, you are called childish, if you get vocal, you are argumentative and irritating; if you present your knowledge, people say you show-off, if you don't listen to others' advice, you will be seen as immature, if you don't agree with others' point of view, you will be called adamant and resistant. This goes on and on and on and on and...............

And this is not because others don't like you because even beloved ones don't see eye to eye on lot of things we do. Its just because of the difference in perception as I mentioned earlier. Now if we take the element of negativity like jealousy, greed, conspiracy, ignorance, anger, frustration etc, these opinions and images will transform from bad to worse and worst :D

So there is nothing called being good to the world all the time as sometime or somewhere everybody becomes bad in others' eyes. So NO BIG DEAL.

It all boils down to building convictions, developing decision making power and sticking to ideals we believe in. Its just being brutally honest to ourselves and not flowing in the tide of opinions, advices, expert comments :D

But there is a flipside too. You can lead a successful and happy life only if your convictions and decisions are correct for your way of life. Confused conviction is in common terms called as foolishness. So the conviction should be backed by knowledge, experience, wisdom, contingency plan, analytical thought, restraint, resilience, ability to cope up from setbacks, capability to bounce off harsh remarks. Without any of these qualities, having a strong attitude works against you.

There is one more highly confused and abused concept about "Attitude". Showing attitude is generally associated with being rude to others, displaying unnecessary arrogance, being judgemental about others. This is a quality of confused and immature.

People with strong attitude don't give a lot of importance to others' way of life, forget being rude and judgemental. Building attitude is all about assimilating knowledge through observation, study, experience from as many corners and possible and deciding what is right and what is wrong. Its not about being desperate to prove if others are right or wrong or if other should be respected, dominated or humiliated. Don't be bad due to what you do to others, just be bad due to what you do to yourself :)

BAD is the new GOOD. Good is not that good after all. Its BAD. So BE BAD

PS: Now after reading this whole article, its for you to decide if this makes sense to you or not as building your attitude starts right here. If you blindly follow what I wrote here without thinking twice, you are contradicting yourself :D

Music Masti Zindabad !!!

I have never come across any person with their head on shoulders who doesn't like music. If there is anything that can be declared as a universal hobby, thats listening to music, hands down.

Till I was 10, I didn't have any particular favorites and was randomly enjoying all songs played in radio. Those days, my mom was a Ghantasala fanatic and I always tried to decipher why she likes his songs so much. I was not a huge fan of him or any old Telugu songs.

The first time I seriously liked a song and yearned to listen repeatedly was SPB's "Ye Divilo Virisina Paarijathamo" which is a cult classic; and the first song I tried to (unsuccessfully) croon was "Vedam la Ghoshinche Godavari" :). I rate these two timeless songs as two of my first and also all-time favorite Telugu songs.

But if there is any album which took my feet off the ground and made me crazy about music and songs, it was "Aashiqui". The songs in that movie made me feel that Kumar Sanu and Nadeem Shravan were born only to make me realize that listening to music is the best thing to happen on earth. It won't be exaggerating if I say I listen to these songs atleast once a week even today. Yes, I've been listening to these songs continuously for last 21 years. That was the impact Aashiqui had on me. And I remember Aashiqui audio cassette was the first cassette I bought with my pocket money and thats my valued possession till date.

From then, I became a devotee of all Nadeem Shravan songs in general and their songs sung by Kumar Sanu in particular. Their albums that released between 1990 and 1995 are my die hard favorites which I saved in cassettes, then in CD's, then Mobile phone and now in iPhone. Those songs make me nostalgic and take me back to those adolescent years when I related these melodies with love, emotion, romance. My wife always says I got struck in 90's and she never understands why I get so crazy with those songs :)

Nadeem Shravan - Kumar Sanu albums which I can never forget: Aashiqui, Dil Hai ki Maanta Nahi, Saajan, Phool aur Kaante, Sadak, Dil Ka kya Kasoor, Sapne Saajan Ke, Jaan Tere Naam, Deewana, Hum Hai Raahi Pyaar Ke, Rang, Sainik, Dilwale, Salaami. Albums which were released post 1995 missed that touch and I somehow could not believe it was the same Nadeem Shravan of previous years.

AR Rahman: If anybody doesn't like ARR's music, there is something seriously wrong with them. Lot of critics flay his music as westernized which lacks melody. But I'm a bigger fan of his slow melodies rather than his fast beats. Melodies of his earliest movies like Roja, Padmavyuham (Vishwa Vidhatha in Hindi), Duet literally were breath of fresh air for me who was immersed in Kumar Sanu fever. I liked Rahman as a music director who made slow melodies in the era of nonsensical nuisance from his other contemporaries.

Maniratnam brought the best in him with Bombay, Dil Se whereas Shankar elicited fast beats from Rahman which are equally hysterical. The list goes on and on if I write my favorite Rahman albums. But for me Roja, Bharatheeyudu, Bombay, Prema Desam, Premikula Roju, Vishwa Vidhatha, Dil Se, Vande Mataram, Doli Sajaake Rakhna, Sakhi, Thakshak, Swades, YMC stand out. His music is the slowest poison and the irreparable addiction. Period !

I somehow feel his latest obsession with sufi music and fusion has diluted his awe inspiring music and I'm not his big fan of most of his recent works.

Kishore Kumar: If God exists, that must be Kishore Kumar. He triggered a tsunami in me when I discovered the genius in him, albeit very late. That happened during my engineering when I accidentally listened to some of his songs and without my own knowledge, I immersed myself in a whirlpool of Kishoreda mania. I so abused myself for having wasted my earlier years without listening to this person who is a vocal magician. The best thing is he didn't learn or intended to learn classical music. It came naturally to him.

"O mere dil ke chain", "Meri Bheegi Bheegi Si", "Mere Mehboob Qayamat Hogi", "Tere Bina Zindagi se Koi", "Chookar mere man ko", "Diye Jalte Hain", "Agar Tum na Hote", "Chalte Chalte", "Kuch tho Log Kahenge", "Mera Jeevan Kora Kagaz", "Mere Sapno ki Rani", "Raat Khali ek Quab", "Pyar Maanga Hai".....I can go on and on till I mention all 250 Kishore's songs which I have handpicked from various sources.

He is the only singer who can bring life to happy, sad, emotional, romantic moods with equal elan. Salute to him and RD Burman who gave him so many memories. Mukesh, Mohd Rafi, Manna Day, Mahendra Kapoor are more classical, but not as versatile as Kishore Kumar.

Lata Mangeshkar, aptly called as Nightingale of India, is a voice of Indian women. Her voice made heroines look good. Enough said ! Alka Yagnik and Shreya Ghoshal have heavenly voices who are taking Lata's legacy forward.

Ilayaraja is another late realization for me. I didn't know why was I so stupid to bypass the haunting melodies created by the one and only Maestro. Ilayaraja's music is the care of address for vocal melody. Instruments only enhanced his songs. Abhinandana is one of my all-time Telugu albums. There is no other album which is more versatile, more melodious and more heart-wrenching in the history of Telugu music..and I don't think any other album can surpass this in future as well. Abhinandana has been, is and will be the best.

1983-89 formed the golden era of Telugu music with Seethakoka Chiluka, Abhilasha, Saagara Sangamam, Sitaara, Anweshana, Swarna Kamalam, Geethanjali. Ilayaraaja's music was the perfect sync for K.Vishwanath's eternal classics.

Many older songs I liked in Telugu were coincidentally composed by KV Mahadevan: Muthyala Muggu ( my mom sings the title song better than anybody. I love the song), Sirivennela, Sruthilayalu are other feathers in his cap.

Fast forward to Indipop era, I so much liked Bally Sagoo's Bhangra Rap ( I didn't know what rap was at that time). Laung Gawacha, Gor Nal Ishq, Nain tere Jeha Hor Disda play in my iPhone very often :D. Liked Lucky Ali's Sifar and other albums, Adnan Sami's series of hits. Gagjit singh's ghazals are my tranquilizers :)

Speaking about singers, I somehow like almost all singers. Sonu Nigam's melodious ghazalized songs (especially in Papa Kehte Hai, Sangharsh), Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Shaukhat Ali Khan's sufi-ish songs, Devisri Prasad's beats, KK's high pitch renditions - can never get over them.

Though a lot of people don't appreciate, I am a big fan of Himesh Reshammiya and his kind of high pitch nasals too. I never felt those to be annoying.

English music is something I could not immerse completely into. May be due to my inability to comprehend lyrics in my childhood and that carried forward till late teens and by then I missed the chord to get rapt. But among the popular styles, I prefer Hip-Hop, Rap, R&B to traditional Rock, Jazz or Country. Though I love some rock songs like Final Countdown, Battle Without Honor & Humanity and also love guitar and drums, I could not relate much to rock or heavy metal music. And I feel jazz is way too boring for my liking; I don't even wanna talk about Opera. Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Akon, Dr.Dre, JLo are rapper/ musicians I heard and enjoyed.

People can disagree about the kind of music they like, but nobody can disagree with the fact that music is the ultimate sedative, addiction, time-pass, company, friend, filler and hobby one can ever have. So

MUSIC....MASTI....ZINDABAD

Historic Opportunity to India !!!

In the last few posts, I've been writing about cricket, movies, relationships, past memories and took a long hiatus from writing about any social issues or current affairs. But I felt its time I have to get back to one such important topic especially because this is the right time to do so, taking into consideration the revolution started by Anna Hazare.

Previously I have written about how corruption started in India and why is it impossible to stop corruption in the country (India - History of Corruption). I tried to analyze how goons, police, politicians, bureaucrats, media, judiciary, corporate world are helping each other in building an empire of corruption in India. But I guess, its time to take back few words with a tinge of optimism. Yes, I think "Its not impossible to fight corruption in India".

Lokpal Bill is a bill, if passed, will give special rights to a committee to investigate and prosecute any minister, people's representative (including chief minister or prime minister) or any politician or public servant. This bill has been suppressed by the Government for the past 42 years due to obvious reasons.

In the article about corruption in India, I explained that corruption starts at political / legislative level and people at that level influence executive, judiciary, media and corporate. The only problem till now is that politicians don't have a check and even if they are on the dock, they get away with weak judiciary which works as hand in glove most of the times.

India scores very high in human resources, natural resources, abundant talent, global powerhouses in industrial growth, academics and many other fields. India has people-power to work and tasks to be accomplished to develop the country. These people and tasks should be linked in a proper way to convert the country from developing to developed country; which is obstructed in a big way by the lawmakers and lawbreakers together.

The term politics is divine. Politicians are supposed to be those noble beings who strive for the development of the society with given funds without any selfish motives. But the post independent India has been witnessing a kind of politicians who pulled the very word politics in a wrong shadow. Raja, Kalmadi etc are only tip of the iceberg.

All we need is a body or a committee which is independent and which can take the legislation and executive by horns and can act as a judiciary with an iron fist. Current vigilance department, CBI, CID, anti corruption bureau are not efficient enough as they are often interrupted by politicians in various ways. Lokayukta and other Ombudsmen act in their capacities, their power is limited. We need a system to scavenge the society from these insects who are directly and indirectly responsible for India still being the developing country for the last 7 decades. Lokpal is the SOLUTION to check corrupt pests from the society.

The world is witnessing a strange phenomenon of drastic awareness. Jasmine revolution started in Tunisia. Then it took the whole of middle east by storm and first casualty was Hosni Mubarak, the dictator of Egypt. Today Libya, tomorrow Yemen, Brunei etc...May be India is on the list. India needs a campaign or a revolution to liberate itself from the clutches of democratic autocrats. The campaign has started as is snowballing into a war against corruption. Anna Hazare started it, a revolution in its inception, to establish Lokpal bill in its entirety and begin a crusade against corruption.

I first heard about Anna Hazare and likeminded people like Baba Amte back in early 1990's, thanks to sunday eenadu booklet. I was so impressed with Anna who could do so much to develop a village and make it a model village. These are the kind of people we need as our leaders. Not those who want to make money or a living out of politics.

Anna Hazare has been in social work since long time. He was involved in development of a model village and showed the world that politics is not all about exploitation. He showed the difference to the world and then started a revolution to change the whole country. Though he was in active politics, he was never into votebank or electoral politics. He is not affiliated to any political party or any associated groups. 

He is clear about his agenda. He is not afraid of getting mudslinged and branded as anti-establishment. He has taken the mighty Government of India without any kind of ill motives of prosperity. He doesn't boast about his past accomplishment. He knows he personally is not getting benefited even if his demands are accepted. He doesn't indulge in rhetoric, he is not charismatic, but has now become a face of common Indian.

This is a war against corruption, which India needs to win badly. This is the greatest opportunity, Indian masses can ask for to get rid of the corruption bogey. I know my individual support doesn't really make a lot of difference to this great campaign / revolution / war, but as they say, drops combine to become an ocean and am proud to be a drop in the ocean called Anti Corruption Wave. Are you ?

World Cup Victory - Not Just About Cricket

For the last 36 hours, the whole nation has been in a state of ecstasy and thats not going to die down anytime in the near future. So is my case. I'm in the victory hangover and have no intentions of coming out of that. When I saw news channels, I understood how the whole nation of 1.2 billion and diaspora of 30 millions NRIs throughout the world are in a rage of uncontrollable and insane joy and happiness. Now a quick question. Do you remember any other day on which the whole country was so elated with genuine, selfless and heartfelt pride ???

I know you can't remember, so can't I. I guess the previous such occasion was when India attained its freedom in 1947. Its neither an exaggeration nor a literary rhetoric. A victory in a tournament has swayed 1/4th of the world's population in such a way that many of them can easily say thats the happiest day in their lives. Nobody minded being a Gachibowli Diwakar or an Anupam Kher of Darr :) Wearing an Indian team jersey or holding an Indian flag was being considered to be a privilege. Tears of joy, chants of Indiaaaaaa India were omnipresent. All this for a simple win ?? No..

This win has brought a kind of pride in every Indian (including those NRIs who don't really like associating themselves with India). This win has put Indians on a pedestal where others can't reach. This win has asserted domination over other playing nations and ex-champions. This win has bolstered the patriotism that gets generated whenever a team of 11 guys enters the field with INDIA written on their jerseys. This win has upheld the belief of millions who prayed, followed rituals, sentiments for a cause which will no way benefit them. This win has brought every Indian together irrespective of religion, region, intellect, language, status or other barriers especially when everything else in political and other lines was going bad. This win has created a euphoria of national integration. This win has proved a point that INDIA IS THE BEST. So, its not just about a win in cricket.

Like we see morons opposing or criticizing every celebration of a positive vibe, there were few (like Ramgopal Varma) who either want to make some stupid impression by being "different" or don't know how to take pride in such things. But as I said, they are MORONS and matter ends there :)

Coming to my story of enjoyment, it had no bounds. I was closely following most of the matches in the tournament in general and matches India played in particular. Difference in time zones made me go to bed early and wake up by 4 or 5 am, which I would not have done otherwise even if my career or anything else was at stake. So that explains everything.

The last few days since quarterfinals were like festival or a household function which pulled me into this high spirits, sleepless nights, obsession and anticipation. Matches against Australia and Pakistan made me go weak in knees and the finals almost took my breath away. I hardly sat at once place and in the later stages of the match, I hardly sat at all. Cheering went berserk, screamed at the top of my voice till it went mute, brandished my fist till it pained. My white neighbors too cheered for India to show their solidarity, but most of them don't know that Canada too played in the tournament :D. I want to return their favor by wishing Canada to reach finals in the next world cup (only to get defeated by India in the finals). I know that wouldn't happen and my white friends can wait for their lifetime :)

Facebook cheering multiplied the excitement and made me feel like cheering with all my loved ones in a single place. My family (mom, wife, sister, mardal, bava) joined me in this e-cheering along with all my loved cousins and friends. Simply enjoyed it. Those who missed this Facebook cheering part missed a lot.

Coming to the match itself; like the whole country, I too felt so happy for Sachin. He deserves this and the better thing is the whole team were united, charged and motivated to gift these winning moments to the immortal stalwart. The tears which stayed in my eyes after winning, rolled down seeing Yuvi, Dhoni, Sachin, Bhajji cry. I didn't mind crying for this reason. If I remember, the last time I broke into tears was some 14 years back when I got EAMCET results :D

I'm so happy for captain cool as he needed that knock badly. After teaching India how to make winning a habit by getting T20 championship, ICC test ranking - 1, ICC ODI ranking - 2 (now 1:) under his leadership, and after proving what he is made of on and behind wickets, he still needed to make some runs to prove his mettle. Critics who have seen bad phases of demigods like Gavaskar and Tendulkar didn't realize the age old cliche that form is temporary but class is permanent. 11 members can play but captain is a joining thread and if anybody deserves the credit for world cup victory, its him for his team selection, field placement, order shuffling and above all his leadership and driving the unity and momentum, period ! Gary Kirsten's services were priceless too.

Sachin and Sehwag with their intimidating starts,Yuvi with his purple patch, Zak with his deadly missiles, Gambhir, Kohli and Raina with electric fielding and dependable middle order consolidation, Ashwin, Nehra, Munaf, Bhajji who proved that bowling is not India's weakness, taught the world what wonders can teamwork do. Sreesanth, Piyush, Yousuf can be forgiven in this utopia :).

Going back to my post match revelry, I was never so dotty is an understatement :) I violated all traffic rules, jumped signals, honked like crazy for no reason, hopped with joy, jumped with ecstasy, hugged some 100 people, screamed at every Indian looking guy, distributed sweets (bought at Sri Lankan store), shouted at my loudest voice before TV cameras. To keep it short, I was WILD.

I so wanted to write this post in the blog since yesterday but I was too busy with celebrations. Lot of my friends and cousins reminded me repeatedly to document the day in blog which I felt very sweet and humbling. Guys, this is for you. I was so surprised to see that my previous article Bleed Blue - De Ghumake gathered a whopping 263 views in 3 days, more than that of any of my previous articles. I'm sure a lot of them might have thought that article was about World Cup Victory. This post is also for them all :)

Till yesterday my Hawaii recount article was the most viewed article of the blog which had to bow to the cricket maniac world of readers :)

To conclude, just wanted to keep you informed that Bleed Blue became Bled Blue; De Ghumaake became Diya Ghumake; and I'm Loving It :))