Voice - The Musical Rang De Basanti

Pentagram the Indian - Electronic-Rock and now "punk" band is back with another album. I have listened to their earlier album - Up. Up had pretty well balanced songs with decent lyrics and music. As it was more of an electronic album than a rock album - it created more of squeaky, creaky and monotonous sounds. I used to listen to Up when i get back to bed, my thoughts and their creaky-squeaky sounds clash and i used to slip from thoughts to sound and sound to thoughts and finally in to slumber without much hassles. As usual, the tape was flicked by someone and then back to good old rock.

"Voice" the new single aired on VH1 caught my attention because there was a lot of hoopla behind it . VH1 and Nokia together wanted the audience to shoot a video for this single. It is nice way of cost reduction - wonder Vishal has done some 6 sigma course in streamlining processes involved in music to earn better profits out of it. The video which shows some incoherent clippings by some maniacs around the country and some quotes and captions floating across the screen. Quotes include - smoking kills, no reservation, my voice and so on. Now that very well squares up the much needed social commitment, earning musicians should show.

After Rang de Basanti, the Indian entertainment industry never really ventured in to this very new arena of social changes and the valiant struggles involved in it. Though RDB proved to be a success, bollywood never had the guts to go in that direction. It is because of the unpredictability involved with the movie going masses. The trend ended there, with RDB. But now Pentagram is back with "voice" in a much cheaper and affordable way to kindle the revolutionary mindsets of the x-box crowd (Check the Video).

Lyrics of this song is also baffling. Definitely you will find people who will identify with this song. Now that should be the reason why VH1 is promoting this song and why Vishal- the lead singer of this band and very successful bollywood music director took the risk of making this album.

are we gonna ask the questions that scare me

I suppose, we need to constantly ask disturbing questions, ain't it?

are we gonna break the bonds of silence -

Not really. if so, ain't there so much of silence?

will i find the truth in my reflection -

How will you and me answer this, for, this should be a self inquisitive question.

will i see the meaning of my defiant -

Most probably not because we are not endowed with such a longevity

cuz there are words that must be said -

Enough and more!!

and there are words that must be heard

Very true - But whose, mine? Yours? or from those crowd in the video? Oh... no!

and that they're not as really quite absurd

May be not, but the video doesn't suggest so!

and there's a footstep in the clouds

True, all i know is that, for sure, the crowd in the video doesn't have their legs planted on earth!

and there is warmth in drops of rain

Hmm.. May be up there in the clouds, yes it might be warm - but down here rains have moulded themselves in to these devilish macho creatures wrecking havoc! it is not any more the light romantic drizzle!!

and there's a meaning to the words i say

Are you talking about the gringopalagos caviar and cataviore salad??

i need a voice now

Oh... i am helpless

come be my voice now

Me?? No way!!

find me a voice now .... yeah

Helpless.. again...

come be my voice now

Me?? No way!!

give me that choice now

Hey what the heck? I thought choice is the buzzword of this century!

you be my voice now

Bhaaak Saale.. Voice..!!

I thought i will disect this song-Lyrics in black, Comments in red. I dont have any kind of business interest in flogging this venture. I dont beleive in this song, its motive - selling "voices" for better choices, against reservation, against smoking, against the so called system that tolerates and accomodates everyone. Yes it is repressive and chaotic but it moves on taking time to dole out justice and equality. There is another section of crowd who have been waiting for years and years - always scorened at, who beleives in myth and magic and reel out of poverty. Voice & Choice is not all "Voices" ,for, i beleive - it is not me who needs a voice but someone else . This is only the musical Rang De Basanti!! I am hoping to see some crowd back on streets and occasional mails thronging my inbox quoting Pentagram!

Want some hope?

Casino Royale with all its glitz and glamour dragged us in to 2007. Daniel Craig being christened as the best bond after so and so. Discussions about all the new gadgets,guns,gases,lasses and all those sun glasses. Bond is a fancy show piece; he has always struggled between his suaveness and his credulous amorousness. He made us (or at least me) think, that almost all girls are vulnerable. All you need is to dress up well and talk a bit squarish. I stopped watching movies for their action, style and its slickness. For all that matter James Bond doesn't bother me anymore. All he did in the late eighties were to run behind a Caucasian; who always wanted to torpedo some philanthropic activity By United States. I did gobble a lot of that shite but eventually i am out of it. I know that though he might run a long way more and might seduce a 100 more girls. He is not worth watching. For he is immoral or rather those stories don't hold any kind of scruples to relate to. Bond never saved us; neither will he do in the future.

When Bond hatched his plans to bust another bearded terrorist holding a glass of shaken Martini (In a Noida Multiplex) ; we had mothers of 40 children crying outside a paedophiles house. A gulp of martini and fell down a drop of tear. There is neither bond nor the local superman- The police, to address their problems. Well, in the same city with beefed up security and the compound walls reminding alcazars sat Naresh Gupta’s 3 year old son nibbling some pop-corn watching James Bond' swashbuckling stunts. The bitter truth to confront is that; he was also missing for some days but was back in a week or so, probably a lump-sum amount was paid. Media was there scouting for him; It turned out to be a bloody mark on the investment scenario in India. I don't remember though; the stock market would have plummeted some marks on that day for sure. For the mothers of 40 children who were brutally murdered did not have the nifty points to plummet and all their missing children was pushed in to a septic tank. The chief Minister did not visit the area because he believed in a superstition. These issues never bother the bulldozing stock market or the investment scenario. Amar singh the pumpkin headed realtor of Mulayam would have been busy attending a sassy party thrown by some obscure socialite and was probably having a stirred martini.

Rang De Basanti Thronged the Indian Silver screen with a thud. A masala cleverly weaved out of the historical struggles and the present scenario did some serious blood boiling for the multiplex going crowd. Then came the reservation ruckus; the Indian audience who were catered with the usual boy-girl love affair and the complexities involved in it; were easily gullible and RDB clearly exploited it. A RDB inspired crowd expecting to conjure a valid struggle against reservations thronged the streets of Delhi and other parts of the nation. Emails poured in; asking for help and support for this struggle for equality. Effigies of Arjun Singh was burned all around the nation; ludicrous comments like "making the boundary short for a reservation candidate" started spreading around. The up market, illusion-ed new rich in India rarely understood the nuances of this issue. Mere selfishness and inspiration gathered from a movie made them protesters.They claimed, no one in India is persecuted anymore in the name of caste, People who availed reservation in education stood galaxies away in their quality and what not. The ruckus was brought to an end with some stringent measures by the government.

Barely 6 months after this fiasco a Dalit family in khairlanji was butchered in the name of caste. Where were all the equality champions? Nobody protested nor talked about equality excepts Dalits who torched the Deccan queen Express. A drunken coot ran over some construction workers sleeping on the pavements of Mumbai; an old man who got injured was lying in front of a Govt hospital as it did not have enough space to accommodate him. He was shown on the T.V; don't know if anyone came to help him out. Champions of equality seemed to be uncannily busy. No effigies, no road blocks but just some visuals on T.V. Then came the battle in red bastion; the battle of singur. A struggle mired in mystery; A struggle by the peasants for their land in a state ruled by the communist party of India. People who believed in opportunistic politics did not wait long; they joined the bandwagon. For sure anything detrimental for agriculture will effect the nation , According to Boucher, 22 percent of India's gross domestic product comes from agriculture, but two-thirds of the population work in agriculture . Fast developing nations are always strangled with these kind of problems; after a decade or more of land grabbing the Chinese government has brought out policies to refurbish their agriculture sector. Mass discontent over the land grabbing and increased number of protests against these policies forced them to reverse the tide. We tend to realise bitter facts in a slower pace than rest of the world. Considerable increase in the contributions by Service sector and Manufacturing sector is not forgotten. Mass migration from the hinterlands towards burgeoning cities is not a new trend but this has happened on a large scale in the last decade due to our sloppy concern for this sector.

India; essentially a conglomerate of states, rolls over because of a constitution and a democracy which most of us decry about. But this electoral system has been the thin line that has moved this country ahead; if it was not in place, a country like India which incorporates so many languages ands cultures could not have succeeded. Progress and growth has been slow but a decently transparent system which ineffectively/effectively works helped this country to stay together than disintegrating. But regional jingoism has never been on the low in this nation. Increasing disparities and living conditions has forced many of this issues a bloody ending. Professionals migrating to different parts of the country in search of jobs has been a trend for long; Many a places have choked out of this influx and many despise this incoming crowd. The irony involved in this issue is; we only restrict our views to the migration of the middle class; to square it up - The migration of a doctor or an engineer or may be in lesser terms; a Professional . What goes unnoticed is a barrage of crowd that crosses their village boundaries in not so plush state transport buses and on their foot to the nearest burgeoning metro. Bangalore; a city rife with discontent about this influx has so many construction workers from all over India and i suspect their numbers to be more than that of any professionals and dogs that loiter in this city. Travelling to the outskirts of Bangalore in State run buses will reveal this fact. The decline in the rewards offered by agriculture has pushed many a lives to toil in the construction sites under rugged conditions.

Came 2007 and came articles on glossy pages about the lingering hope. Hope about a booming market, justice to everyone, no discrimination or torturing in the name of caste and creed, about a million healthy babies being born, more and more cell phones and what not. We had 2 bombings, some communal rives; an ayodhya shoot out, An-Afsal to be hanged and very few number of farmers around the country suiciding (Lets not forget, in Maharastra the government has prescribed "art of living" courses for these "suiciding farmers"). For sure there has been growth in some sectors and this has been beneficial for some who are not exactly the part of majority- Including me. Hope is quintessential for life, for, without it, life will be seemingly abrupt but glorifying the glimmer of hope and extrapolating it in a unreal way is not the answer . Nor is articulating about it in a way that it does not touch any issues on the periphery. I went through so many magazines that came out with their year ending issues and none of them differed in the contents they carried; It was all about hope and the hopeless confined to small columns as snippets. Are we evading the truth?

Read the magazines.