Cat

There was a cat today,

lying across the road...

there was a dead cat today,

who had left this mortal abode!

There was a cat today,

run over by a car,

none to look,none to care;

as it lay dead on the busy throughfare.

Someone had to reach office early today,

Someone was getting late on their way,

Someone had spent an extra hour in bed,

And that was why the cat lay dead...

People looked back at it in disgust,

blood splashed all over the clean roadway,

"Darn cat!Has ruined our roads",

was all that we could say!

"Thank God it wasn't a man!",they said,

As if they'd care if it were,

As if it would matter to anyone,

If a man lay dead there!

But thank god there wasn't a rally,

Or a protest march with beautiful candles lit,

Or a big T.V crew who had better things to do,

The dead cat got what was deemed fit!

"THANK GOD" cuz the cat didn't cause a jam,

Thank cuz you could drive over it just fine,

"THANK GOD" the man in the car wan't late for work,

"THANK GOD" he didn't lose a minute of his time!

And the dead cat just lay there,

Befouling our great city's roadway,

Before the moping trucks came

And washed the blood away the next day....

The road gleamed just as brightly as before-

And the cars raced back and forth through night and day,

And all of us waited with bated breath...

We waited for our next prey!

Of Rock music and more

For the past 9 months,I have been witnessing something...a phenomenon...rather a cultural revolution which seems to find its footing in the denizens of the bustling metropolises but is,slowly but surely,finding a toehold amongst the youth of the smaller mofussil towns.I still am untouched by this rapid infection but am in constant danger of contamination...

The disease....or rather,a godsend boon for some..."Rock culture"-the new brand of music that is sweeping an entire generation into its fold.Though I speak of a very tiny cross- sectional demographic of the society,it is nevertheless intriguing because so many of my peers,my juniors and my seniors seem so very addicted to it!

Rock as a genre has never quite flourished in India and the phenomena that I am talking about has got nothing to do with the emergence of authentic Indian rock...on the contrary,the Indian music scene is still dominated by "Indipop" and "Film music"...However,I am awestruck by the burgeoning fan base of people like Kurt Cobain,Jim Morrison,Billie Joe Armstrong;bands like Nirvana,Green day,Foo Fighters....People my age go crazy over songs that are sung thousands of miles away by people who perhaps never heard of Hindustan!

I am not a fan of rock music...it makes my head ache.So you can be rest assured this post is not going to be about how great rock music is ,how Kurt Cobain is "gawd" and how rock music has captured the imagination of the youth the world over.

This post is about my own personal troubles in my own little myopic world where I am much too smug to look out for other people's point of view.

I have a friend who stands out in a crowd due to his rock-devotion.He will strike up a altercation if he feels his rock-idols are getting slighted.I admire him for wearing his heart on his sleeve.

But from this point,let me enumerate my troubles.

Most of my friends who are rock fan(atic)s cannot tolerate any bit of criticism from their peers about their idols...for them,Green Day represents the pinnacle of musical achievement and nothing can ever surpass that.They are extremely touchy about anybody criticising the rock genre...god forbid if you tell them you can't stand the ear-splitting racket.They'll tell you how ignorant you are when it comes to deciphering guitar techniques or obscure lyrics that have got drowned in the electronic cacophony.

Rock claims to be non-conformist...it doesn't bow to the wishes of the conventional society,or so it says!Another point of clash.Most of my friends tend to slight pop music because it caters mainly to the populist tastes of the society.Rock,they say,is different!I sincerely don't find the difference..at the end of the day,both aim at selling the maximum number of records!It might be that rock stars belt out a different theme of music but how it becomes better than other genres is beyond my comprehension.

I used to like rock...soft rock that is!Until rock decided to move over to a heavy metal genre and attracted a worldwide fan base!Now,my friends,who are mad after Cobain don't wish to listen to such whimpers!

The point that I am trying to make is that I despise the arrogance rock fans tend to portray..at least some of them!They behave as if they're gonna change the world and hence the advent of the nonsensical "I am what I am " tag line...Its cool to be a rock fan.It isn't cool to listen to country music.It is cool to say that Cobain,Morrison died to "move on"..it is easy to glorify their suicides;cuz the whole world is doing so!~

I am afraid that in the midst of all the hullabaloo,the soul of rock has been lost.It was said that they'll never cater to popular taste..they'll do what they want,but is that what is happening now?I don't think rock is the best genre in the world...actually I don't care about genre as long as the song is good...So what right do the rock fans have to tell me that I shouldn't speak badly about Cobain?Yes,I might not know anything about marijuana or rock culture,in fact I am afraid I have portrayed my severe lack of knowledge in this post...but again,I wish to remain free...I don't want to be told that rock is the only genuine genre...all others are studio-mixes...rock is one too!Just see the back covers.

My friends say rock music is great cuz its straight from the heart...socially conscious,great lyrics and the songwriters are the singers!Celine is rubbish cuz she can't write..In the same vein,Cobain is rubbish cuz he can't sing!I have a problem with music that is dark,unnecessarily depressing,where human emotions have no value...Where idols are more notorious than "Jack,the ripper"..where genres are decided based on drug usage and where entire generations are blindly led by a desire to conform to a non-conformist trend!

I wish to be left alone with my Celine Dion..and I want to say out loud that she is way better than Cobain...and I want to have the freedom to say that Dido is better than Morrison because she has the courage to live.I do not wish to be scorned when I listen to the Spice Girls instead of Carnival of Rust.I do not wish to be told day in and day out that I am missing something great...

I may not be "man" enough to listen to Nirvana and there might be people who gawk when they hear I like female singers,but I do not care...I choose Britney Spears and I choose Andrea Corr and that is my choice...I choose to stay out of the line!

The Great Hockey Drama

For the past few days all that I can see around me is this great hullabaloo raised by the media and the common public in unison because the Indian Hockey team faltered at the final hurdle..the finals of the qualifying tournament for the Beijing Olympics 2008...The news anchors have been shouting themselves hoarse at the great "ignominy" of not being able to compete in the Olympics.I have been enlightened on the national "shame" and the great damage this "deplorable" loss has caused to the "Indian national pride".

People have been baying for blood....The hockey player's blood that is!I heard one senior journalist say that the golden era of hockey was just a matter of the past....Its time to move on and crown cricket as our national game.The popular mood seems to soundly propound this view too.The S.M.S polls resonated with general indignation at the pathetic performance of our team...especially at a time when the the cricket team has made the nation proud with its "epoch making feats".

Don't get me wrong.I'm no connoisseur of hockey.In fact,I have never ever seen a game of hockey in my life.But I still get the feeling that the mood resonated across the nation reeks of dichotomy and blatant hypocrisy.Its tough being a sportsman in this country if you're not a cricketer...Ishant Sharma gets more news coverage about his atrocious hair than the master Vishwanathan Anand...News people regularly raise a hue and cry about the burgeoning burden of expectations on the shoulders of cricketers;not a word about the apathy meted out to other sports.
We slander the team for losing in the finals...did we ever care when they thrashed other teams en-route to the finals?Did we ever cheer for them?Did the government care?
When India loses a cricket match...we say people are being unreasonable and the team played well nonetheless...we are lectured on how a team can't win every time!But heaven forbid if that same reasoning is applied to hockey.NO NO!They have to keep winning...don't bother to provide sponsorship,proper coaching,a transparent governing body or international exposure!Whenever a bunch of underfed,unnoticed,uncelebrated youngsters go out on the international arena,they have to perform like Dhyan Chand.Never mind that we are looking the other way most of the time!

I am sure the players are themselves downcast about their performance...and surely it is a sign of the downward spiral or the tailspin in which Indian hockey has entwined itself.But should we not have cried foul when the government slashed their funds?Or when a certain Sikh was declared president of the IHF for life?Should we not fret about the complete lack of transparency in the governing body????
We choose to take the easy way out.Blame the players,they are unprivileged and illiterate anyway,take our ire out on them.Glorify cricket,a sport that more than half of the globe has not even heard about!We cheer when the cricket team wins 3 matches against the same opposition,in a game that doesn't matter to 3/4 Th's of the world.We choose to compete in a sport that doesn't even have enough teams to organize a decent tournament.We beat 2 nations in Australia and went gaga over it.Does anyone even care to know how many nations we beat at the qualifying round of the Olympics?

We regularly complain that India performs terribly at international sporting arenas...But it is to be expected.After all,Dhoni's boys get 10 million every time they win against a crappy team...while the allowance we provide to Indians who play in truly International sports wouldn't buy me a bag of chips.And we expect Olympic gold.

In a way I think the sports journalist was right.Maybe cricket should be crowned the national game.We don't deserve better.We don't deserve to succeed in international sports...Making cricket the national passion has a great plus side too...We wouldn't have to worry about Olympic qualification anymore...There simply aren't enough countries~~!!