‘Rock Ethos’

Finally we have one!!! A concert where Indian Rock Bands get together and play ONLY originals!!!

Finally,

The ‘Indian Rock Band’ even today is worse than a prostitute. Given a regular audience, it HAS to play the played and overplayed stuff, whether the band likes it or not. There are people who scream ‘CAN YOU PLAY KAJRAREEE’ as soon as the band hits the stage. Nothing more demotivating than that.

Oh well, you can aruge all that you want. The band needs to play FOR the audience, how can the band play only what it wants to. It is an endless debate.

But now all that matters is that ‘Rock Ethos’ is here!!

I think I’ll have to go alone. It IS a concert for a niche audience; not easy to get company. Day long concert, so I will take a book and my camera along.

Long Live Indian Rock!

 

Dany, Kathavaseshan, T.V. Chandran and CHAVARO.

Thanks to Jithesh, I saw two movies of T.V. Chandran’s recently - ’Dany’ and ‘Kathavaseshan’. Both of us love those movies and frequently discuss them. Jithesh seems hell bent on convincing people that ‘Dany’ is a better movie. I don’t know which is better or even if it is fair comparing the two. Nevertheless both of us agree that we are talking about two truly great Malayalam movies.

What inspired me to write this article is a funny discovery that we made yesterday. We were watching a part of ‘Kathavaseshan’ since we had felt like listening to the lovely song ‘Kannum nattu’. The scene after the song shows Jyothirmayi and her friend walking into some sort of a ’suicide cause investigation’ office. As they walk, the camera moves to the walls of the office where pictures of Kurt Cobain etc are displayed.

After showing the pictures of 2-3 others, the shot remains still at a photo with the name ‘Chavaro’. It shows the head of a man who died by hanging himself. I had never noticed this man when I watched the movie before. But this time, I jumped up saying ‘CHAVARO!!!!! EDA.. CHAVARO!!!!!’. For a couple of seconds, Jithesh had no clue why I was getting excited. After that, even he joined ‘AAAH. DANYle CHAVARO!!!! EDAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!’ Well, the point is that ‘Chavaro’ is a character in ‘Dany’. In the movie, Chavaro commits suicide and the narrator speculates on  why he did so. To add to our excitement, the ‘Chief Suicide Investigator’ or whatever the head of the ’suicide cause investigation’ is called appears in the scene and that turned out to be the same man who played ‘Chavaro’ in ‘Dany’.

Jithesh said there are references about ‘Susanna’, another film by the same director, in ‘Dany’. We wound up by talking about how Alfred Hitchcock appears in his movies.

T.V. Chandran neenaal vazhatte!!

 

Thottiyude Makan

I recommend the Malayalam novel ‘Thottiyude Makan’ by Thakazhi.

Simple language and a powerful story.

It is awesome!!

 

Benny Prasad

The world famous guitarist Benny Prasad did a show in our campus on December 12.

‘World famous Indian guitarist’ was probably a myth before Benny Prasad came into the scene. But it’s an irony that very few people in India know of this fellow countryman who has travelled to over 150 countries with his music. Shows at the FIFA World Cup and the Olympics, a Ph. D for his self-designed guitar, a Limca record for being the most travelled musician – for a man with such achievements, he deserves a lot more attention.

His show at our campus was rather crisp and short. The music was soulful, melodious and went down well with the audience. My friend tells me that all the three pieces that he played are very popular Christian songs. I haven’t heard the originals but he played some beautiful hindustani sounding riffs in between; his composition skills were quite evident. As much as I liked his music, I didn’t find the style all that original. Tapping, Harmonics, percussions -  someone like Justin King would probably do wonders with the guitar he was using.

The show was not just about his music. Benny Prasad shared with us the remarkable story of his life. Rejections in life, failures, diseases – he fought them all to get to the position he is in today. The Christmas message he had for us was quite touching – ‘Be happy for what you are’.

He brought with him, the same self-designed guitar as in the snap above. From the internet I came to know that it is called a ‘Bentar’. It’s probably a pun for Benny + Guitar. For such a lovely piece of art, he should given a sexier name. If Prof. Dumbledore were to design a bass guitar, he wouldn’t name it Dumbass, would he?