Horn not OK please!

Being a two wheeler rider most of the time and an occasional four wheeler driver on Madras roads, I am witness to a symphony every time I am on road. Not one by Raja or Rahman, but a symphony of cacophony to say the least! I am referring to the intermittent honking on Madras (of course all Indian roads, we are all the same everywhere) roads.

Indian riders and drivers honk just like that, thinking the horn is but an extension of the ABC – Accelerator, Brake, Clutch! We can see them honking just when a signal is still red and about to turn green. When u have slowed down to turn left or right. When u r not accelerating at the speed at which they want u to go. Or, the ubiquitous, I-want-to-go-first mentality, which most of us have in our blood. I think our persistent use of the horn is a reflection of our intolerance and venting of frustration. We are frustrated with almost everything in life. Why do we need to honk? There is a horn in a vehicle to signal something to a third party. Actually, it is just a safety equipment. You use the horn to tell the person something which he should know. This means that the usage is required only when necessary.

The other side of the argument (and again, is very relevant for Indians) is the we need to be old something always. When we are on the road, we tend to gaze at a lot of things, slowing down our vehicles – movie posters, billboards, people (to put it mildly). Or, the universal bad habit of the past few years – talking on the mobile when riding or driving. Some people really tend to forget that they are on a road – they are so immersed in conversations. Further, most of our pedestrians use the road instead of platforms (again, an aside to this is that most of our platforms are owned by hawkers. There are also a lot of jaywalkers on Indian roads. We act as though we own the roads – we don’t follow the speed limits laid down (again, if at all they are laid down). I feel that one should not cross 25 kmph in residential areas. Very few city roads allow you to speed (and I am saying 40 kmph!). We either are fast or slow. We go slow when we start searching for a particular place on the road. The ideal thing to do at that time is to use the parking light.

In my fleeting visits abroad, I have observed that honking is virtually non-existent. A horn is used only when it is very necessary. Honking is considered an offence. There are even no-honking zones.

I real hope that one day our pom-pom happy guys n gals learn from them.

Appreciating music

If music be the food of love, play on - Shakespeare

Music is such a pervasive element in our lives that one cannot imagine life without it.

The question is how does one appreciate music. Is there a yardstick for appreciating music? Definitely not. There are some persons who admire songs for the beauty of the lyrics. There are a lot of elements in a song to be admired. The vocals, the percussion, the orchestral brilliance, the usage of new sounds and the originality in the song. Then there are background scores. Sometimes, the use of silence, even for few fleeting seconds, adds to the beauty of a song or a BGM.

There is an oft repeated cliché – old and new music. It is almost fashionable to say, particularly in India, that “the songs of those days were.....”. Frankly, this statement amuses me. Firstly, there is no such thing as an “old song”. Every old song was new at some point of time, isn’t it? Music evolves with time and it is but natural that the sounds of one period do not emulate the other. In fact, they should not. Else, there would be monotony. There is good music at every point of time. Of course, what is “good” is certainly relative.

There is no shelf life for music. In those days, there were not many means to listen to music. Even if there were, not everyone could afford. Hence, it appeared that a song had more shelf life than that of today’s songs. But, thankfully, today, there are many avenues through which one can listen to music. Plus, we are exposed to a lot of music, unlike those days. Hence the so called shelf life appears to be less. Saying so would be myopic.

Sometimes when people listen to music, they immediately start imagining the “source” of the song, thus premeditatedly discrediting the music composer. This stunts the appreciating sense in the listener. One should dissect a song, to see the beauty in it. Of course, originality matters.  

Lastly, one should “listen” to music and not “hear” music. The right way to appreciate music is that one should not have leanings onwards one period or one person’s brand of music.  Well, one can be patronising towards one genre of music, say blues, rock etc. Some of the popular, “easy on the ears” music and one that generally appeals to all ages is “bubblegum” pop. One of the many example of bubblegum pop would be the song “Ho Gayee hai Mohabbat” by Mohammed Aslam. It is soft on the years, has a catchy hook and is addictive.

Film music is a blend of everything - which is why it is so popular, especially in India. There has been some fantastic magic created in Indian film music by way of songs and background scores. The great composer Ilayaraja was a pioneer as regards BGMs in Indian film music. Is scores in Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam have elevated the drama portrayed in the movies to greater heights. See the Telugu film “Rudraveena” directed by K Balachander, for which Raja won a national award, to see how fantastic BGMs can elevate films to great heights. In Hindi film music, one of my all time favourite background scores has been in the Hindi film “Lagaan”. A R Rahman just transformed the viewer to the 1850s with pure magic. He created a music bit for almost every character in the film. All of us have seen the serial “Mahabharat” by B R Chopra. I am sure all can remember the music bit that accompanies the character “Shikhandi” whenever he appears on the screen! Such is the impact a BGM can create. Recently, Amit Trivedi has been able to create good scores in Hindi.

Hard rock, hitherto a genre not very much present in Indian film music, has slowly started to make a mark. The song “Bhaag D K Bose” by Ram Sampat in the Hindi film “Delhi Belly” and “Sadda Haq” by A R Rahman from the Hindi film “Rockstar” are recent ones that come to mind. There are rock bands in India but they are not very popular. One of the reasons hard rock is not very prevalent in Indian music has to do with our ethos.

One of the advantages of listening to music today is there is a mind numbing variety available at a very cheap price. In most cases one can just download for free. But to be a connoisseur, one should have ears for all types of music. Language should not be a barrier to listen to music. The more variety of music one hears, one can be exposed to the mind boggling talent in music that lies across the world.

The band Enigma used just African chants and beats to great effect in their albums. Country music, anyone?