Why we do research?

I asked Professor Uwe Hasebrink, who is supervising my master's thesis, what exactly is the role of academia in society. "We do research so that smart people can make intelligent conversation in cafes," he answered without a blink.

AR Rahman: Or why shower singers like me detest you.

Composer AR Rahman may be raking in the international awards and accolades but he has a lot to answer to the joyful shower singers of the world like me.

Before he trotted up, the vocals (lyrics and singing) dominated the foreground, and the music accompanied from the background. Thus, the words, diction, and poetry made enough of an impression on our nuerons, for them to effortlessly come tumbling out in the shower. Then came Rahman and inversed the equation: the music overwhelmed the foreground, and the lyrics became helpful mumblings from the back.

But does he realise how incredibly difficult it is to sing his mumbles in the shower? My brain simply doesn't retain enough of them.

Besides, the lyricists have caught on to Rahman. Why bother with logical sequencing of words, give a proper subject and object to your poetry, or lend sense - when the mumbles are barely perceptible anyway.


Take for example, Roobaroo from the film Rang De Basanti (2006). Such fabulous music - my heart dived and rose with Rahman's strokes. But singing it is hell. What cues to use to remember its nonsense lyrics? Take para 2 for example:

jo gumshuda-sa khwaab tha
voh mil gaya voh khil gaya
woh loha tha pighal gaya
kichhaa kichhaa machal gaya
sitaar mein badal gaya



Now I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person, but I still can't understand how Prasoon Joshi, the lyricist, connected the gumshuda khwab (dream) in question to bloody pighla loha (melted iron) or turned it into a sitar (a kind of guitar) or what exactly is getting "khiccha khiccha" out here, and pray why. I suspect, he tacked lots of lovely sounding Urdu words - and I bet even shit sounds lovely in Urdu - together in complete faith that no one would notice. Well, guess what. Shower singers do.


Here's another one to give Lewis Carol a run for his money - Aye Udi Udi from Saathiya (2002).

(Aye Udi Udi Udi Aye Khwaaboon Kii Burii
Aye Aang Rang Khelii Aye Saarii Raat Ho Gayi )...(2)
Halkii Aye Halkii Kal Raat Jo Shabnam Girii
Har Akhiyaan Vakiyaan Bhar Gayi Kal To Haath Par Dab Dab Girii
Pahalii Pahalii Baarish Kii Chhiite Pahalii Baarish Bhiige



A hershey's kiss for anyone who can identify the subject of this stanza!

Grrr.. Mr Rahman... a big boo from all the shower singers of the world.


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Correction: In an earlier version, I had written that Gulzar was the lyricist of the song Roobaroo. Sorry for the mistake. He deserves credit for the other jem - Aye Udi Udi.

Slumdog Millionaire: Or it is murder & mayhem in Mumbai?

Girish Shahane in his blog talks about the sensationalist novel Q&A (2005) - note the amount of sodomy involved - which inspired the sensationalist movie Slumdog Millionaire.

People need gritty stories to write novels and make films. But I wonder, what happens when the films and novels crossover, and people watch it without any context of the place or people.

A couple of years ago, I bumped into an Indian-American over free booze at a book festival. He had arrived in Mumbai a few months ago and was working for some global think-tank. He said he actually was hoping to write a novel. When I asked him if he had found his story, his face fell. He said he thought he wasn't living in the "right" Mumbai. Because nothing ever happened in Goregaon, he yelped.

That is what happens when you come to Mumbai armed with Shantaram under one arm and Maximum City under the other. You keep trying to find the gritty, edgy, murder and mayhem-filled Mumbai - and instead find the bucolic charms of Goregaon (East).

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Here is a rather interesting trailer of Slumdog Millionaire.

German chicken or eggs?

Erik Kirschbaum, the Reuters correspondent in Berlin, wonders why the Germans are depressed. They are so depressed, the American said when we met him a few weeks ago, that they won't have children and invariably gasp in horror when told that he has four.

I, on the other hand, wonder why German sociologists are so obsessed with coming up with dire structural theories about society: of how structural forces in society control the humans who live in it. Think Weber and his theory about the extreme efficiency of bureaucratisation. Consider Habermas and his obsession with the public sphere that negotiates political communication within society. Or (gasp!) Luhmann and his systems theory: how different systems in the society interact with each other to run our world.

Could the two factors be connected? Are Germans depressed because these theories make them feel they have little control on their lives? Or do Germans come up with such theories because they are already depressed and can't accept that structures are made and destroyed by human inventiveness?

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More on Weber: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber
Habermas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurgen_Habermas
and Luhmann: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luhmann