It’s official. Bollywood Music is the only form of music in the world.
No. Not because they plagiarize from every possible source of audible sound (20 Hz to 20,000 Hz) in the known universe.
It’s because Radiocity says so. They had the fortune of conducting India’s first Corporate (I mean the English adjective, not the Bipasha Basu starrer) Music Quiz, and I had the misfortune to participate in it. And I went all the way to Bangalore to do that yesterday.
Why would I do that? 2 reasons.
1. I consider myself to be fairly musically aware, with a wide ranging taste in multiple genres spanning from Tamil hip-hop to Mississippi Delta blues. So a corporate music quiz sounded like a good idea.
2. Seriously? Reason #1 is total bull. I really went because an ace, megadude, ultra-geek quizzer from my company invited me to join him, and since our man is generally not in the business of losing quizzes, it made sound financial sense (Prize money minus travel cost = Still big money).
But we two Tamil payyans from the glorious city of Chennai ended up learning a very important lesson taught by the corporate folks at Radiocity.
When an event is held at the Taj Residency (and not at the Municipal Grounds),
When the company’s ad jingle (Votha Votha Votha Votha fun) is played 750,000 times so that all numbers in the 90s and 100s with one decimal are erased, and replaced with the one that matters – 91.1,
When 99.95% of the quiz revolves around Sunidhi C, Lata M, Asha B, Alisha Chinai, Shankar Jaikishen, Laxmikant Pyarelal and Kishore Kumar ,
and when 2 provocatively clad jilpaans hand out audience prizes,
It’s official. Bollywood music is the only known form of music in the world. Questions on Indian classical music, Western classical music, Blues, Alternative, World music and Indian folk music are not tolerated.
So while the both of us were prepared for,
Who composed the pathbreaking “Marriage of Figaru”, which goes (in tenor voice) “Feeeee garu, super feeee garu”),and was first performed at the Sydney Oppaari House?
Answer: O-Naikoottam Mosart
Which legendary MC, member of the Yo!Thiruvayyaru 3-nity Company composed and produced the 18th century carnatic-hip-hop classic “She Cant, He Met He”
Answer: Mu-2 D
Which hyperfast expert of the Fender Veenacaster played a seminal version of the Indian national anthem?
Answer: E Gaya3
Who sang the vocal parts in the famous “Piscean Symphony”?
Answer: Gaana “World-Emperor” Ulaganaathan
Which Born-again Muruga devotee sang a Reggae version of the Sashti Kavasam in the 90s?
Answer: Appaachi Ummaachi Indian
Who is the God of Basslines?
Answer: Ilayaraja
And instead, what we got was all Bollywood. And no self-respecting, Ilayaraja-worshipping, Rahman-loving Chennaiite will consider Bollywood “sounds” circa 1980-2007 to be music. So we stuck around, enjoyed the free booze and free food, and came back to Singaara Chennai.
And oh, we scored 10/20 in the prelims and didn’t qualify. So just in case you were taking this post seriously, let me warn you that I am just being a bad loser.
And Radiocity,
I mean, apart from the free booze and food, i.e.
is usage of unparliamentary words allowed in this blog?
Sir Bramstreet Equus Asinus,
Ah. well. um. Depends on which country’s parliament one is talking about
Sad…
I’m really pissed of with the treatment music gets in India. Everything has to be film related. Same thing in the South too.
annae. time vaestu! (waste)… fax vaestu!… roaming calls vaestu!… friday ‘lunching out program’ vaestu! .. ippo oru “blog post” vaestu!
chinna pasanga velayada kooputaa pogaatheenga’nu sonnaa ketkureengala…
Provocatively clad jilpaans
Free food
Free booze
And you are still complaining
!
Arun,
Music above all. If one gives me caviar with champagne and makes me listen to Kumar Sanu, I’ll take the street side idli and vada and tinny radio-quality ilayaraja any day
Agreed
The modern day version of the pen being mightier than the sword. Your post should have the organisers hanging up their earphones in shame.
Krish,
This is true of any type of music – even in classical music, till recently, when “Indian music” was referred, it used to be only one form of music – Hindustani Music. And even if carnatic music was referred maximum it will with reference to MSS, BMK & U Srinivas.
Music has no barriers-agreed-but then why cant it be inclusive?
Ofcourse this is not a problem of the music !!!!