duniya dekh tamasha dekh

The last week we went to Aurangabad for a vacation. Now its funny to me that people were actually wondering why I would go to Aurangabad for a vacation. I wonder if it isn’t obvious that Aurangabad is the home base for Ajanta and Ellora caves. But I guess the general level of common knowledge isn’t so high as one would expect it to be. Also it is finally a tourist destination and most people I know don’t really know too much about tourism,. It just passes them by on the interest level. Goa and Bangkok is where the buck stops.

I have been to Ajanta and Ellora twice before but that doesn’t stop me from going again. I first went there as a dumb ass teen and then I went around 10 years ago when I had no clue on how to see or appreciate anything historical. So going again with Jispa aged 11 was great fun. This time around we added Daulatabad and local Aurangabad to the platter. Daulatabad is a really wild underrated fort. With its crazy defense systems it probably was built by a highly insecure king. And locally Aurangabad is home to Bibi ka Maqbara. This monument is highly highly inspired by the Taj. I realized it later that with this monument I have completed three of the monuments of similar structures and inspiration. First came the Humayun’s tomb, followed by the Taj and finally this one. Once you see all three only will you realize what is so special about the proportions of the Taj. After completing the troika of sorts I also realize that I have one important missing piece to complete the quartet – the Safdarjung tomb. The next time I am in Delhi, I am sure to make some time available to visit this place. It is also referred to by historians as the “last flicker in the lamp of Mughal architecture”.

So back to Aurangabad. Nice lovely week spent. People finish off the trip in two days but since we went for 6 nights we had a blast and could devote time to whatever we thought was interesting. At Ellora we were lucky to have this amazing guide who answered almost every query of mine on various facets of Hinduism and boy was he knowledgeable. I wonder what he was doing as a simple guide in that place. With a little bit of spit and polish he should be addressing conferences. Serious. Ten minutes into the tour and told him – you don’t bother about time and I will not bother about money. We will see everything at my own pace and we will ask you all the questions in the world. He agreed. So in the end the 90 minute tour lasted more than two and a half hour and I happily paid him double. So next time you are in Ellora, look up for Madhu at 9890632629. Guides in India seem to have really improved, from the idiot out to fleece you to the characters who really help you learn. This one was like reading a book in 3 hours. I cannot recommend him less. He is up there with the best I have been with.

We got lucky with this one. When we first reached all the guides were hired. I was very angry with Jispa as she is extremely cranky when we wake her up. She takes a lot of time to get up. So this time too we were late thanks to her. And then afterwards when we got this guide Jispa was getting cheeky an d she was like ‘ say thanks to me’. And I was – you are very very lucky today. There is really no point in seeing the place without the guide. There is nothing you can understand. It’s almost boring. You can’t make out Shiva from Vishnu in some depictions or Buddha from Mahavir. So Jispa was very lucky, as we got him while we just about turning about to come back the next day.

Jispa has really become a big kid now. Since we had a lot of time, we also went to the only mall in Aurangabad. At the Westside there Jispa picked up something she liked. She put it in her shopping basket and roamed around with me when she suddenly exclaimed ‘oh, the kiddie section is here’. “yes” I answered her. “So I picked up my t shirts from….” “The adult section” I completed her sentence. Yup Jispa has suddenly grown mentally and physically. While we can handle the size bit, Jasmine and I are learning how to cope with her mental bit. She fights differently, argues differently, get upset in a different way. The last few vacations have really seen her grow and I think now we are bonding at a different level. We are understanding each other in a way that is completely new to me.

Vacations are all about this. Growing up, exposing yourself to various things, doing new things, doing old things and more importantly knowing each other a little better. For a relatively young family like ours – possibly the greatest gift is the latter.

a clear mind is blank

After all these years of working and meeting people and problems, one leans to cope with issues and unexpected hurdles quite differently.  I now tend to maintain (at least attempt to maintain most of the time) a sense of equanimity while meeting potential issues.

There was a guy who had a stall at the local Shakari Bhandar. He was sweet guy who loved puzzles. He would try and teach how to solve puzzles. He had mastered the Rubik’s cube. As a kid I loved the puzzles as well. I would try to solve puzzles and it would be hours of fun in the vacation. He befriended me and he would give me tons of puzzles to play with. He also sold books and games and toys. So when Jispa was born we bought quite a bit of stuff from him. Once he needed to relocate to a new shop and needed money he asked Jasmine for 5 grand as a loan. I told Jasmine to happily lend him the money. This man gave me countless hours of fun. Also a lot of his puzzles were with me unreturned. In effect I had ‘stolen’ them. So don’t bother. He then ran a shop elsewhere. Jasmine and her friend were regular customers. Then one day he got a chance and immigrated to the United States. He left the shop to his man Friday to run. After making some money he instructed his man to pay back the money. The man contacted Jasmine but wouldn’t show up. One day he disappeared. We lost touch with the puzzle man and all.

On Sunday out of the blue he contacted Jasmine. He wanted to meet Jasmine and her friend. Both of them were a little circumspect. More money perhaps? What we do, how do we tell no… I drove them there. A little thought ran into my head – why think the worst. Its ok. lets meet. Possibly he is just meeting because he  has come back. I still love the guy and I think he is a great guy. I told them don’t worry. If an awkward thing crops up – you can always revert later. You need not answer then and there. Jasmine came back after the meeting. ”You know why he wanted to meet us? He brought gifts and puzzles for us and he immediately wanted to return the 5 grand”. Well well well what do you know.

That’s what I told Jasmine. It was in my mind but I didn’t tell you guys. Sometimes you go out and meet with a blank face and mind. You take it as it comes. Earlier on I would worry – what’s the issue – why does he want to meet – why is he calling – what would I say – how should I talk. Etc etc. now I meet in a far more stable state. You don’t know anything. You should keep two three back up plans that this is my worst case and then meet without a real plan. Everyone deserves a meeting, a chance.

I have met so many people and been through so many situations. Jasmine told me that she too will learn. I said nopes. I learnt a lot of this from you. Jasmine would normally meet without thinking too much about the consequences. She was the one who taught me equanimity. No Jasmine – I learnt this form you. Mil lo. Don’t think too much. Ah things happen.

So that was an interesting lesson. You meet anything that comes your way and you have a backup plan. That’s about it I guess. You can’t predict the world but you surely can manage your space in it without too much thinking. Clarity of thought also means thinking less. Aila – that was high philosophy. I surprise myself at times.

its a sexy job

Yesterday I was justifiably proud of myself. Yay yay. Jispa had to do a project in geography and it was about data and research. She and jasmine were like – this is right up Jasmine’s sleeve. Perfect. Well that put some extraordinary stress on me. I can do that in an instant. Jispa will have the best and sexiest project if I get involved but hell – that is not the job. I am not on trial here. Jispa is. She needs to learn and she needs to understand the magic of data and the bigger magic of showing the data in way that it tells stories.

Jispa had once told me that she doesn’t like me teaching because I can get very stressed out and upset when she doesn’t get the idea. She doesn’t like it. So I have been doing some deep amount of introspection. Why is that I am a great fun guy when I teach at the classrooms and such an ass for my daughter. I can have infinite patience with 60 kids but I lose it with one.  Shame on me. So I thought I probably need to change the setting. Can I use the whiteboard and teach like I teach in a classroom putting distance between the student and the teacher. Space in a classroom could be a liberating factor versus the direct and arm distance gaze (hence pressure) of a private tutor. Much like a book… what you need is also an ability to switch thoughts in the middle. Or like what Salman of the www.khanacademy.org founder says of why his youtube videos were such a hit with kids – the ability to pause and rewind.

Well I couldn’t pause and rewind or even give Jispa the button but I surely did put myself in a special mood before I started. I asked Jispa to sit on the table first and get her books and note book that has square checks on it. Then the BIG CHALLENGE. How do I explain to her without solving her problem? How do I assist her in thinking and put a basic process in place without giving out too much. Answer dena easy hai but to teach in a manner that she finds her own answers is extremely difficult. Admittedly this is the ultimate daddy teaching test. Because even in class in many ways I give a lot of answers, but homework help can never be giving answers. It has to be constructs as opposed to method. This time around it was even more difficult as the topic was not straight and especially since I have some strong and trained views on it. I pride myself in the firm for someone who not only understands data but I am especially good at structuring data so as to analyse it better. I have thought of terms and measured campaign along those lines. The very description of a term to be used helps in understanding the data in a way it makes sense. I am easily amongst the best in our office at this. My MIS over a period of time …. Ok ok… you get the point.

So how do I explain it to Jispa? So I was proud of the way I structured it for her. I sold her the magic of data. How data by itself means nothing. How more data would mean more of nothing? The context is a story. I taught her that data is nothing but a series of stories. These stories must be relevant, must have meaning must have context. Now in your project what stories do you want to tell and what is it that you must ask so that you know what to fill in the blanks. Then once a set of stories were told then the simple act of using existing data to tell more stories can be done – that ladies and gentleman is correlation without using the dirty.

I was so proud of myself. Now hopefully this weekend I will teach to draw up the loveliest questionnaire that is short but pertinent. And then after collection of data – the challenge will be to get her to be inspired to tell the best stories as possible. She shows a lot of promise and I am loving it. at the end of it I hope she not only loves the project but she loves doing a project with me.

There are two skills which will define the young individual of tomorrow – one is language. The ability to convince the other/ converse with another… the other is statistics. The world will belong to the statisticians. If you can’t read data you are dead. I am so happy with the chance to get her to love data that I am trying my best not to screw it up.

Here is Hal Varian on statistics and statistitians and how they are so sexy. Hal is the guy who worked with Google for their famous adwords bidding alogarithim. Basically – a very smart guy.

“I keep saying the sexy job in the next ten years will be statisticians. People think I’m joking, but who would’ve guessed that computer engineers would’ve been the sexy job of the 1990s? The ability to take data—to be able to understand it, to process it, to extract value from it, to visualize it, to communicate it—that’s going to be a hugely important skill in the next decades, not only at the professional level but even at the educational level for elementary school kids, for high school kids, for college kids. Because now we really do have essentially free and ubiquitous data. So the complimentary scarce factor is the ability to understand that data and extract value from it.

I think statisticians are part of it, but it’s just a part. You also want to be able to visualize the data, communicate the data, and utilize it effectively. But I do think those skills—of being able to access, understand, and communicate the insights you get from data analysis—are going to be extremely important. Managers need to be able to access and understand the data themselves.

You always have this problem of being surrounded by “yes men” and people who want to predigest everything for you. In the old organization, you had to have this whole army of people digesting information to be able to feed it to the decision maker at the top. But that’s not the way it works anymore: the information can be available across the ranks, to everyone in the organization. And what you need to ensure is that people have access to the data they need to make their day-to-day decisions. And this can be done much more easily than it could be done in the past. And it really empowers the knowledge workers to work more effectively.”

give and take for life gulabi

It takes two to tango.

The last weekend we had a great time – Jispa and I.  It was awesome fun as you would have made out from my blog post. On Sunday evening as Jispa and I were obviously having a lot of fun, I told her – you have been a really good girl. She was really well behaved. And so was I. I asked before we did anything. She took care to take my opinion in as well. She realized I was putting in an extra bit of effort and that she too kept pace. She would do the house work and be enthusiastic about helping me. We cooked together, we choose movies together and we did everything by talking to each other.

It’s really that simple to have a great time with others. All you do is put in an extra bit of effort, recognize the effort that the other person has put in and voila – good time. If two people come together and simply put in a little extra – you are game.  Many young kids who talk to me expect love to work by itself. I probably expected that as well. Love doesn’t work like that. It’s not magical, is not automatic. love takes effort.  I explain to some of the kids – just because you are in love doesn’t mean that you will get along. Get along for elongated periods of time require work. It requires taking an extra bit of effort.

I told Jispa – you know we are getting along fine without any friction because there is no pressure as well. You are swimming and hence you have time for fun. You don’t have to pack your bags, eat your food, do things on time etc etc. there is considerably less pressure and the suddenly we are great parents and you are one outstanding chick.

If it’s tough being a parent, it’s even tougher being a sports parent. There is so much to do and to take care of. I don’t know if we are doing the right thing by letting her become an athelete. We are putting in all the effort into building a lifestyle that we hope will pay off in the long run.

Dam it – there is so much pressure on being a parent. So much seems to be in your hand. Its overwhelming at times. My sister once said – of course babies are cute. If they didn’t look so cute we would never go through all this trouble with them. I guess that true. If it weren’t for the fun time we have and the love and affection bestowed, it would have been impossible to cope.

One of the movies we saw together was RV. A Robin Williams starrer. If you don’t want animation but you still want to see a fun movie – you are likely to get tired of seeing this one man over and over again. But yes – in that movie – it starts with Robin Williams making his daughter laugh while sleeping and mom urging the two to get to sleep. This happens all the time with us. Jispa and I will be giggling before I put her to sleep and Jasmine will scream out – you have to get up early – off to bed now. Then the daughter in the movie tells her dad that when I grow up I will never marry and go away. I will be with you all the time. Jispa and I start mocking each other with “awwwwwwwwww”. The movie then cuts to the present where the daughter is grown up and now obviously finds her dad a pain and an embarrassment and etc.. you get the drift. I start asking Jispa – see this is what you will do nah. Now you find it funny and then you will find it too ridiculous.

As she grows up I have to keep on inventing newer and newer ways to keep her connected. I keep kissing her on the nose and she hates it. in the middle she was generous and she gave me a 100 such kisses. So every night I would use one of that till it hit the 70’s mark. After which I started doing cute things to get free ones. The figure inched upto 97 where its stayed there.

Jispa protested that I was angling for too many free kisses. So she and I were having a fight on this. Every time we are at the bus stop waiting I think of newer and newer ways to entertain her. For some time it was the man going to the market and buying and eating sweet corn. The corn was her hand. That was fun. Then there were the missiles (my hand) which launched from my window and she had to block them. The ones with wings (outside fingers outstretched) could maneuver and the simple ones went straight at varying speeds. Then the era came of missiles where they at about launch time just go boop. And now it’s the man. This is my fingers trying to act like a man walking and doing acrobatics and go from my window to her and he always fails. For some stupid reason or the other. This is a great hit with her. So I did the thing that any Machiavellian dad would do. Bargained with her… see if you want to keep getting the man then you have to agree on the kiss. I promise not to overdo the kiss thing and you will keep getting the man..  a lot of times.

I think she understood the bigger picture. That of give and take. You give love and respect you get love and respect. Even in a child father thing – it’s a lot of give and take at its core. As long you understand that you are cool. If you are expecting a Utopian dream, then be prepared for a nightmare.

Here is  a completely unrelated treat. I like the feel of the song. Gulabi...

daddy do rock and roll

Jasmine’s family took a jamboree to a religious place and surely they had invited us. Which isn’t a great proposition. Taking an avowed atheist of sorts for a religious jaunt is just what the doctor (did not) ordered. Luckily for me while Jasmine couldn’t wiggle out of it – I could. Thanks to Jispa. Jispa had her interschool competition towards which Jispa had to back out and therefore I was going to stay at home babysitting. But as luck would have it, Jispa has a sports shoulder injury and it’s ruled her out of competitions. Jasmine still wanting to give Jispa rest gave Jispa and me the opportunity to stay at home.

Many years ago when we were staying in Dubai, once Mom had to leave for Mumbai urgently leaving us in the good custody of our dad. We had just received the news that our granny had contracted cancer and she would not have too long to live. Mom had to rush back and we honestly had no clue. For us it was a party of sorts with no mom. To make alternate arrangements I remember dad got a cook form the site he was working. Mom left and the cook was fired in a day. I think mom was away for a week or something. WE hated the cook’s food and dad then obliged us. I don’t know how we managed to survive the rest of the time but I surely remember having strawberries and cream every day after dinner. We got along just fine and much to our mom’s chagrin we enjoyed the sojourn and put on weight. I remember her castigating dad for firing the cook. Hah. Bolting the stables after the horses have fled.

So I am just now fresh from a two and a half day with Jispa. I was determined to spend as much time as I could with her. We wanted to take on joint decisions and figure out what all we could do in the time. Jasmine being the mother tried to figure out as much as possible for us. What we will cook, what we will eat. I had to be honest in hearing her out and keeping a mental note. But in the back of my head I knew – I am not planning too much. This is a rare time that Jispa and I will get and it’s going to be a lot of joint decision making on our part.

So on the Friday evening when our friends called us over I politely told then that I better check with Jispa before I confirm. Jispa was also pretty keen on this bonding shonding thing. She also wanted to go home and catch a movie. So we rented a couple of movies and went straight home. Jasmine had prepared dinner before we left. She also thoughtfully stocked up the fridge with some yogurt, Orangina and she also made some popcorn.

First day gone. Next day Breakfast. This is where I come into my own. I love making breakfast more than anything else. Jispa and I woke up to make a really nice breakfast. We made a double decker sandwich. We invested the thing as we went along. We first shallow fired some onions in butter and then added some sugar while they were cooking. Voila – you have sweet caramelized onions which formed the top layer along with the paneer suitably shallow fried in butter. We also put the salsa sauce just to make it more exciting – but I think could have been easily avoided. To form the second base layer was tricky. I wanted cucumber and pesto sauce. That was an easy mix but now where would the cheese go. WE didn’t want to remove the griller as cleaning that would be a big ask. So in a fit of sheer genius – we added the cheese to eth cooking pot of pesto cucumber – and so now you have melted cheese as well. We simply got the toast ready and there – sandwiches ready. We named it the Madagascar sandwich, in honor of King Julian!

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Then I left Jispa for a part and went to take my lecture. I came back to pick her – saw another movie and starting preparing dinner. This one could have been wrong on epic proportions. I wanted to make a stew like my mom used to make. So I tried to rmemeber how Jasmine had once taught me to make white sauce. Butter to be heated and then add the flour. Ok… now it’s nice na dbrown, lets add the milk and oops… this is going out of hand. Jispa - more milk fast. It’s too thick…. More milk. Oh shit this carton is empty, open another one… lets go. Ok. Now add the chopped salad… I think it’s good. Then Jispa wonders if the quatity is a bit too much. err… ya… we then pour it in a baking bowl and then grate enough cheese and decorate it. We loved decorating it together. La la la li li li… it looks great. And yes it tasted great as well. We couldn’t find the garlic in the house so it only lacks a tinge of garlic but still awesome stuff. Jispa agrees whole heartedly. We devoured over another movie.

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The next day we watched another movie but before we started the fourth I said we go down for a walk. Jispa wanted to cycle but I said we walk and then I threw in an absolute googly. Let’s go down to the park and sit down and …. (here is the clincher) and have some Maggi. Whats with kids and Maggi. They just love it. I too actually love it. I also grew up with Maggi in the kitchen. We now realize it has gulmates and all the bad stuff, but we still allow Jispa a treat once in a while. Imagine a childhood without Maggi. So we go down to the parka and sit down and enjoy the evening with Maggi and lemon barley water and watch a  game of cricket in one corner and another game of football in another. That’s another lovely evening.

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The last bit was making the strawberry and cream. That is a part of Doshi ritual. When mom travels the kids have to get fatter. So we made some amazing strawberry cream with some melted chocolate and some crushed oreos. Awesome. This we made four bowls and finished one off. The others are to be had with Jasmine. With the extra cream (I have no sense of quantities required), I peeled and split opened individual segments of oranges and put them in. awesome… even oranges taste amazing with sweet cream.

So there you have it. All together a lovely two and a half days. Jispa enjoyed it as well. In the middle we also found time to understand geometry. These were really simple concepts that she for some reason couldn’t get in class. I can’t for the hell of me figure why she did not get it in class. Adjacent, complimentary and supplementary angles. Not that I remembered what they were. A little help from Google and we were done.

So we did the homework, we ate some awesome food, we cooked together, saw movies together…. Had fun. When Jasmine came home her reaction – “you guys did not eat anything from what I made for you”. err… not doing what the mom expects you to do when she is away is also a part of the Doshi tradition. My dad taught me that …. Didn’t he?

All photos from my instagram feed :)

dialogue ho toh aisa

Life mein dialogue nahi diya toh kya kiya.

They don’t call me the dramebaaz for nothing. I must have watched the most movies as a kid where videos made their big first impact. I still remember the first day when my dad got a video player home. We were in Dubai and I was near the door. Dad comes in carrying a big brown box. It was billed as mom’s birthday gift. I guess I must have been around 6 years old. And if I am not mistaken the first movie we watched was the Kamal Hassan starrer Ek duje ke liye. Though I am not completely sure. Though the release year fits well but not the month… I wonder.

I remember when we saw the movie we were first introduced to the concept of fast forward and we used it to good effect. It started the trend in our family of using the button to fast forward all the songs. We laughed our head off when it was first used. Kamal Hassan (or whoever) dancing at twice the speed. And then the invariable miss of the song ending to miss a few dialogues so then you press rewind to come back to the exact point when the song ends and the acting starts. Rewind… yes that reminds me of another ritual. When you rent the video from the library the first thing you do is put the tape in the player and press rewind as the last guy who saw the movie obviously returned it without rewinding it. I would rush to take the tape, put it in and then press rewind. Then I would call everybody and then we would gather around and watch the movie. Full on family time.

I was imprinted by the amitabh movies and the amazing over the top dialogues. It was the era of Sholay and Deewar and of course Manmohan Desai cult multi-starrer blockbusters. My mom tells me that once when I had to go to the dentist (or was it the doctor for stiches) I kept my top two buttons open and said “nothing will happen to me – I am Jeetendra” eeps. Jeetendra? Even Dharmendra would have been ok. my only retort is that my mom doesn’t remember the name too well and it was really Dharmendra which I called Jeetendra

But clearly most of the dialogues are the Amitabh variety. So the other day when suddenly when an old student called me up – I just told him – congrats. He was like how do you know. I have learnt over a period of time that you ant really be in touch with a professor. Its typically when you are in trouble and need advice or when you have something nice to share is when you will call. The trouble types or the advice types typically start with an sms, or mail or a whats app. The random – hi sir – is typically a occasion and in Sunny’s case – he was about the age to get married. So I congratulated him up front. He asked me – how did you guess. “sunny, suddenly aisa koi phone karta hai toh either olumpic ka race ho ya police ka case ho ya ladki ka face ho”.

I am sure you did not get this one unless of course you are a bollywood fanboy – especially Amitabh. Amitabh famously said in Amar Akbar Anthonny “Aisa toh aadmi life mein doich time bhaagta hai. Olympic ka race ho ya police ka case ho. Tum kisliye bhaagta hai, bhai”

See it here at  around 1 min and 16 seconds into the video.

“so sunny bhai – tu toh koi Olympic mein jaayega nahi, aur tu police mein phasega nahi… toh obviously – koi ladki ka face hai. Bol kub hai Shaadi”

A ha . I am so impressed with myself. To get a dialogue, connect it and then even rhyme it that too in conversation time. It’s pretty neat. What say?Aapun hai ich aisa.. style.

Reimagine

Some time back we had a party at the club. This was a swimming pool party where we invited all the pool members and we had a DJ. Normally at parties which I attend – obviously my age group, I have often noticed that the crowd swings to the Amitabh songs and the Kishore kumar numbers – suitably remixed. The old is gold. They are the best numbers and they don’t make them like that anymore. That is my general feeling. So typically for a great time I get the DJ to play those classics to the modern beats.

When I was in college the pubs would exclusively play English music. Hindi music was too low market to be played. All out college socials and bazaar day would be full of English music. A few odd Hindi numbers would be played – like meheboba from sholay or something. If you are young and in college and you want to dance then it was English all the way. I think the first ever hindi song that created a rage and was played at clubs was the Bally sago remix of chura liya.  People loved it and it created ripples. I think that as far as my experience goes – that brought Hindi  songs back to the listen and dance hep music circuit.

It also started a trend of everyone and anyone taking an old song and remixing it and releasing it for an eager audience. It also prompted a lot of purists to say that a classic must not be tampered with. these are great songs, why would you want to mess with the original.
Fair point. I really dint care so much.

So back to the MG club swim party. The dancers at the party were all really the young turks aged from 8 to 15. These were the swim kids who had the chance to party their heart out. With their mothers watching these danced till the DJ finally called it a day. There is no better thing than peer pressure. Jispa refuses to dance. No matter how much I egged her, she sat in her chair refusing to move a muscle. She is the same at dandiya meets. She refuses to get up. So I let her be, only to find her dancing some time later at the insistence of her friends. Ya sure.  I reminded of the Aesop’s fable of the sun and the wind arguing on who is better at removing the coat of a traveler. The wind blew hard in an attempt to blow the coat away only to find the man pull the coat closer while the sun simply silently shined down on the man who promptly removed it.

At the party, the kids were very clear. They swayed only to Hindi music and only the latest hot hindi numbers. No amitabh, no Kishore, nothing. Hot fast tempo hindi number. Old songs with great melodies and beats don’t count for anything. What counts is – that its new young and popular. So the purists can take the songs and shove it up their……

On Sunday I was at another party. Here because of the age profile – a mix of old and new songs were being played when I suddenly figured that a lot of old numbers which were remixed and reinterpreted in the Bollywood were the rage. It made me think. It may be a classic but even if that is not constantly reinterpreted for a younger audience it is not going to be accepted. There is no point of a great old song if no one is going to dance to it. An artist’s primary goal in Bollywood is to reach out to as many as possible (to those elitists who sneer at this crass commercialization, I sneer back at them). They were made for a mass audience and that’s why they were hits and hits must be allowed to be reinterpreted again and again. A few flops will emerge. A flop will make the classic dearer and a hit will make the classic go further. In any ways it furthers the original. The fun bit with popular culture is that if it’s not got good, it won’t be popular so why bitch.

So as the DJ played back to back Bollywood reinterpreted songs, I stood back a bit and saw the crowd loving it. These were not simply remixed by Bollywood or the DJ. These were what I would call reinterpretations of the old ones. These are ones that I and Jispa (when she wants to) agree to dance on at the same time.

Like this one

This features Rishi Kapoor in what in his time was possibly a bit of irreverence. Bachana ae haseeno. It’s a classic hit and I am sure it was antiestablishment at the time – check the red heart that he wears on his silver costume.

And now you have his son practicing a brand of irreverence. The father would pine for one chic and his son will danced with three and gets away with it. This too is possibly antiestablishment. See – he doesn’t love any of the chics he is dancing with. He is flirting with them, all in control. He is the Casanova.

Here is another one – the original one was never meant for movies I think. It was a pop single that caught the imagination across borders. Nazia Hassan is the iconic pop singer who sang this one. Disco Deewane!

And cut to the present – this what my daughter loves and would dance to. The Disco Deewane from the ‘I hate it its so bad but the kids love it’ movie – Student of the year. Jispa – I will forever judge you for this one.

And the last one –

The original – Rishi Kapoor again in Om Shanti Om. I remember this as a kid. The huge set piece where the protagonist is dancing on a record player. It forever imprinted my mind with what a dance piece should be.

Cut to the present – Shah Rukh Khan dancing to a completely reimagined Om Shanti Om

All of these are not simple remixes and are reimagined and reinterpreted for the audience. All of them have English set pieces inside of the songs. Sit back and play all of them. Enjoy them all. The original and the new. Change is the only constant – be it, actively propagate it and allow it.

Hindu philosophy has one flaw – from the triumvirate Brahma creates, Vishnu protects and Shiva destroys. It necessarily means new has to rise from ashes – but there is no one who simply copies or is inspired or is happy to reinterpret and reimagine what is old and put it in a new context. Some god that simply copies. Someone akin to Bill Gates – who gave the world CCP – cut copy paste.