kya relevance hai!

Today on a happy day, my phone was getting a reboot and I switched on the radio. I have a love hate relationship with the radio. The dumb RJs with dumb programming and irritating advertising that doesn’t connect with anything. Luckily for the new retro channels which play some good (my age) music and thanks to the lack of advertising, have some interesting programming. They are getting some good guys to come in and chat with on the radio channels who are talking about the music they created or the movies they were in with some real life insights and anecdotes. This makes the programming so rich. Like today some lady (I did not catch the name) was talking about RD Burman (always) and Asha Bhosle (again almost always) and the song Jaan – e – jaaa… oh meri jaane jaaa…. Nisha aaa aaa aa

It was a song that I was listened to as a kid. It was a fun song in which I think as kids we used to cream aloud and dance. It was released in 1982 – when I was about 7, which is an impressionable age. It was an awesome song then and is an awesome sing now, but what a singer who has worked with the music director RD Burman said, made me hear the song in a new light. She said that RD tried to get Asha to sing like a musical instrument in the song. She was talking of some musical instrument (she was also not sure) in which there is pedal or something and the noise oscillates in waves. I did not understand what she said till she sang the song on radio. I came to office and I played it and now that I understand it a little better, I have come to appreciate it a lot more. In the song Asha sings – Jaan e jaaaaaaaaaaaa, oh meri jaan e jaaaaaaaaa. As kids we would scream out this aaaaaaaaaaa in a single tone. Its only today I understood that this aaaaaaaaaa sounds awesome because it is here that RD made Asha sing the aaaaaaaaaa part in a wave like oscillation. That is the genius of this song which is so easy to miss the nuance while so easy to love the whole. Which is so impossible to bring out for an untrained singer. At least while I was singing to myself, I could clearly hear myself make a complete hash out of it.

Here listen to the song and pay attention. Of course, forgive the poor Kamal Hasan dancing like a twerp in the song and the stupid bike entry, largely forgiven purely by Reena Roy’s awesome smile and oh so lovely long hair with the stylish fringe. It’s like a complete reconciliation of the traditional beauty and a touch of modernity. And of course do not miss the scene in which she dreams about kissing him all over with him being left with lipstick marks all over his face, but no marks on the oh so sensitive lips! The confusion of 1982 India is to be seen to be believed in this movie song.

Over a period of time I have learnt to respect the Bollywood film industry as the best marketing brains in the country. It is not possible to deliver a hit without really identifying with the core audience and having a pulse on their attitudes and dreams and desires. Movies that become hits are the ones that connect with the audience, without which the audience is very clear – he is not going to part with his money and time.

In fact, while I teach marketing, my favorite lecture is in which I explain how movies and heroes have gotten their marketing right to become super stars. They connect with the screen personas with carefully nurtured off screen personas. This is the example I use to explain how super stars like brands have to mean one and only one thing to the people and the closer they are to one thing the closer they are to real meaning.

Another song that played on the radio was from Arjun. A movie released in 1985. This was when I was ten years old and I remember that era of India when there was NO hope. None what so ever. You could only get rich if you were corrupt or tyrannical or a goon or all of the above. You could get educated but there was nowhere to go once you got educated. There weren’t enough jobs and whatever jobs were there were gone to people with some influence or some friend to recommend them. It was a complete wasted generation in many ways. This movie reflected the anger of the youth. These young guys were obviously educated and were looking for jobs. The main hero leads a gang of young men, all in formal dressing, as they are all looking for jobs and want to be employed. What I remember of the movie is that they don’t get any employment and are just hanging around the neighborhood. It captures multiple emotions. The movie touches a raw nerve – that your youth is good and powerful. They study and they are unemployed because of society and not because they want to remain so. They have an energy that must be harnessed. The youth in the movie at first are seen as a nuisance as they roam around unemployed and then as the villains strike, the same youth use the only the only thing that god has given them (their youth) and fight back. Now the transformation from young, lost and unemployed to young, hailed and purposeful is complete.

At the end even the father comes and tells his child that he was right. It sent a signal to the young and unemployed that they were not wasted but were a being wasted thanks to the system. The feeling was universal and as I saw up on Wikipedia the movie was then translated into multiple languages showing how the issues were widespread across India.

Here is the song – mamaiyo kero kero kero mama

Mamaiya Kero Kero Kero Mama - Arjun (1985... by TalishaHatcher

The entire song is set in  public spaces with the gang bordering on lawlessness and at the end you also see the hero riding a Pitch roller which is being pulled by his team, in the middle of the Mumbai roads – How’s that for complete cock a  snook at the system.

Its funny why this clip is on daily motion and not on youtube. Must be some royalty quirk. A movie like this, no matter how well made would just have no relevance today. Kids find their love soon enough and get drafted into the system that is giving them some jobs, mobile phones and T shirts to order and wear. They don’t need to use violence to save the society. They probably just need a cell phone camera, or a tweet then and then some social shares.

Check this

so how does it happen?

Yesterday at home Jispa happily showed me her brand new geometry compass box. In Jispa’s school, the fees cover these basic things. I guess they do that so that all the kids have uniform tools. This helps eliminate kids who could possibly be tempted to get Ferrari geometry boxes (wouldn’t that be a cool product). While she showed me the same, I recollected that as a kid I rarely ever got a brand new geometry compass box. Being the third in line I would invariably get hand-me-downs. So I picked every piece from the box one by one. The divider, the compass, the protractor, the two angles and ofcourse the free pencil. The pencil has improved form my days. Now they give a pen-pencil. Yes the lovely Camlin compass box.

Then I saw her geometry book. I remember my first class in geometry very well. The same things were taught. A point, a segment, a line and a ray. The same bloody things. The definitions were also the same, the drawings were also the same. It brought back nice memories. A point – it is something that does not have any length breadth and height. It’s just that – a point. A line is nothing but a series of points. I was good at geometry always. I loved it and I just couldn’t understand how anyone would get anything wrong in geometry. Possibly because I was good at visuals so I enjoyed geometry. I remember getting all the sums right in my final tenth standard exam. They cut 2 marks for no bloody reason and I ended up at 73 out of 75. The theory was that if they give you full marks then they have to give you a medal or something, which the board reserved for students from Marathi medium schools. Well who cares. Add that to the 74 I scored on Algebra, I finished at 147 from 150 in Math at school.

In morning while dropping Jispa off to swimming class, I told her that I loved Geometry and I would always get great marks in that. She then decided to test my skills. “So tell me – which is longer – a ray or a line?”. Aha… “Nice one Jispa, both are same – they both go on till infinity”. Hehe. Nice try kid. Then something just struck me. “Jispa – a point has no length breadth or height, correct?” “Yes” she replied. “And a line is nothing but a series of points, like a thousand points together?” “Yes” she said again. So then I asked “how come that a point which is like zero length, multiplied a thousand times has a length when zero into thousand is zero. So if nothing is put together a thousand times, how do you get something?”. I felt her bulb light up in her head “Fascinating” she said. ‘Fascinating’… that’s a nice term to use, I thought. I got her thinking. The truth is that I thought of this conundrum for the first time myself. How come this shit works? I can understand that a point can be infinitesimally small. That can help denote a starting point for math. Hence it will be zero otherwise you would need to consider the size of the point as well when you calculate the distance between two points to get the length of the segment. All this I assume… I know nothing of this. But how can nothing add up to something? Jispa was right. It’s fascinating. So I asked her – “so you are going to ask your teacher about this?” “Nah, she will just reply that” “it’s too advanced” I interjected. “no, she will just say that you will learn it in higher class”. Ok same thing.

I love having these conversations with Jispa. I keep telling her. When you grow up, do something nice. Become a geologist and then I can come with you to different places. Or study History – then we can do to all the palaces together and you can teach me. Or do zoological studies and I can come to various forests with you. I love learning from anyone. My nephew is a whacko. He is a lizard and snake super freak. So every time I meet him, I ask him stuff about snakes or other creepy crawlies. He studies in Doon school and he comes down for his vacations. This time around on a friend’s BBM he learnt that there was a snake found along with the stuff that was being shifted. He caught a friend and went there to catch the snake. He was coolly telling us later that it was a rat snake and hence not poisonous. Ya sure. He did catch it. What a complete mad man. What I wonder is that the adults around let me do it. He would have shown some attitude there for the others to trust him. I don’t know if I would have let him do it I was around.

Whatever, it’s fun to learn from him and it’s fun to learn from Jispa. I guess its sweeter when someone younger is teaching stuff to you. I actively try and learn from them. Of course some stuff you don’t want to learn from them, your ego gets in the place. But for the most, I guess, I like to learn from them. There is something that the youth has that you can never ever replicate. Teaching has put in touch with them and I really do learn a lot from them.