A tribute to 'the king of pop'

On 25^th June 2009, a star which blazed the sky of music for over three decades disappeared in space. The day marked the saddest one for the music world. Michael Jackson, who entertained, enthralled audience all over the world breathed his last.

            Michael Jackson, without any doubt was a musical genius, highly original, innovative....the list is unending! MJ redefined the music in recent times. In other words, music could not remain the same after the entry of MJ to the scene. There was a clear distinction between pre & post era of MJ.

            MJ’s talent was not only limited to singing & dancing but he donned many other roles like songwriting, composing, choreography, stage setting, directing, producing, acting etc. It was said that he could play more than ten musical instruments. He’d had huge success in most of them.

            His songwriting and music made sense unlike some of the modern day musicians who write some trash and just shout rhythmically and think it as music. He wrote many meaningful and concerned songs about many issues like love, nature, racism, peace, humanity etc.

            The main competence that made him world famous was his ability to dance. It was fresh, a never-done-before type. In the field of dance, MJ can only be equaled by MJ. Any choreographer after the 80’s can’t be unaware of the works of this genius. His form of dance perhaps became a genre in itself.

One feature that makes MJ completely different from all is that his music had no boundaries whatsoever. It had crossed all the borders like nation, race and even language. Even those people who did not understand English could connect with his music. His name is known even in the country side in countries like ours. No other musician has achieved this feat. He had penetrated to all corners of the globe.

He changed the music which used to be just an audio experience to an audio-visual spectacle. After his arrival the way music was made changed forever. Describing his famous number ‘beat it’, the magazine Rolling Stones quoted that the song changed music once and for all. Such was his influence.

The concern he’d for nature and humanity reflected in many of his songs like ‘we are the world’, ‘man in the mirror’, ‘heal the world’, ‘Earth song’ etc. He, with 20 odd famous musicians of that time in the 80’s performed for the song ‘we are the world’ and donated all the money collected to the welfare of African countries. Besides, he’d made record donations on his own.

The sad part of MJ’s life is that his personal life was not well. It was full of turmoil. A part of it was because of his lifestyle. He was away from normal in many ways and adhered to falsehood (like Neverland Raunch). Many allegations shattered him completely. Perhaps, he was the most misunderstood man by the media. His difficult childhood had left an indelible scar on his life.

He had had many records and achievements in his name. A few of them: sold over 750 million copies of albums (the first and the only individual entertainer to do so), 18 Grammy awards, 13 Guinness records, made the highest selling album in the history(Thriller, sales-over 100 million), many more..

MJ’s stardom was at peak at the 80s. At the time when there was no ipods, internet the reach of music speaks volumes about the quality of music that he made. He was aptly called ‘The King of Pop’. He was unarguably the greatest entertainer of the 80s and one of the greatest of all time.

Keeping his personal life aside, even his hardest critic can’t help but to admire the sheer talent of this musical whiz. There can be another singer like MJ, there can be another song writer like MJ but the amalgamation of all attributes that MJ possessed can not be equaled by any other person ever. He was a perfect package of entertainment. People of MJ’s caliber can happen only once in a century or once in a millennium.

My heart felt salutes to him….

Anna, Ramdev and anti-corruption movement

When the likes of Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev started their crusade against corruption, the ordinary citizen sensed a ray of hope and supported them irrespective of language and religion. But when Baba Ramdev got arrested in an undemocratic way, all that hopes were dashed and the common citizen was again thrown to the deep pit of cynicism. In the current day India, it seems quite natural to be cynical where nothing is going well and where every single person in power wants to loot the nation.

          There is no doubt that most of the people in politics are corrupt irrespective of parties. In one sense, parties are no more a barrier to the politicos. Gone are the days where people stood for some ideologies and remained in the party which adhered to that ideology. Today there is no ideology in any party though every party talks about it in a vivid way. The idea of ideology has become just rhetoric. The ideologies for today are money and power.

Coming back to the issue of corruption; when one is against such big shots of the nation, one has to be ready for all the kinds of mudslinging. No matter which party is in power, the primary aim of all the parties is to save power. It will do it willy-nilly. It can go to any extent to save the power. What we are witnessing today is different facets of the same underlying intention.

          The support that the civil society members got from the people of India is something unprecedented. There was an unseen ire in the minds of the people of India about corruption that was just waiting to get erupted. They were just waiting for the platform and a good leader with a strong character whom they can rely upon. In Anna and his movement, they found all these, so they wholeheartedly supported him. In the world which is networked, it did not take too much time to get the whole nation together. This would have given the government tremors.

          Even the government was supporting the issues raised by Anna, truly speaking it was obviously not interested in implementing them. The reason is so simple and blatant. But the government had understood that this movement can’t be scrapped so easily like some other movements because the whole nation had come together for the issue. It clearly understood the gravity of the issue. But somehow it had to dent the momentum of the movement but it could not do it in a direct way. So the state chose another way: mudslinging.

We have to remember that the party which is in power in the center is congress which has a history of more than a century and which has ruled the nation for more than five decades. So, it has got all the tricks in the bag. It is releasing the cat as and when it is required. This mudslinging is just one of its tricks. The effective way to counter the civil society members is to dent their image, the moral one because that is the core strength of the members. So, every effort was made by the people of the government to do it. The paid up media also supported the government in this cause.

          But the fact was that every member of the civil society had an unblemished history and was very successful in their respective fields. They did not have any individual interests or personal agenda. They were truly working for the nation’s good. So it did not take the people of India to see the ploy of the government and they did not heed to the fake issues raised by the government. Government was pushed to the back seat again. But it was not ready to give up.

          Now the government is coming with all guns against Anna and his team and even going to an extent to link Anna with RSS and to say the whole moment is sponsored by RSS. That’s a dodgy move from the government. Against Ramdev, it is more or less successful in damaging the image. When someone is fighting against a party like congress, one has to understand that they are fighting against a shitty behemoth. It is impossible to fight, let alone win without getting dirty.

Knowledge and information

One more confused set of words where the two words are often used interchangeably. Information is something that is gathered over time. Knowledge can’t be gathered. It is something that is always present. Information can be generated but not knowledge.

Any person who is considered as an expert in any field is often called as knowledgeable. What they actually mean is that person is well informed. The more a person gathers information and the more efficiently does he use the information, he will often be touted as knowledgeable. But actually he is not knowledgeable but well informed. Information is about survival but knowledge is way beyond it.

Information doesn’t free a person. It is actually a chain, a never ending one. It doesn’t matter the kind of information one has, it never becomes enough. It is a game of constant accumulation and gathering. But knowledge is not like that. Knowledge frees the person from everything including the very knowledge.

My Books Review: May '11

      The path to prosperity: For many a time, I’d  heard the name of James Allen but never had read any of his writings. This was the very first time that I ever read any of his writings. The path to prosperity is a small book which can be categorized as moral books or kinds. James Allen can be called as American saint because he speaks like a saint. For us, who come from a country like India, it may not look like the greatest thing, because we grew up listening to so many profound philosophies and laws but to a westerner, it may be a profound thing in itself. It is a good book though which emphasizes on introspection, positive thinking, unselfishness and a few other virtues. There are some poems given at the end of each chapter which were really well written, a good use of the language.