The Blame Game

So three months back, one of the biggest schools of Gurgaon – Lotus Valley International School hires me as their Music Teacher, and then calls me 3 days before my joining to tell me that my employment has been indefinitely put on hold. According to the Principal of the school, if an employee can send a mail at the last moment to inform that he can’t join, why can’t the employer? Sounds fair enough! And then a week later I get myself an interview at probably the biggest school chain of NCR – Pathways International School for the post of Sound Engineer. There were three other candidates. One of them, probably the youngest among all of us, had studied Audio Engineering from SAE Singapore and has a studio of his own. The second guy graduated in the same field from SAE Mumbai, and has worked with some really big names in Bollywood (YRF and The Bhatts) for over six years. The third guy had an experience of ten years in music industry, and has worked for many live events of artists like Jagjit Singh for live recording and CD production. I was the fourth guy, who has just made a couple of jingles and songs for some local brands, TV commercials, and corporate companies, and has absolutely no professional education in the concerned area. Don’t look forward to a miracle: it’s not a Marvel movie. The Singapore guy got the job.

It was yesterday, after the interview, that some of my misconceptions faded away. I always thought I didn’t need a degree to prove my aptitude for Music. But apparently no employment, permanent or freelance, has a parameter to judge aptitude. And most of all, a two year course adds a lot of knowledge. I couldn’t even participate in the discussions the other candidates were having about a lot of new software, technology, compressors, etc. I hadn’t even heard the name of most of the plug-ins they were discussing. The interviewers had an expression of “What the fuck do you think is happening here, a kids’ theatre?” When I told my Mom about this, she said: “It’s not your fault that you graduated as an engineer not a musician. You’re 26 now, it’s time you focus on more important things like marriage, home and family. Soch lena kismet me nahi tha!” So luck is to be blamed for my fate, huh! No, this is not acceptable.

Now looking back at my life, I see a one year-old kid who cannot speak a word, but who stops crying the minute he hears the Doordrshan Samachar jingle. No amount of comforting can get him to sleep, except the sound of the tape recorder playing the Rudaali soundtrack. The kid grows up, poor in academics, with an allergy towards Maths, gets a small keyboard from his dad when he passes his high school with distinction (for the first time in his life). He then spends all day and all night playing and composing new tunes on his four octave Yamaha keyboard, in an era when internet was a luxury. Should I blame the parents who ignored the relationship that that young kid had with Music, or the kid who never realized what his soul truly wanted? His school only had classrooms and a volleyball court, no room for any other activity. And for the first time ever, when he participated in a singing competition (organised for the very first time) in his school, he was rejected in the audition because he sang the chorus only twice, while in the actual song, it’s repeated thrice. Should I blame the school for the exposure and development it offered to that kid, or the kid for not knowing what all he was missing out? Commerce was frowned upon, and Arts was looked at with disgust in the small world he lived in. Should I blame the system that never game him a choice, but instead gave him a rule: “Science for 60% and above, Commerce for 45-60 percent and Arts for below 45%”, or the kid for never putting a question mark against the rule? When he entered Intermediate, all his relatives, friends and neighbours started asking him: “Beta 12^th hai, IIT kab de rahe ho?” Should I blame all those people for not asking: “Beta kya karna hai aage life me?” or the boy for not realizing that on his own? During college, when that boy actually got some exposure, he became a part of a band and started participating in battle of bands. Should I blame college politics for never giving him a chance to get on stage, or the boy, who should have prioritized learning music professionally over participating in a stupid competition? Towards the end of his college life, he made some songs that did earn him recognition inside college. For the first time, people witnessed his existence. But he ended up taking the government job he was offered during campus placements. Should I blame his job for not offering him a balance, or the boy who was stupid enough to believe he’d be happy doing a desk job from 9 to 5 and then music after? Should I blame God for not sending me to a Metro city for my bringing up so that I could have had the right exposure at the right time? Should I blame people for voting “Chaar botal vodka” the top song for months?

The blame game is the only game that has no end. All that went wrong can possibly be undone, or at least be tried to, in lesser time as compared to blaming and questioning people and events responsible for the wrong. The whole universe plays a role in deciding one man’s fate. Yes, things go wrong, and life takes unwanted turns. But life is not a corporate meeting where all you have to lay focus on is to save yourself from any blame. And so giving up is not an option. Kismet is the series of challenges given to you in your life, which may be different for different people, but their result – Life, as we call it, is always a reflection of our choices, not chances.

 

Featured image credit: http://www.newindianexpress.com/education/student/Lets-Not-Play-the-Blame-Game/2015/02/18/article2673425.ece

 

Music Period

Last week, I took music classes at a school in Pitampura in New Delhi, from class 1^st to 10^th. On my first day there, I thought I’d begin by getting a lay of the land. So I asked the students about their favourite song and musician. Here’re the results of my informal survey:

Favourite Songs: Chhittiyaan kalaiyaan, Baby Doll, Chaar Botal Vodka, and worst of all, Dheere Dheere Se – Honey Singh Version; Some older students mentioned songs from Aashiqui 2 as well

Favourite Musicians: Honey Singh, and Arijit Singh (some sexism there?)

And the most shameful of all, when I asked them what their favourite musical instrument was, most said “Casio”, the instrument that they owned or knew how to play.

This was the first time that one of the big schools in the NCR was offering me a job as a music teacher. They asked me to give a week’s classes as a demo, unpaid, which could serve as a substitute for something that a music degree stands for. I couldn’t be happier. I agreed immediately. During my first three days, I learned that there’ve been 7 music teachers for the school, but none of them stayed there for more than a week. As a rowdy student from class 10^th said, “Yaha music teachers sirf apna trial dene ate hain sir!”  I refused to give any more free classes after three days, and haven’t heard from the school since then.

Sometimes when any character from a Hollywood movie or series plays any musical instrument in a scene, I notice that they’re playing mostly the right notes, or chords. They hit the right notes while singing, and can even harmonize on different notes. I can’t help but wonder if they actually learn the instrument, or singing, just to shoot that one scene. That’s not the case though. Music is respectfully treated as a part of their primary education, and they mostly pick up at-least one instrument to learn. Here, in almost all schools, Music is considered as an activity subject and Music period, for half of the times, is taken as a substitute by Maths and Science teachers, to make them more competent in the ‘real’ world. And 9^th class onwards, students in most of the schools aren’t allowed to attend activity periods due to academics pressure. There are a lot of education start-ups in Delhi NCR, and almost all of them are making some brilliant content for Maths and Science. Even I have worked for one, where we used to target all big schools and sell our content. We’d make online tests for students of classes 1^st to 12^th, and then with our tools we could analyze their performance to an amazingly microscopic level, and once a week we’d call their parents and tell them: “Your child is not able to perform in quadratic equations, if the question is based on solving by factorization.” Parents, not knowing shit about things, would get scared and ask for more content, or a video session on Skype, and that’s how we’d make our business. Our education system is so fucked up that there is no point in talking about matching students with their respective areas of talent/interest. But we’re not even able to give them a balanced learning. As the veteran actor Paresh Rawal sums it up in the movie ‘Oh My God’, “People are just scared of God. That’s why religion has become a business in our country.” Education is also big business in India, and for a major part, that is because people are just scared of Maths and Science. They just are.

Ilaiaraja, a great music director from Southern India once said: “If we want to kill the religious differences in the country, add more and more Music to our students’ curriculum.” It’s been two years now that I left my secure (and boring) job and started trying to make it as an independent music composer and producer. During these years, I’ve come across a lot of clues as to how pursuing arts is a big problem. I know they can be fixed, I want to fix them. I want to bring a revolution. I want to start a company that arranges one to one sessions with all school students of all age groups, making them aware of the rich musical heritage that we have, about how they should at least learn one musical instrument in their primary education, about various careers that people can have in music, about how big musicians started off by playing for a handful of people in bars, and coffee houses, how the biggest music director in India started by making radio jingles for local telecom and dairy companies. I want children in our country to know what music is about, so that in our next generation, an absolute ass who puts the sound of a clap and a kick in a loop, and raps with some absurdly stupid lyrics, who reuses the melodies of 1990’s Bollywood, and puts the “Auto-tune plug-in” to his voice layer, doesn’t become the best music composer of this country. Our people should know what’s actually going on in the song that they say is their favourite. Because not everything that sounds catchy to an ear is good music. Just like sometimes petroleum, or burning crackers smell good, but they’re definitely harmful for the throat.

Making good music is one thing, and making it reach to the masses is another, if only I could do both. If only I was more than just an artist, if only I had the skills of an entrepreneur to figure out the way to reach out to people and do everything I wrote.

Falling Down

If you’ve played ‘Snakes and Ladders’ (and I’m sure you have), there must have been times when the last snake (at 96 or 99) would bite you and you’d fall down all the way to the very beginning from where you had started playing. And then you’d start all over again, and keep playing unless the game ended. Well, life is pretty much the same. Snakes will keep biting you and you will keep falling down. But in the end, you’ll keep climbing until you reach that 100 or the game ends. The worst part of the game is, of course, when you fall from 99 to 1. It makes you want to tear the game-board into fucking halves and burn them. Something like this happened with me today.

The Beginning

It’s been a while since I posted something on my blog. I guess I was waiting for this moment when I can write about how I finally became a full time musician who can afford to pay his own bills and make rent (LOL). It took me more than a year to finally be able to earn a living out of music. And this time I am not bragging about it, because this time it’s more of a responsibility than an achievement. When you’re employed, your salary is x ± 0.05x. But as an independent musician, my salary is x ± x. The real challenge is to sustain this living, and it begins now.

During the past one year, I tried everything that even remotely

The Hook

So this friend of mine got me a contract of a song for this big guy in Mumbai, supposedly for the next movie by ‘VB films’. It wasn’t exactly a contract, just a verbal agreement. Before proceeding let me throw some light on how the song contract traveled to me through an infinite number of middlemen. Whenever a big Music director is about to start a project, especially in Bollywood, the theme for the songs are communicated to a lot of aspiring and struggling musicians all over India through many agents and other middlemen, who send their song samples, mostly a minute long. Some of the many song samples are approved by the big guy for the project, including his own compositions if any. And if any of the approved songs do well in the market, the music director gets the royalty, and the actual composer gets his share of money, and a kick-start to his career. He might end up becoming an assistant to the same director, or might just keep looking for other opportunities with much more ease.

Machine Engaged! :)

To start with, I had no reason to choose this picture of yours for this article, except when I was scrolling through your display pictures on your facebook profile, I found that this one had highest number of likes. Well, jokes apart, I still wonder how could this pic be the one? Well, as they say, God always keeps a balance with everyone. And so here you are, with the brilliance of looks that God can bless anyone with, getting engaged before every one of us! Sitting alone in my room just makes me remember how all of us used to get together in our room and talk till late night, and then talk more. The talking never ended. Being the only Gujju Guy in our group, we kind of knew that you’d be the first one to get married. And here you are taking your first step.

That’s how it started…

I was born and brought up in Kanpur city from UP. My education took place at ‘Subhash Public School’. Well my friends have always found it funny – “This guy did his schooling from SUBHASH PUBLIC SCHOOL – hahaha”. Till my intermediate I just knew that singing is one of my interests, as there was absolutely no exposure to other activities. I remember when I used to sing at any family function (yeah that was the only stage where I could showcase my talent) all my relatives would ask; “Are wo gavaiya or gane wala ladka kaun hai?” They’d call me and ask me; “Acha gate ho. Padhai-vadhai bhi kiya karo nahi to 10 saal baad Maata-ki-chowki me gaate nazar aaoge!” There was absolutely no appreciation or motivation from family or friends to pursue any interest. It was only after I came to college that I picked up a real Guitar and that too after my first year.

A Weekend At The Outlandish

So for those who don’t know, Outlandish is three day Arts and Music festival (Oct 3, 2014 to Oct 5, 2014) organized, this time, in McLeodganj, Himachal Pradesh. 20 Bands and DJ’s from all over the country would perform here, including the famous Indian Band Parikrama.  The festival is already going on since two days, and we’re supposed to get on the stage today evening, on the last day of the festival. For us it started on Oct 3^rd evening, when the traveller bus came to pick us up from Delhi. A ten-seater air conditioned bus, after a 14 hour journey dropped us to a resort in Naddi Hill station Mcleodganj for our accommodation. We had two well furnished rooms of triple occupancy for our band. The food arrangements were also quite decent. The breakfast had Milk, juice, sandwiches, Parathas, Egg, and a lot of other regular stuff. There is no point in bragging about the food items, but I was glad as all the luxuries that I’ve otherwise enjoyed as a corporate were coming to the artist side of me for the first time. I couldn’t ask for more.

Female – Another gender

Last night I was coming back from my jamming session through a metro train from Rajiv Chowk. It was ten in the night and I was tired like anything. To make my peace with the heavy electric guitar and processor that I was carrying, I took one of those seats that are reserved for ladies. When train stopped at the next station, two girls in their twenties came and asked me to get up as it was “their seat”. “Ladies” was written in big bold letters above that seat, and there was no point of bargaining. I took a corner to stand with my stuff as I overheard them talking about woman equality and empowerment. And then I heard this announcement – Please vacate seats for Handicapped, old aged, and ladies. It wasn’t new for me, but Really? This wasn’t an act of empowerment. It rather was a sign of how weak they are, and how they choose to be like this.

I’ve known many girls who could have achieved a lot in their lives, but didn’t. And then they always have someone to hold responsible for their fate – their boyfriends, their families, their in-laws, or their children. The age from 20 to 30 years is the most energetic and enthusiastic time period of any human being, when you’re strong enough to go through the toughest time to make the best of yourself. Unfortunately I’ve seen many girls spending a lot of this precious time in dealing with their relationship issues. If your man doesn’t have the balls to feel proud for your success, you should throw him out of your life. But if you’re choosing to leave your career for him, you’re not an individual anymore. You’re weak. And when you find nothing in your life without your boy-friend, you should realize that you’re no more in love. You’re dependent.

There’s this girl – Sneha Khanwalkar, whose work has always been inspiring to me. While doing MTv’s popular show ‘Sound Trippin’ she’d go to all small and big towns in India and spend months there with street musicians, local residents, radio stations, etc to get the taste of its folk. While composing for Gangs of Wasseypur, she went on and off to Darbhanga, Patna, Muzaffarpur to make the right music for the movie which was based on Bihar. It took her two years to complete this project which won many accolades and got nominated for many awards as well. And she did all this by herself. I am pretty sure she’d achieve none of this if she needed a boy-friend to accompany in all her tours.

I mean no disrespect to anyone. I just felt bad as few females, very close to me, who dreamed of doing something big in college, are now falling victims of their own emotions. I’ve always percieved female as just another gender, and equal to male in all aspects of life. Equality can be granted but power is in your will. If you’re willing to be powerful enough to bear standing for two hours journey in a metro, you won’t need to ask for reservation of seats. If you’re willing to be independent to achieve something in life, you won’t need a boy-friend to accompany you through your struggle.