Culture and Class

Has culture really become the property or lets say an article that can only be bought by the rich. Of course not you might say, but I'm trying to make the point in a slightly different manner. I agree a poor kind banging some stick away on a rail is as much music culture as a privileged person learning the guitar. But there is something else to notice here. When we look at a picture of an old female musician, sophisticated and couth, walking on to stage with a sitar and playing beautifully, talking of poetry, scriptures and looking like an angel in her articulately draped saree and fashionably walking among the crowd all erudite, her wrinkles not withstanding and now what I think is, is it possible to have this amongst the poor. the ones too caught up in the daily life struggle and no thought for once of pondering over the sadness of the lets call it backward culture they live in. just get that little girl in her 13s getting married picture for once. yes it happens. now what im saying is, that good culture actually takes status to earn. i mean there are backward and rich losers and ya the world is better of without them, but in general, good culture and i mean culture in the true sense, of beauty and practises not horror and bullshit deceit, is it only available after you get some refined(i sadly use this word) education and company which only the lucky few get. Yes there are those who can think beyond their surroundings, environment, company and generation but barring those, how do we expect the drunk crowd dancing in front of a pandal(drunk on the chanda collected) to bollywood music and kaanta laga stuff to appreciate what the aforementioned musician was trying to say. there is a gulf here. a gulf cos lack of education and then the root cause is of course as they say "bhookh aur ashiksha ka choli daaman ka saath hai (hunger and illiteracy go hand in hand)"...but i am sorry i have to question your attitude, i have my sympathy but i have to, it's not just the bollywood music, we do a lot of blind things, lots of them...really really sadly

fireflies

An experience worth calling a life-changing experience is an experience worth blogging about. We as I would now like to identify ourselves, the people who feel the dirt lying in the muck as close to breath as possible and thus similarly the fragrance of music were given what we all deserve, what we all never seem to get and what we all not that often make the effort to search for; we were given fireflies!
An experience, a concert which had the sanctity of soil amidst the outskirted sylvan of bangalore and the presence of , how do describe it, heartfelt, mind-jarring, still lingering music. Music at it's very best and highest. We had the best variants, so many of them. The picture of us standing headbanging to hindusthani classical, somehow jovially all strumming around in our places like drunk animals out of control was a nice scene to begin with. Then again there was the crowd, the beautiful crowd and the most beautiful part of them was that their existence and non-existence was much the same. No one gave a flying fuck. Do what u wanna do, be what u wanna be, stay how u wanna stay, no looks, none at all.
Now that I decided yesterday night to write his post since I was reminded of the beauty of it, I should mention some specifics as well. The first performance was by a band lead by a lady who used the word 'mast' exactly the way it should be used, with sheer masti! She played a proper version of the small harmonium like wired instrument which most of us have seen sold down our strees along with a version of the tambourine and she sang. yes all that. most of what she sang was kabir's poetry and appealed to god and simple lucid ways. no preaching included and me athiest was able to appreciate it so u get the idea. btw, i heard her say mast backstage when she was talking about other bands to some other music guy. i remember clearly a crazy bassist, u have to be crazy to be good, playing along with a drummer, flutist and vocalist cum rythm guitarist(apology if frowned at;). This band was called 'emergence'. they are from auroville, pondicherry, sing in english, tamil and french, grow their own food and stuff (again for specifics im the wrong guy), then they had a jam session between the flutist and the drummer. need i say more. need i say any thing more.....then i remember a band who had a guy who played the bamboo stick really, i mean that was his instrument. (have to say an extension of my voice is my instrument ;)). then there was this bengali band who played hindusthani classical, a guy later played tabla on a stool, mostly exactly like the one we sit on in school. (school nostalgia sometime later).
and yes a funny incident. every rose has its thorn (cliche - check) and every concert has a stupid lame fuck who boos brilliant bands and this guy simply replied to him , my memory's beating me here, something like 'jisko sunna hai wo rahe, baaki hand me jaaye', to naturally a lot of cheering from us. then there was a proper qawali guy, proper, i mean the way it's done and he sang 'damadam mast kalandar'. and u had to see the crowd erupt. even we in all our sleepy situation, me specially not having slept proprly the last night had to acknowledge. it was cold, chilly, beautiful. the night had ppl just frantically, rampantly dancing, beautiful hippies, they are just so beautiful and there, just there. and what else. we ended with 2 more bands...apart from the ones in between. there was a band which had the instrument which gilmour plays, half guitar on a table like structure(pardon my ignorance), now that was an experience and it ended with swarathma, a band like the name..sing in english, hindi, punjabi and the voices of 'jaana kahan hai mujhe - aage jaana hai mujhe' still resound. we left only by morning 6-7. i was dead sleepy before swarathma came, but they had be jumping again crazily, ha, and then in between their performance i saw superman, yes a guy completely stoned, totally on dope and realy really stoned, wearing a shawl like a cape and coming down the amphitheatre stairs and he was quite an image.
but all the specifications apart, the music. i cannot explain in mere words, how astonishing the music was..it was like, why the hell dont we have them all the while. i kept asking my friend stupidly, i want a video of that, there wasnt any, but i had a memory, that was good enuf and yes i had quite a memory being etched in digital slate now. the music was above that level..it seems naive to levelize music but that was that level of music, yes it is my ignorance that says that but then thats why im a fan and i can tell why the experience was special, the culmination not ordinary and i can feel the 60s even stronger and understand the woodstock outside the videos once again and even closer and tell u that it was a night of truly ENCHANTING music. i mean i dont remember any feedback during the soundcheck, and maybe it was passed as music...all the same. it was the best music in a way i had experienced. in all forms and styles.
and the last bit about the setting, i got in to a concert for free again. it was simple just walked around the little dried branches, took a round, some hopping. it was a forest after all.and there was a little amber sparkle that you could see from the skies that was fireflies.