When Music Was Made in India Part 1

If you are expecting a post on the good old days of pure classical music and how the western culture has badly influenced it, sorry, this is not such an article.

This post randomly discusses some of the artists and their songs of the Indipop genre, which once created a huge wave of change in our attitude about music and love, and rocked the young generation of India for almost a decade. I will be discussing some of the major names in the Indipop industry and some of their hits I like. These are my personal opinions. If you find I've missed any of the best songs please do comment below.

Dear kids of '80s and '90s, let's go down the memory lane, relive those wonderful moments and get nostalgic......

ALISHA CHINAI

Alisha Chinai is a cutie, knew how to present herself well and is a good singer. Though she had sung for Hindi film, her successful career, identity and fame was mainly because of the Indipop industry. Alisha was once a common household name.

MADE IN INDIA (1995)

 

Any Indian born in ‘80s and early ‘90s will definitely know the song 'Made In India'. It is probably the widely acclaimed, most remembered, highest rated and the most sold out hits of that time. It had an innovative and patriotic theme and we considered that song as the pride of every Indian. Thanks to Alisha, (DIL CHAHIYE, THAT’S) MADE IN INDIA was the catchphrase of the decade! (BTW, did you know that Alisha had a foreigner boyfriend for a brief period after this song’s mega success? Just forget I said that) :P
Anyway, the theme of this song is that the damn cute princess of a far away land called Qashab started searching for her suitor. Princes from many countries came but she wasn’t happy. Finally she realized that the Prince of India (portrayed by Milind Soman) is the one she wanted. He came, carried her away to his kingdom and they lived happily ever after. I don’t blame her for wanting him. Even though he doesn’t look his best in this video, Milind Soman is a sexy beast whom every girl of that time has fantasised!

EUPHORIA

The cool thing about this band is that they were formed in 1988 by singer Dr. Palash Sen, a then medical student. It is one of the best Indian bands ever and they have some of the biggest Indipop hits to their credit. DHOOM PICHAK DHOOM is another one of their super hit songs.

KABHI AANA TU MERI GALI (2003)

 

In this song they launched Vidya Balan, who later turned out to be a very successful actor in Indian film industry. The story goes like this: On the previous night of Vidya’s wedding, her sister finds out that she has an untold love, a Bengali singer living nearby. But her wedding is tomorrow, her family is very orthodox and most of all, she doesn’t know if he loves her. Actually he has a thing for Vidya, but he too was afraid to tell her. Anyway, just before the wedding, the groom’s family has some disagreement with the bride’s family and they’ll call off the wedding (probably because of some dowry issue). So, in order to protect Vidya’s family’s honour, our hero steps forward and tell her dad that he would like to marry Vidya. Vidya Balan looks very pretty (though a little over aged) in this video. I also like her little sister ‘Chotti’; she’s funny and very supportive. I also like Palash’s watch. Has anybody else noticed that the guy who does Suryanamaskar looks like Raj Kundra, Shilpa Shetty’s husband? :D

JYOTI – KALIYON KA CHAMAN (2000)

I’m including this song just because it is an important part of my nostalgia about Indipop. This was sung by a lesser known singer, Jyoti. This song was actress Meghna Naidu's transition from South Indian films to Bollywood. The nostalgia about this song is that, whenever it was played on TV, my elder cousin brothers/sisters changed the channel saying I wasn’t old enough to watch it! This, definitely, aroused my curiosity and I’ve watched it a couple of times when my cousins weren’t around ;)

SHEHZAD ROY

For a very long time I had thought this guy was Ali Zafar. There are some common things between Ali Zafar and Shehzad Roy. Both of them are Pakistanis who became famous by releasing Indipop songs.

SALI TU MANI NAHI (2005)

 

Munnu Bhai, his wife and her younger sister were living happily. But one day Shehzad came into picture. Munnu bhai doubted that this cool guy fell in love with his beautiful wife and he might steal her away. But Munnu later discovers that his wife is faithful and this guy is in love with Munnu’s sister-in-law Ramla. Everything ends almost well. The most hurting part is when Munnu destroys Shehzad’s guitar :(

K J YESUDAS

As you know, Yesudas is one of the best and most respected singers in India. He has infinite hits to his credit. I doubt if there's a single film in Malayalam that doesn't have at least one song by Dasettan, as we Mallus call him.

CHAMAK CHAM CHAM (2000)

 

This song is the pride of every Mallu. Except for Yesudas’ pathetic Hindi pronunciation, everything about this song, the music, singing, cast, theme…was great! I used to stare at the screen just to see the hero’s smile. It’s so cute :*

The story is about the romance between people from different worlds. A photographer from the city meets a village girl during one of his assignments. After completing the assignment he goes back but both of them couldn’t forget each other and realizes they’ve fallen in love with each other. She gets his wallet which he had dropped there by mistake. He comes back to the village only to know that she has eloped from the village to the city in search of him. As people say, it’s a small world. When she was standing puzzled in the city, they finally meet!

ARYANS, THE ROCK BAND

Aryans was a band that flourished during the golden era of Indipop. They had some cute feel-good love-themed songs (Actually most of the Indipop are love-themed). But now they are silent.

ANKHON MEIN (1999)

Ankhon Mein is my personal favourite. I guess it is the actor Shahid Kapoor’s first video song. After acting in a couple of such video songs he entered into Bollywood. Just compare this old Shahid in the video and the new Shahid given in PETA's banner in my blog's side bar... It's a huge difference! In this particular song, Shahid looks so sweet, cute and innocent. I love the heroine Hrishitaa Bhatt and that doggie too *_* Shahid’s notorious little dog destroys Hrishitaa’s expensive dress and she becomes very upset. He had saved some money to buy Sachin Tendulkar’s autographed cricket bat. But he used this money to buy her a new dress, partly because he was responsible for the doggy destroying Hrishitaa’s dress and partly because he always had a crush on her. But Shahid is shocked and devastated to see H’s boyfriend proposing her. There is still ambiguity about the ending of the song. Heart-broken S is walking away and his doggy is running behind him, dragging a white dress. Some say that it’s the dress of a new girl leading to a new relationship with S and the new girl. Some say it is H’s wedding gown and this will reinforce H’s and S’s relation, making his dreams come true. They’ve left it to our imagination. But I am a supporter of the latter idea as I want H and S to live happily ever after ;) What is your opinion?

DEKHA HAI TERI ANKHON KO (2001)

Dekha Hai Teri Ankhon Ko was a very popular song during that time. It was better known as “Coffee Bar” as the whole story happens in a coffee bar. The hero works there and heroine is his regular customer. Every time she finishes a cup of coffee and leaves, the hero keeps the cup (with the mark of her lipstick on it) as a souvenir. She finally finds out how much he loves her and gives a souvenir (yes, the lipstick mark) on his face :D The cast was horrible, the song was only average, but there was something about it that everyone loved. Another sweet memory relating to this video is that my over protective cousin sister used to cover my (then a kid) eyes when the heroine's dress goes up in a breeze. Poor thing my cousin... she doesn’t know I’ve seen worse :D

(To be continued...)

Working for a Good Change :)

It all started with Greenpeace India's tweet asking ideas to tackle various non-ecofriendly issues.

As the regular readers of my blog know, I travel a lot by train and some of the posts in this blog are about my experiences during train journeys. There's something that used to worry me always. You would have noticed people throwing away wastes through the windows and doors of trains. Here “people” refer to you and me. Admit it, most of us love littering in rivers; even now some of us do that! Sitting inside the moving train, my sister and I used to wait for rivers to throw away the coffee cups, bottles and paper plates into it! Please note that I’m talking about what I used to do some 10 years back; now I don’t. But, thinking of that stupid idea makes me feel so ashamed and disgraced now.

We throw away plastic bottles, carry bags, wrappers, food remnants, disposable cups & plates and every other possible waste through the windows of the train coaches. It may seem to be very silly thing but it adversely affects the environment. Have you ever noticed how polluted the surroundings of railway lines are; especially the water bodies nearby? Even well-educated people litter without a second thought! I always ask my friends and relatives (and sometimes strangers too) to avoid this act and dispose waste only in dustbins. Well, some people listen to it, at least for the sake of formality. But mostly these talks lead to debate and I end up being labelled as “DUSTBIN” who collects waste and doesn’t throw them away until I find proper means for disposal! This is how even small acts to serve and save Mother Nature are discouraged knowingly or unknowingly. The blame doesn’t lie solely on the people.

The problems faced here can be listed as follows

• Only AC coaches and a few sleeper coaches are provided with waste bins
•  Many of the available ones are found to be teemed with waste
•  Lack of enough staff for cleaning activities
•  Inadequate coordination and understanding between multiple departments of Indian Railways (IR) leading to ineffective cleanliness efforts
•  Absence of proper monitoring of cleaning activities
•  Deficient waste collection and disposal mechanisms
•  Ignorance and indifferent attitude of people towards keeping the environment clean
•  General apathy of the authorities when dealing with hygiene and sanitation

Solid waste (consisting mainly of paper and plastic) generated each day by train passengers across our country is a very huge. They can be divided into
biodegradable (leftover food), slowly degradable (disposable cups, plates,
newspapers) and non-biodegradable (mineral water bottles, carry bags) waste
materials, most of which can be recycled and reused. It is unfortunate that,
despite being the second largest railway network in Asia and the largest public
sector undertaking in our country, IR doesn’t have an environment-friendly
policy yet. Surprisingly, IR is also devoid of a department dedicated to take care
of cleanliness and sanitation activities.
During a Facebook discussion on this topic, someone shared his relative’s
experience on train. The trash in their compartment was teemed with waste.
When they brought this to the attention of TTE, he advised them to throw away
the waste through the window/door instead of complaining about the trash.
A friend of mine commented like this “If at all the IR sets up dustbins in every
coach, these will go missing very soon. Who knows a national mafia network
that stoles dustbins from trains may grow up gradually! This is Incredible
India!” He was just joking. But sadly, the probability of occurrence of
something like that is very high in our nation.
To bring a change to this pathetic situation the first thing to be changed is our
attitude. We constantly complain about the Indian system, but don’t realize that
this system is made of people like you and me! If each one of us pledges to keep
our surroundings clean, it would be a big leap towards cleaner India.
Other things that can be done are

•  Provide dustbins in every train coach.
•  Employ enough staff for cleaning activities
•  Ensure that these activities are properly coordinated and monitored
•  Develop an efficient system for proper waste management and treatment
•  Install boards everywhere possible indicating not to litter

As mentioned at the beginning of this post, it all started with Greenpeace India's
(@greenpeaceindia) tweet asking ideas to tackle various non-ecofriendly issues.
I had replied with the suggestion to provide dustbins in every train coach. The
idea was welcomed by them and they provided with all help to start a
petition on that issue, titled PROVIDE DUSTBINS IN EVERY TRAIN COACH. But, when I completed this post, I felt the petition should be
modified and more things should be included in it.

Dear readers,
If you haven't signed the petition yet, please show your support by signing it:
PROVIDE DUSTBINS IN EVERY TRAIN COACH
And please share it with maximum people :)
Thank you for your constant support...
Let's work together for cleaner, greener Indian Railways :)

These are the links to Greenpeace India's
Website
Facebook page
Twitter Profile

Reference Links: http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_railways-need-another-dept-to-tackle-solid-waste-management-iim-ahmedabad_1549207
http://www.cag.gov.in/html/reports/railways/2007_6_peraud/chap_2.pdf
http://www.downtoearth.org.in/node/12913

This post was submitted under ISB iDiya for IndiChange in Indiblogger.
http://www.isb.edu/idiya/ 

75 Reasons Why I Love Dana Delany :)

Warning: This is a totally insane post. Read at your own risk. If you don't know who Dana Delany is (that's a shame), click here!

1. Seriously, she is one of the best and most talented actresses ever.
2. Gave voice and life to some wonderful female fictional characters.
3. Humanitarian.
4. Her tweets make us smile.
5. Very considerate.
6. As a kid she wanted to become an actress, never gave up on that dream and achieved it real big.
7. Reads almost all tweets mentioned to her.
8. Loves reading fan mails.
9. We needn’t search any fan-mail sites for her address. It’s given in her website.
10. Very dedicated and to the characters she play. From the caring nurse in China Beach (1989-1991) to the sexy Mistress in Exit To Eden (1994) to the creepy neighbour in Desperate Housewives (2008-2012) to the brilliant medical examiner in Body Of Proof (2011- ) she has always portrayed them fairly well.
11. The fan-mail address given in her site is real and she even replies to mails.
12. Has compassion for fellow beings.
13. Her voice is lovely and capturing.
14. Supports many medical causes.
15. Doesn’t smoke.
16. She’s the girlfriend of two superheroes. Lois Lane (Superman’s gf) and Andrea Beaumont (Batman’s ex-gf) in DC Animated Universe.
17. She is a great role model.
18. Has won critical acclaim for many of her roles.
19. She’s a tweetbox. Very active on twitter and tweets thousands of characters every day.
20. Her smile is very pretty.
21. Supports political causes too.
22. You can’t take your eyes off her.
23. I love the way she stresses or uses a tone for some words/phrases. E.g. “Yyyeeaaa…” or “I don’t knoowww…”
24. Very bold.
25. Classy.
26. Quick-witted.
27. Breathtakingly beautiful
    (24-26 Courtesy: Desperate Housewives Season 6, Episode 15)
28. Fit as a fiddle.
29. Looks too young for her age.
30. Has certain unique expressions.
31. TV is much better when she’s in it.
32. Very interactive with her fans and co-workers.
33. If you send fan-mail, a reply with her autographed photo is guaranteed, provided you send her a self-addressed stamped envelope with sufficient postage.
34. If you send self-addressed envelope without stamp, she still replies (you can pay for the postage when you receive it).
35. For international fans who find it difficult to get US stamps, she has offered to pay for the postage.
36. Yogini for 30+ years.
37. Has inspired many people to stay fit and to love ourselves.
38. Restored the hope and faith in many desperate tweeters that celebrities can reply to their tweets.
39. Always in shape.
40. Respects her fans.
41. Has an excellent wardrobe.
42. Makes us wanna be better people.
43. She’s smoking hot.
44. Loves to read books.
45. Her career has been long, interesting and full of variety.
46. She’s one among the board of directors of Scleroderma Research Foundation, an organization dedicated to finding cure for Scleroderma and improving the life quality of patients.
47. Her hair is perfect.
48. Patience is one of her key features.
49. She won the prestigious Emmy award for best actress twice.
50. Holds the position of Co-President of The Creative Coalition, an organization that encourages people in entertainment industry to work for important social issues.
51. Works for the cause Stand Up To Cancer.
52. Got a breast examination done for the purpose of cancer awareness.
53. Has a positive vibe around her, an aura of good energy.
54. Loves her work and is very dedicated to it.
55. Has a charming personality.
56. Very down-to-earth.
57. Always looks for variety in roles.
58. Her life teaches us to pursue our dreams and passions.
59. Excellent voice actress.
60. Her legs are so sexy.
61. Her autographs are mostly personalized.
62. Often replies to tweets.
63. Has a bunch of awards and recognitions to her credit.
64. You can approach her for good advices.
65. Trust in an important factor to her.
66. Very scrupulous.
67. Doesn’t make any publicity stunts.

    

    Dana Delany's autograph.
    Yeah... you can see my name on it!!!

68. She is someone who abides by the rules.
69. Likes to take up challenging roles.
70. There is always a spark in her eyes. They burn with passion.
71. Has vowed to never undergo plastic surgery again.
72. Really gets better with age.
73. She stands up for what she thinks is right.
74. Everything about her is beautiful and admirable.
75. Dana Delany is the best!

The best Lois Lane ever! Superman is lucky to have Dana Delany as his girlfriend ;)

A Guide To Twitter

Two friends recently asked me about twitter. They wanted to know how it works and what's so much interesting in it, as they thought Twitter is damn boring. There are loads of people who created an account and later abandoned it forever because they didn't understand how stuff works on Twitter.
Of course, I too am one such person who abandoned Twitter account after some failed attempts to figure it out. I created an account about 5 years ago. Some 5 friends in my email contacts had accounts then, but none of them were active and I followed some other celebrities who were not very active on twitter. So it was very boring, and I left. Actually I forgot about twitter.
If there was someone who had explained how Twitter works, maybe... who knows... I could have been a Twitter  celebrity by now :D ;)
Two weeks back, a friend asked to explain twitter in rather simple words. And I sent him the description below in Facebook chat. It's according to his suggestion that I'm posting it on the blog.

Twitter is many things. It is a medium to get direct updates from celebrities/organizations/companies, marketing, publicity, live news etc. But believe me, Boring is not one of them.


For commoners, twitter is mainly about getting updates from important people (celebrities) or organizations that interest us.
For example, Amitabh Bachchan, Greenpeace, Lady Gaga, Nokia, Obama, Sachin Tendulkar, Shashi Tharoor etc.
And for these people, twitter is a media for sharing their latest news, products etc.

Dana Delany's
verified account

Most of the celebs either have personal account or official account. Some of these are Verified accounts, i.e., their authenticity is verified by Twitter (they'll have blue badge with white tick in their profile). The verified account of Dana Delany, my favorite actress, is given here.

HOME

Twitter Homepage

A comparison of Twitter to Facebook is used wherever possible, to make things easier.

Feed: What you’ll find in the main box under "Tweets". Here you'll get the tweets posted/retweeted by people you follow. It’s similar to Facebook Home where the status/photo updates of friends or pages you liked appear in timeline.

The topmost box on your left sidebar gives your profile summary.

Tweets: It’s like the status/photo update on Facebook. Click on the space written “Compose new tweet” and type your update in 140 characters or less. You can also upload photo and add location to the tweets. Click on “Tweet” button below it and it’s posted in your timeline/profile.
Note- A full stop or comma or space counts as one character.

Following: No. of people you have subscribed for updates. Clicking on that button takes you to the list of people you follow.

Followers: No. Of people who are following your tweets. By clicking on it you’ll find the people who are following you.

The second box on sidebar is Twitter's suggestions of people you might like to follow, people of similar interests etc.

The third box shows the current trends.

Trends: Something is "Trending" means that topic is most tweeted about at that moment. Trends can be set according to your interests. You can change your trends to either International (most tweeted internationally) or a specific country. Twitter also provides an option of "Tailored trends" where they create a personalized trend for us based on our interests, the people we follow etc.
licking on a trend takes you to a page showing tweets containing that trend.

Hashtag: It's tagging of words or phrases and makes searching easier. You just have to add a hash  symbol before the word/phrase. When you click on the hashtag, twitter presents a list of tweets that have the same hashtag. E.g. #Twitter, #ThatAwkwardMoment, #IndVsPak.

CONNECT

Connect page

This page shows all your connections. Under "Interactions" you'll find

1. Tweets of other people that are mentioned to you.
2. Replies to your tweets.
3. New followers.
4. Your tweets that were retweeted by other people.
5. Your tweets that were favorited by other people.

Under "Mentions" you'll find only the first two.

Handle/Username: You cannot have a Twitter account without first creating a handle. Each one should have a unique handle. You can use english alphabets, numbers and underscores for your handle. Every handle starts with '@' symbol. My handle is aNUbOMB. If you type @anubomb in any tweet, it 
gets mentioned to me and appears in my Connect page. It is similar to taggging people on Facebook.You can mention more than one people in a tweet.
E.g. If you type 

@shreyaghoshal @DanaDelany @RieSinclair @thesushmitasen @arrahman @wwfindia Hello

all these people will see that tweet in their connections. They can reply, retweet, favorite and view the whole conversation using the option under each tweet.

Conversations

View /Hide Conversation: Clicking on this shows/hides the entire conversation related to this particular tweets. The original tweet, the replies to this tweet by other people etc., as given in the example.

Retweet (RT): Retweeting a tweet means that you are including it in your timeline so the people who follow you can see that tweet. It's like Share in Facebook and giving publicity.

Favorite: This is somewhat similar to Like in Facebook. People can view your favorite tweets from your profile.

DISCOVER

Here you can find trending tweets, activities of people you follow, suggestions for who to follow, option to import contacts and to browse different categories of interest.

ME

This is where you can view your profile.

Profile

Direct Message (DM): This service is used to send private messages to the people who follow. They can reply to it only if you are following them back. These don't appear in your timeline either, just like Facebook messages.

In another person's profile, instead of the DM button you'll find FOLLOW button. If you click on it, it will turn to "FOLLOWING" and you'll get their tweets in your feeds. Click on it again to unfollow people.
The blue icon with a quill, on the top right of the window, is used to compose a tweet.
To the right of it (not shown in the photo above) there's another button that collapses/hides all the conversations viewed.



Follow Friday (#FF): It's a common practice in Twitter to suggest other users worth following, on fridays.

Now Playing (#NP or #nowplaying):  It is a very common trend on twitter to tweet the song that you are playing at the moment. 

#NP Where You Are by @RieSinclair

 
Hope that covers more than the basics of twitter. Do share your queries and suggestions on this post, in the comment section below.

If you are interested, you can read more such posts in "My Experiments With Twitter" series.

1^st part of this post was about the advantages and disadvantages of Twitter. Those who would like to go through it, please follow this link:

 My Experiments With Twitter Part 1 

2^nd part describes my reasons for joining twitter and how one can identify Twitter addiction. It can be viewed at:

My Experiments With Twitter Part 2

3^rdpart of it covers some of the celebrity replies/retweets/favorites I've received on twitter. In order to compile this particular post, I have put up a lot of effort. Hope you'll find it interesting:

My Experiments With Twitter Part 3

  
And have a great time in Twitter.
SOLDIER OOOONNN!!!!!! :)