Flesh eating crows and other songs

Posted on March 20, 2021March 20, 2021 by bach

Nope, this title is not clickbait. I indeed have this weird topic to cover, and you may find it intriguing as well, just like I did. This is mainly to do with Bollywood lyrics related to the title – the crows eating human flesh! Be aware that I am not trying to connect Bollywood to scavenging birds, but I would understand if you wish to refer to them as so.

Okay, let’s start. You would have heard this song titled “nadaan parinde ghar aaja” by A R Rehman, which composed for the movie – Rockstar. If you did, have you happen to focus on the lyric behind it? I did not try to understand until recently. In fact, I was fully concentrating on what this overrated Nepokid Ranbir was trying to bray on the screen.

If you notice, there is a line that reads:

Kaaga re kaaga re mori itni araj tose Chun chun khaaiyo maans. Arajiya re khaaiyo na tu naina more Khaaiyon na tu naina mohe Piya ke milan ki aas

I could not believe my ears when I heard this!. For those who do not read Hindi thoroughly, let me translate it for you. It appeals to stray crows asking them to go ahead and eat his flesh by picking as per preference. That, except not to feast on eyes, which apparently, are required for him to hold a union with his love interest. I am not kidding. This is true.

I had no clue why so much gore in these lyrics. To be absolutely sure about what I heard, I asked Alexa to play it a couple of times more. Amazon’s AI engine picked up my request and queued up a few more songs with the same lyrics on my radio. The next was Sonu Nigam and All Yagnik singing the same in more contemporary dialect Hindi.

कागा सब तन खाइयो चुन चुन खाइयो मांस

दो नैना मत खाइयो मोहे पिया मिला की आस

Then there was another by Kailash Kher, then one by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and I know this now by heart!

Initially, I was so confused about why all these good people singing the recycled verse, appealing to scavenging birds to eat all the flesh but eyes? Is this some kind of sacrificial ritual practiced by a tribe? Or does it have any historical significance?

After a bit of research, I found this blog post that tells me that it was originally written in Punjabi about a millennium ago. It was written by a Sufi mystic in Northwestern India, which is present-day Pakistan. He was Baba Sheikh Farid (1173-1266 ). You can read more details here.

This is what he wrote :

Kaaga karang Dhadoliya saglaa Khaaiyo Mass Aey Do Nainaan Mat Chhuchho pir dekhan ki aas

( O crow! come and peck all this flesh over this skeletal frame of mine, Leave these two eyes untouched for they are in wait of that Grand beloved of mine )

I am not gonna judge the baba or his followers on why this was made famous over centuries because I don’t know how love worked during then. May be birds involved, and maybe not. But our current generations of Bollywood should have known better. This is not the song for the present century, and we should stop using it.

Let me know your thoughts.

Formula one – Hamsters running on wheels

Posted on March 14, 2021March 14, 2021 by bach

Formula one, in my opinion, is nothing more than few hamsters running inside a wheelhouse. It’s pointless endeavor and utter waste of time of everyone involved, including money and talent. I can list at least 10 reasons why I still hate it. Go ahead and prove me wrong.

It’s not sports: Don’t call a bunny-turtle race, a sport.if you want it to be a sport you assign the same model of cars to all drivers, and then we’ll talk.
It’s not a race: What kind of race needs one of its competitors to slow down as part of a team strategy ? It’s like Yohan Blake asking Usain Bolt to a slowdown because Jamaica said so.
Crashes: I was told in particular, the crashes are specifically are the most spectacular features of the sport. Apparently, that movies such as Death Race were inspired by these races, including F1. If it is true, then it’s deplorable.
It’s not exciting: Around six blokes always ahead of the game, the rest always behind. I take a nap, take a shower, grab a coffee and browse back to the channel – they will be still racing in the same race at same positions!
It’s a pit race: By the sound of it, races are won at the pit stops rather than tracks. It’s like cricket is won in dugout, not field.
Expensive: Considering you’ll only see the start, finish and one glimpse per lap as an in field audience ! Even 1$ is costly if the deal is to sit there and yawn.
Technology: there is this popular notion that the money generated is being put into noble use of inventions in automobile industry. With investment in the neighbourhood of A $500mil a year for each team since last so many years, and I should have expected at the least an alien car craft being invented ! But our cars still breakdown at the signal.
Rich-men sport: How easy is it for a new team tk make an entry into the circuit ? Suppose they do, how many years do they need to compete and log even a single point on board?
Hype: F1 is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme of the sports world with blown up go-karting. People follow because it is uncool not to follow. It’s a fashion statement.
F1 geeks: They irritate me every day with specifics of turbo engines, RPMs, cylinders and another part which never amused me!

This is part 2 of what I had written few years back.

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Update : Due to a lot of good friends of mine objected the wording of #3 on crashes being spectacular, I have reworded it to have less exaggeration. But content remains same. I cant believe you never heard about it. One example right away, this author explains the romance between danger and dependency of F1 revenue on it. He writes :

……No one, myself included, wants to see drivers die, but by eliminating the potential for death (as nearly as possible), the danger which led to the popularity of the sport is lost.
The remaining glamour, without the danger, is empty and superficial—glamour for glamour’s sake—an endless parade of celebrities shuffling up and down the pit lane and drivers throwing their cars into turns knowing the risks have been diminished should they get it wrong.

I still stick to all other points, unless convinced otherwise.

Valentine’s day movies

Posted on February 14, 2021February 14, 2021 by bach

I am not a fan of Valentine’s day; I have never celebrated and probably never will. But of course, I am not gonna undermine its need, or go to the extent of condemning it. It could use a better name, though. Regardless of the superficial purpose of such greeting card days, including Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, daughter days etc., it certainly helps the economy with its tiny spikes in the consumer market. Also, I believe it provides and small little purposes to otherwise monotonous days.

My idea of Valentine’s day is, to crash on the recliner, grab a beer, popcorn and watch that Hollywood or Bollywood has to offer this year around. Additionally, Sundays are not meant for intellectually taxing stuff. They are dedicated to comedies, romantic or otherwise.

I watched two. Surprisingly, they were genuinely nice ones, worth more than a lazy afternoon time pass. I recommend them to you to watch, they are streaming online.

“The map of tiny perfect things” is now streaming on Amazon prime video is a semi-sci-fi romcom. The skeletal theme is covered repeatedly in many movies before. Be it cute Bill Murray starring “Groundhog Day” or even Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt starrer dystopian the “Edge of Tomorrow”. A temporal anomaly created by singularity by a tiny perfect thing makes protagonists loop their day. He gets a bland non-eventful side of the loop while she receives a sad part of the circle. That is the all the spoilers, for now, please go watch it. Basically, a whole universe, including the parallel ones, conspires to create a perfect moment for them.

The second one is not technically themed movie, but Disney’s Hotstar advertising it only today. JoJo Rabbit, an Oscar-winning period drama, a comedy, war movie, and atypical love story. It is about a boy, a massive fan of the Adolf, borderline fanatic, owing to a generation of long propaganda. He derives his life direction of life from an imaginary Adolf, moral or otherwise. He eventually falls in age-inappropriate love with his someone the very propaganda demonizes. Please watch it, you would love every frame of it. This movie deserves more Academy awards than the only one it won.

15 reasons on why Cricket is a better game than Football

Posted on February 13, 2021March 7, 2021 by bach

Internet holds a one-sided view on this Cricket vs Football debate, rather disproportionately. This post is my attempt to tilt that scale towards Cricket.

If hundreds of bloggers think they can cherry-pick ten lame reasons in favor of Football, I can certainly pick a fifteen against it, even better ones. To be brutally honest, the ability to host a football match during rains is the only fair argument favoring it, rest of the stuff are really boring and consequential to who is playing it.

To my American readers, I am referring to Soccer and not American version of Rugby . Also, stop calling it Soccer and call it Football. Call your game something else 🙂

Here you go:

Results and closure: More than 25% of Football games go draw, and about 8% of matches are even goal-less. You can hit me with the numbers if you disagree and you better have a useful reference point to support your claim. If I were to drag myself to a pub and watch a game with the smell of sweat, and fart; I would at least need a result and nothing less. Cricket might offer the same aromas, but It would, most certainly, deliver me a result. Be it win or lose. This is called closure.
Entertainment: In Cricket, there is always exciting stuff happening on my screen; continuously and relentlessly. In Football, I am expected to get excited with ball passes. Did you really buy that HD TV for watching 20 hamsters running on wheels?
Game Spirit: Cricket wins hands-down on this parameter. There are several instances in cricketing history when the team captains chose to ignore the game’s rules and let the rival player continue play. That is just to keep the game’s spirit up! I never heard of this happening in a football match. Hence, Cricket is called the gentlemen’s game. This brings me to my next, the most critical point.
Dishonesty: When was the last time a Cricket player faked a nudge or injury? It would have become a headline immediately, and half the world would have joined in condemning it. Whereas in Football, it seems, every player is allergic to another human or his breath. Even proximity or the scent of them can make them fall like a felled tree. Evidently, this is Business as Usual, and it is not even frowned upon, forget condemning it.
Referee: Blatant mistakes can happen in Football, Cricket has much better umpiring. For instance, even to this date, we debate God’s hand winning the game in 1986. Cricket has the patience to wait for a third umpire decision and has a better review system.
Technology: Cricket adopts newer technologies regularly ensuring course of the games not left for luck or fate to decide. How does Football compare to that?
Flavors: Cricket comes in various sizes and shapes. One favors adrenaline (e.g., T20), one favor talent (e.g., ODI) and the other favors resiliency and endurance (Test). Let me know if there are different formats of Football matches.
Diversity of skills: In Football, you can technically play a team full of Ronaldos against a team whole of Messis. However, you can never play a Cricket game with 11 Virat Kohlis against 11 Jaspreet Bumras. Cricket team consists of players with various “distinctly mutually exclusive” skills, not Football.
Commercial viability: Cricket provides more opportunities for brands to endorse their product. In Football, please wait for half-time. It is a matter of few years before Cricket would overtake both the popularity and revenue generation.
Commentary: Football commentary is boring. It primarily consists of recitations on who passed the ball to whom till something exciting happens.
Fitness vs skills. Football warrants fitness over skills. I am not talking about the common denominator skills; I am referring to specialist skills. Let me take an example, a Chahal can devastate an opposition with his wrist bowling skills. Can that happen in Football?
Inclusion: Can you imagine a differently abled person, say someone with childhood polio with a withered arm can play a Football game. As a matter of fact, in Cricket, some of them have dominated the game for decades and became legends.
Safety injury or death: This comparison is alarming. I gather its around 120 vs 9 deaths throughout the history of both the games. Injury, fatal or otherwise, I think, is even bigger statistics. I do not have numbers handy. Cricket has changed over the last few decades to be safer for its players, but Football remains the same.
Fights: Just like its players, Cricket’s fans as gentlemen too. They clap and sip tea. Except for Pakistani fans breaking TV sets they rarely indulge in fights. I do not need to explain how it works for Football. I have witnessed riot police and helicopters being called for a game in east London.
Football is socialistic and Cricket is capitalistic. Period.

I do not expect my readers who are also football fans, to be nice to me in the comments section. Try to be friendly, else I will understand you are part of #14. 🙂

[Book vs Movie]Calling Sehmat vs Raazi

Posted on February 3, 2021February 1, 2021 by bach

Generally, I do not get involved in the business of comparing the movies against the Book based on. The primary reason for that is that I will have to read fiction for the comparison. And I hate reading fiction! Nevertheless, here is an attempt. This is more of a fictionalized biography rather than a novel, hence the exception 🙂

The movie in the discussion is Raazi starring Alia Bhat. She is a nepo-kid with reasonably good acting skills amongst a truckload among quintessentially bad actors and movie makers. For a change, the movie is loaded with decent actors; songs are brilliant with excellent lyrics. Its quite old movie by now and you would have seen it already. The book is based on “Calling Sehmat”, authored by Harinder Sikka penned on fictionalized biographical narration based on what he gathered from actual Sehmat.

On an overall and surface level, the movie captures the essence and sequence of events described in the Book. However, there are a few fundamental differences, which could be deliberate or creative. I will leave you to decide:

The movie does not capture the first chapter of the Book. The chapter is an essential part of the storyline, but the film chooses to leave behind. The book takes its own time, deservedly, to define Sehmat, her love interest, passion, etc. The movie does not care about any of that.
The movie Sehmat is a weak girl who flinches with the pistol backfire, the book’ Sehmat is a cold-blooded determined soldier who is willing to kill, lie, kidnap, and blackmail for her nation which was at war. The Book’s Sehmat does things as her conscious directs her, while the movie’s Sehmat does it as obligations to her Indian handlers.
The movie ultimately leaves put last few chapters, which most probably is to avoid hurting sentiments of a rowdy family lived terrorizing a village in rural Punjab. Also, they probably do not want to show Sehmat owes her newfound sanity to a hermit.

Also read: Letting Meghna Gulzar direct Raazi was the biggest blunder, rues Calling Sehmat author Harinder Sikka