The official song of ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy (SEL), was released on Dec 31, 2010. In my opinion, it’s another miss, close on the heels of A.R. Rahman’s official song for the Commonwealth Games.
It’s easy to explain why you love a song or why you hate one, but really hard to describe why you think a song is just “so-so”. Still, here is an attempt:
Except for the De Ghuma Ke line, Manoj Yadav’s lyrics for the rest of the song feel contrived and do not really roll off the tongue
Except for the mukhda, the tune isn’t hummable.
I couldn’t figure out the second singer, other than Shankar Mahadevan, but I think the song might have been better off with someone else.
I think there is a lot of pressure on the public to like this song, specially after the CWG song debacle. Nobody wants to be a spoil-sport, specially one it comes to the work of hugely popular musicians like SEL (I am a big fan myself), and specially when India’s reputation on the global stage is involved. I really wanted to like the song, but I don’t!
Check it yourself and tell me what you think. [Update: The embedded video was removed from Youtube. The official video is being released on Feb 7. Will provide an update in due course.]
PS: And what is it with official ICC website’s lame domain name – http://icc-cricket.yahoo.net/? It took me a while to figure out that it was actually ICC’s official site and not a Yahoo site. Free marketing advice for ICC – The “yahoo.net” domain is diluting your brand. Do yourself a favor and get your own domain name.
Lata Mangeshkar (or an obliging relative?) tweeted this today:
namaskar,aaj mere pujya pitaji master dinanath mangeshkar ji ka 110 va janam diwas hai,hum sab bhai,beheno’n ko jo suro’n ka vardan mila hai ye unhi ki den hain,meri pujya mataji maai,aur mere baba aaj hamare bich mein nahi hain lekin main un dono ko hamesha apne aas pas mehesus karti hun,main jab bhi gaati hun to mujhe aise lagta hai ki baba mere saamne baithe hai aur mujhe sun rahe hain,
Rough translation:
Hello. Today is my dear father, Master Dinanath Mangeshkar’s 110th birth anniversary. My brother and all sisters’ gift of music is because of him. My father and mother have passed away but I still feel their presence near me. Whenever I sing, I feel like he is sitting in front of me and listening to me.
She also shares this song sung by her father:
So what’s the point?
An 81 year old lady not only sings, she tweets. Is that cool or what?!
Lata’s humility and love for her parents is endearing
Master Dinanath Mangeshkar’s song offers us a glimpse of the origins of the Mangeshkar musical gene. His children – Lata, Asha, Usha, Meena and Hridayanath – are all musicians.
There are many reasons to watch “Manmadhan Ambu”, Kamal Hasan’s movie released yesterday. For me, just one was enough – the backward narrative song “Neela Vaanam”. There is something weirdly compelling about watching a story unfold backwards. It’s jaw dropping how everything in the song moves backwards, except Kamal’s lips which sync perfectly with the song! He must have spent a lot of time learning to mouth the song in reverse during the shoot.
I went back home cheering the creative genius I had just seen only to be deeply disappointed when I found that the song’s premise was lifted from Coldplay’s Scientist.
The backward song video is not a new concept but Neela Vaanam likely the first Indian song to implement it. If you are aware of any other Indian song that implements backwards narrative, please let me know. And copy or not, the Neela Vaanam video is still cool and Manmadhan Ambu is still a nice movie.
Here are a few other reverse playback music videos that I could dig up:
Here is our pick of the top milestones related to Indian music in 2010:
AR Rahman’s nomination for Golden Globe– For a few years now, AR Rahman has been steadily progressing towards becoming a global phenomenon. However, this nomination gives him a big push in that direction because, unlike Slumdog Millionaire, his score for 127 hours is largely without any obvious Indian influence (except Acid Darbari).
Google launches music search for India – Anything Google does has the potential to be big. At this time, the service is really a no-frills search built on top of music licensed by three partners. But it could be a lot more in the future.
Introduction of Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010– This bill, introduced earlier this year, is likely to be approved soon. For the music industry, the bill’s objective is to give more rights to authors (lyricists, music directors) and performers (singers) and increase protection of copyrighted artifacts (songs). There is a lot of legalese but some of it has been decoded here. Of course, implementation of the law is an entirely different ball game and we’ll have to wait and watch to see if these amendments meet their objectives.
Copyright Board reduces royalties for radio– The Copyright Board reduced radio royalties by about 86% when it fixed the royalty rate to 2% of the radio station’s advertising revenues. Music labels are contesting or bypassing this ruling but for now, the future of radio in India looks safe.
Common Wealth Games (CWG) and Music – Who would have thought that music would be such a big part of CWG games? AR Rahman was universally ridiculed for delivering a mediocre CWG theme song for a hefty price of Rs 5 Crores. He eventually ended up sprucing up his original composition to produce this. Kailash Kher jumped in and gifted this song to the nation to celebrate the spirit of CWG. There may have been a lot of other big names involved in CWG but it was a cute, 7-year old boy who won everyone’s heart with this tabla performance.
Indian songs regularly hit top 10 on iTunes World Music Charts – From Sheila Ki Jawani at the time of writing this post, to Raghu Dixit’s No Man Will Ever Love You to Endhiran. What would happen if India had iTunes?
A startup has to select its office software (documents, spreadsheets, etc) early on. We picked ours based a quick and dirty assessment (is there any other kind for a startup?). Here goes:
Microsoft Office
Zoho Docs
OpenOffice.org
Google Docs
USP
1. The best office suite
2. Everybody uses it
1. Online, feature rich office suite
2. Great customer service
1. Free (yes, free)
2. Open-source office product for offline use
1. Collaborate on the web
2. It's by Google
Cost
1. Most expensive
2. Rs. 1000/user to Rs. 17000 /user depending on the edition
1. Pay as you go monthly subscription
2. Rs 7200 per year for 5 users and 15 GB space
Free (yes, free)
Free up to 50 users (Limits - 7GB/user for email, 1GB/user for docs)
Feature
The best. No question.
Very cool interface and surprisingly feature rich. They release updates frequently so the product is getting better rapidly.
Not assessed
Functional
Ease of use
Almost everybody has used MS Office. It is intuitive and there is little or no learning curve for most people.
Very intuitive. Still, there will be some learning to do since a browser-based office software is new to many people.
Not assessed
Google Docs itself may require a little learning but what makes it easy to use is that it is part of the Google Apps suite.
In the end, we selected Google Docs because:
It’s free.
It’s not the best office product but our needs aren’t very sophisticated.
Collaboration and version control is easy. The only risk is that it depends on availability of internet which is still not predictable in India. Google’s introduction of offline editing in 2011 should mitigate this risk.
It’s part of Google Apps. We had already signed up for it because, for a startup, there is nothing to beat Google Apps when it comes to Email and Calendar. Deciding to use Google Docs keeps things simple for us.
Of course, we will know for sure that it works for us only once we start using it seriously. We will re-visit our decision in a month and report our findings.
Over the last few days, there has been a spate of news reports (like this and this) bemoaning the decline of classical music in India. The concern is understandable. Two things have changed over the years – a) Classical music faces a lot more competition from other music forms, b) Music itself faces more competition from other forms of entertainment.
That said, I am not sure if there is a need for the government to get involved as some musicians have requested. We have seen what government involvement in sports has resulted in (CWG, never-retiring committee chiefs, BCCI/IPL scandals). As someone who enjoys classical music occasionally, without “understanding” it (raga, taala, etc), here is my take on what might help:
Focus on the tribe – Classical music has never been for the masses. In fact, it has traditionally been elitist (played in kings’ courts). Instead of focusing on people who don’t appreciate classical music, musicians should focus on people who do – the tribe – and figure out ways of building stronger relationships with them.
Improvise to grow market – Coax new audiences into trying classical music. Here are some examples of what might work:
Fusion – Anyone who went to college in the 90s has to have heard of L Subramanian’s Conversations, a fusion music album in which L Subramaniam collaborated with jazz violinist, Stephen Grapelli. For a college kid, this kind of fusion music is a lot less intimidating and lot more cool than full-blown classical music. My guess is that Conversations made many of these college kids open to attending L Subramaniam’s classical concerts.
Crossover – Nobody had ever heard the kind of music an unknown duo called Shiv-Hari created for the movie Silsila. Turns out these guys were really two ace classical musicians, Shiv Kumar Sharma (santoor) and Hari Prasad Chaurasia (flute). Their work in Silsila and few other movies helped them win over a new set of followers who then crossed over to the duo’s classical work. Vishal Dadlani and his tribe does that crossover today when he juggles Bollywood, as part of Vishal-Shekhar, with what I suspect is his true passion – punk/hip hop/rock, as the frontman for Pentagram.
Classical music for dummies – This might be blasphemy to the purists but how about creating shorter, less complex, livelier classical compositions to at least get the new audience in the door? As a dummy myself, I can vouch that this approach would work with me.
Music education – The proposal made by musicians to strengthen music education in schools makes a lot of sense, as long as the focus of this education is not to produce musicians (that would be a nice by-product) but to help kids develop an appreciation for music.
As any startup, one of the first things I did was to try and figure out what kind of a legal entity my company should be. Ruling out proprietorship and a partnership was a no-brainer due to liability issues. It then became a choice between a company (Private Limited) and an LLP (Limited Liability Partnership).
LLP seemed like a great choice. It had the benefit that really mattered – limited liability – and it had none of the baggage (at least from a startup’s perspective) that came with a company – constituting a board, conducting prescribed board meetings along with necessary paperwork and audit. An LLP sounded great because I felt like we would have fewer distractions and we could just focus on building a great product.
The catch – creating an LLP in India is not easy – not at the time of writing this post, at least. Three months passed and I had no clue how much more time the LLP registration process would take. My sense of the situation – The LLP entity was introduced in India only recently (in 2009) and the process for setting it up is relatively new. As a result, the various stakeholders involved in this process – MCA (Ministry of Corporate Affairs) as well as the CAs who typically facilitate this process are still figuring their way around the process. It also appears that while the process is mostly online for both companies and LLPs, in the case of companies, the regional ROCs (Registrar of Companies) help move the process along while in the case of LLPs, ROCs are not engaged and the process is mostly run from a centralized black box.
My DIN approval got done a week after I asked my accountant to switch over to a company registration. I understand the company incorporation will be done in another week. Based on my experience, I would recommend a company for Indian startups:
The process is super fast
The overheads (meeting paperwork, audits) can be easily be outsourced
An LLP cannot be converted to a Private Limited. If you plan on growing big (that’s kinda the point, right?!), you will anyway have to form a Private Limited some day.
You need to be a company if you are looking to be funded.
The Beatles flirted with India for a while and it showed – in their facial hair, their clothes, their fascination for Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and spiritualism, and yes, their music. I list here nine songs by The Beatles, that were in some way influenced by India – either the composition itself or the instruments used or the song lyrics.
Song
Composition
Instruments
Lyrics
Across the Universe
Does have Indian influences, specially Lennon's chanting of "Jai Guru Deva"
Sitar, Tanpura
Hard to decode the lyrics but the "Jai Guru Deva, Om" indicates that the song is about the spiritual strength the Beatles gained from their association with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Norwegian Wood (The Bird Has Flown)
Not sure about Indian influence on the composition but it's hard to ignore the sitar
Sitar
No
Within You, Without You
It is an Indian composition with no Western influence. George Harrison arranged the song with Indian musicians. No other Beatle was involved.
Tanpura, Sarangi, Jal tarang, Tabla, Sitar
Does not apply since this is an instrumental piece
Love You To
Very strong Indian influence. George's vocal sounds like Indian chants.
Sitar, Tabla, Tanpura
No
The Inner Light
Could easily be a song from a Hindi movie of the '60s
Sexy Sadie" equals "Maharishi Mahesh Yogi" in this song. The Beatles express their disappointment with Maharishi when he was accused of sexual misconduct with a female disciple (Mia Farrow?).
I Am The Walrus
None
None
A part of lyric goes 'Elementary penguin singing Hari Krishna'. Interesting trivia about the genesis of this line in this John Lennon interview
My Sweet Lord
A hint of Indian chants in the chorus
None
George Harrisson expresses his love for Indian Gods. "Hare Krishna..." chorus. "Guru Brahma…" chorus.
India, India
None
Tabla
Lennon asks India for spiritual enlightenment…and goes on to say that he knows he can't get it here (the song was written in India) because he left his heart in England and he needs to go where his heart is.
Tomorrow Never Knows
A tanpura drone plays throughout the song. A sitar-type guitar is mixed. There's also a brief Carnatic-sounding violin in the mix.
Tanpura, Sitar-style guitar
No
The last two are not technically Beatles songs – “My Sweet Lord” is a George Harrison solo and “India, India” a John Lennon home recording released as a solo. They still belong in this list in my opinion.
Do you know any other songs that belong in this list?
[Updated Feb 16, 2011 – Added “I Am The Walrus”. Thanks to Abhinav’s tip.]
[Updated Dec 17, 2012 – Added list of Bollywood songs influenced by The Beatles.]
[Updated Mar 16, 2015 – Added “Tomorrow Never Knows” based on input from Tom C on email. As Tom points out, this was a glaring omission. I realize now that my music library only had an unmixed version of “Tomorrow Never Comes” from the Anthology album and not the final, mixed version from Revolver. Fixed that.]
I have been following Raghu Dixit closely over the last few weeks. I found out about him from a tweet by Vishal Dadlani, who, along with Shekhar Ravjiani, ‘discovered’ and promoted him. In fact, Raghu Dixit’s one and only album has been released by their label.
My curiosity piqued, I checked out Raghu Dixit’s sound-check and live performances for a UK TV show called Later…with Jools Holland, and came away impressed by the simplicity of the music and the intensity of his vocals. And from my standpoint, anytime a song has a cool violin piece, it’s a winner. I was also taken in by Raghu’s charming story about how the Jools Holland show came about and his experience in the show. So, when he tweeted this excitedly, I was really happy for him:
I was now all set to deep dive into all his songs but was disappointed to find that the only ‘specialty format’ store in the largest mall in my neighborhood, did not have his self-titled CD. I called five major stores that sell CDs and did not find it anywhere (one store at least offered to take my contact information so they could arrange for the CD and call me back). I then tried online stores and drew a blank there as well. The Raghu Dixit website (www.raghudixit.com) did have a ‘Buy The Album’ link but it took me to UK’s iTunes site. Imagine – an Indian album that hits No. 1 on iTunes World Music charts is not to be found anywhere in Bangalore or online! What was ironical was that there were plenty of options to download Raghu Dixit mp3s from dubious looking websites.
Moral of the story:
Buying music is a chore in India. Downloading pirated mp3s is easy.
Indian music is hit-driven. Non-mainstream musicians (i.e. musicians not involved in the film business) are better off wooing international audiences.
PS: An interview with Raghu Dixit in the Times of India reveals that only 50,000 of his CDs have been sold. Consider yourself lucky if you own the album.
Office furnished. Discovered that the best ‘value for money’ furniture (i.e. cheap stuff for startups) in Bangalore can be found in a strip of shops on Infantry Road. Be prepared to shop-hop and haggle like crazy.
Office puja performed. Lord Ganesha invoked for an auspicious start and Goddess Lakshmi to help meet our revenue projections (again, the focus on money)!
Electrical and network wiring done.
Company blog launched. Ahem, you’re looking it. For everyone who has been thinking about setting up a blog but not sure what it takes – All you need is 1-3 days (depending on the content and structure), access to internet, a blog platform (I use WordPress) and ability to follow instructions. If you want your own domain, throw in about Rs. 300/month for hosting (I use Bluehost) and Rs. 100 upwards for registering a domain (I used GoDaddy) and you are all set.
Internet and telephone setup completed. In this day and age, I could find only one provider who had the infrastructure to get me connected. Disappointing. The silver lining – the decision-making was easy.
And the most exciting update – Offer made to the first employee … and accepted! Yoohoo!
