Idea Jugglers

 

 Yada Yada Yada and Orphan's Cry [7:28m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

BS Keshav is an architect, who’s also a voracious reader, amateur writer and big time dreamer. And best of all he is a newly published author. You have to check out Subbu Chronicles, a rip-roaring adventure through all the elements that constitute the metropolis that is Mumbai, from Bargirls to the Mafia and Cricket betting to Wardrobe malfunctions, it’s journalist Subbu who has the story. You can purchase it from here and read Keshav’s superb blog here.

Taj Weekes sings for the oppressed and he spreads special messages with his music. Taj Weekes and Adowa’s first album thought provoking ‘Hope and Doubt’ was released in 2005. His new album DEIDEM (All of Us) has a strong message and this is what Weekes says, “Whether it’s Darfur, the Middle East, global warming… there’s something going on in every part of the world and we’re trying to bring it all together on one album. No one is talking to each other; the album is designed to create conversation where people can come together.” Orphan’s Cry is from this album. For more info on the album and the group, visit Weeke’s website and MySpace Page.

“Back in 1932, things were quite different,” began Great Grandpa at breakfast.

Grandpa suddenly found something interesting in the newspaper. Father had to make a phone call that very moment. Billu found his omelette fascinating. Mother vanished into the kitchen. Uncle Hari stopped in his tracks at the door, deciding to skip breakfast altogether. Grandma and Great Grandma thankfully stayed put in their photo frames, they had no choice.

Great Grandpa seemed oblivious and continued unabated, “That was the year I went hunting with Kenneth Anderson in the forest near Jalahalli. You know Anderson, the South Indian Corbett?”

Grandpa groaned inwardly behind the newspaper. “When will the old fart die? I have heard that yarn two hundred times. He’s Ninety-seven for God’s sake! When will I get to see his money?” He tuned out as the old man went yada yada yada…

Great Grandpa went on, ” Those days Bangalore ended at Sankey Tank. Everything beyond was jungle. We entered the forest at six AM. You know what met our eyes?”

Thundering silence met his question.

“A tiger, that’s what. It was mounting a she-elephant. A perfectly ludicrous sight. I wish I had a camera that day. I could have recorded this strange mating for posterity! Hyuck, hyuck!

I could leave that photograph as a legacy to all of you worthless dickheads, as you are not getting anything else. I changed my will yesterday. All my money is going to that orphanage on Bannerghatta Road that gave shelter to the bastards I fathered. They deserve it more than you lot”

Nobody had heard a word and the old boy knew it.

Rheumy eyes stared into the distance. He took a measured sip of orange juice. He wished there was a spot of vodka in it.

The End

Story © B S Keshav., all rights reserved. Music © Taj Weekes and Adowa., all rights reserved.

 

 Five Years with Black Orpheus [7:26m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tragic-Comic Zen story meets flamenco guitar in this experimental piece. Expect more experiments here.

Nico di Battista is a Napolitano guitar player. He likes to play flamenco, Latin, jazz and new age. Nico’s experiences began in 1989, with Nino Buoncore along with many jazz greats (Bernard Purdie, Danny Gottlieb, Lew Soloff, and Chuck Ranei). Since then he has performed with James Senese (saxophonist), Art Ensemble of Chicago with Lester Bowie and Don Moyet, respected Brazilian guitarist Toquinio and Live in International tour with the king of Soul music, Solomon Burke. Find out more about Nico here and on his My Space page.

He was a flurry of excitement. A spark of endless energy. He was by the door. He was by his bed. He was in the corridor, fidgeting with impatience. He was the monk in the stone chamber with a secret so beautiful, it made him cry in his sleep. But now he was awake and he was waiting for the sound of footsteps that would lead him away from this chamber and into the sunlight where he would talk and talk and words would stumble, jumble, tumble out of his mouth like birds set free. After five long years, the monk would finally speak.

The test sounded impossible. To spend five years in silence as he shifted, nudged and sprinkled an intricate network of colors into a picture of immense stillness. The ground beneath his feet would be his canvas. His mind would fight him. It would split into two halves and each half would split further and further. Each piece would have its own voice. The pieces would scream and shout and vie for his attention as he would try to herd them back together like bickering cattle. He would create his masterpiece of stillness with the gaggle of endless noises. All in his own head. For five long years, he did not speak. But now he would.

The mentor assigned to him was known to be particularly effective in making saints out of snot nosed fledgelings. He was the perfect guide. He led them part of the way, then dropped them off to fend for themselves. The idea was to enable the young monk to conquer his mind as he meditated on the creation of his own masterpiece. In the act of focusing all his energies on this creative pursuit, the young monk would learn to discipline his own mind. No one had failed the test before.

The young monk closed his eyes as one voice sang an Abba number and another narrated some episode in the life of Adolf Hitler. He tried to calm himself down. Five long years would end soon. He would be back and there would be much to talk about. His finger gently traced the masterpiece, one inch from the outline. He looked at it fondly and resisted the tear that found its way to his eye.

It struck him then. What was he to do with the masterpiece once the mentor had approved it? He could not carry it with him. He could not leave it behind to be trodden upon by holy feet. This was his child. It had his mental DNA. It was made from the words of a hundred different voices, all his own. This was him shouting out in a single, strong voice of color and light while the other him labored in silence.

A picture of perfect stillness? Not exactly… no. He pondered on as the various voices argued between themselves about the fate of their masterpiece. He did not hear the reluctant footsteps of the mentor. Not even when they neared the door and paused. He did not hear the mentor’s sigh. He did not see the mentor’s eyes, deeply ridden with one of the few emotions he still submitted himself to. No he did not hear the mentor slam the door open.

He did see a fountain of saffron land on his masterpiece. He could not believe his eyes and all the voices inside him screamed at once, but he only gasped. The mentor was kicking his masterpiece to dust. The colored powders erupted like miniature sandstorms all around him. Little sparks, little bombs went off in the young monk’s head as he saw his five years being destroyed before his eyes. His work, his life, his art, now lay scattered like the remains of a road-kill, mutilated and ignored.

The mentor looked at the monk. He extended a sympathetic arm towards him. He noticed how unusually ashen the young face looked. Then he realized why. The young monk who was standing pole straight, began to tip over ever so slowly, it almost looked like he would defy gravity. Then it caught up with him and he landed face first into the dust pile of colors.

The mentor turned him over, expecting the worse. The young monk looked him in the eyes and the many voices inside his head spoke at once to the mentor. They told him of heartbreak and solitude and misery and the great light. All this was said in a few moments. Then one voice spoke, the monk’s own. It said, “See you later.”

The mentor knew then. What did he know? Not much. Just enough to live by. Many near him noticed the blanket of sadness around the mentor. They all agreed he knew. One monk asked him why should he have jumped and kicked a masterpiece to death. The mentor answered, “So that one must know that all is in passing.”

Many years later when the sad mentor lay on his bed, his fingers clenched and breathing shallow, they knew that he knew. He watched them fade away into a milky murkiness. The mentor was already far away by the time the first of his people touched him. But he suddenly returned. He sat up in bed, stared dead ahead and screamed out in the loudest voice they had ever heard, “Watch the road asshole!” Then he fell back. This time, quite dead.

They knew. The mentor would rise in the city, his time wasn’t ready yet. They nodded their heads sadly, sighed and threw him over the cliff.

The End

Story © Tarun Durga., all rights reserved. Music © Nico di Battista., all rights reserved.

 

 The Old Magician and Houdini [5:47m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Visit Houdini’s cool website http://www.houdini.fr/ for downloads and lyrics and band info. Also visit their MySpace Page.

What is magic? I had asked the old magician
In his fading green hut,

He was seated on an old chair, anchored to that room,
The sunlight lost itself in the wrinkles on his face
And old lines on the palm of his left hand traced new lines on the
Back of his right ;

His voice, rusty with age and broken with time
Rasped words that I wish I could remember now,

But that fading green hut was a repository of memories,
And what was spoken there was largely piled
As dust between the hinges of a throaty door;

Memories collected in that faded coat of his,
His pockets sprinkled powdery dreams
Like lint on the dusty floor
Beside his gullied feet, where the toes rubbed them deep;

In that fading green hut where the old day lay down to die
We played cards in the twilight of the sun and the moon,

The last hand, he said, is the magic hand-
It seals your fate, he said, as he won again;

It was trickery of course, an old magician’s ancient indulgence
In that dusty room,
And we weren’t playing for money,

We were watching out for a semblance of real magic
Where every hand was as perfect as yesterday’s promises,

In that wispy, smoky room of his green hut
I left him with a new pack of cards and a carton of cigarettes;

He faded away with that old green hut one day,
I’m not sure if this is what he meant
But it does seem like real magic- the perfect prestige,
(Or transformation as we magicians like to call it)

On an empty tarmac where that hut stood,
A green sapling grows stronger
Day by day.

Poetry © Tarun Durga., all rights reserved.
Music © Houdini for “Cards Trick”., all rights reserved.

 

 Details [0:45m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Winter afternoon, Friday,

Sleet trickles like stray musings,

And she sits sipping coffee

At the window, peeking now

At faces familiar,

And still alien, unknown,

Seeking what changes people

When details are sought instead

Of a complete picture, and

Fingers a mole on her chin,

-Whisper in a picture hall

Not loud enough to disturb-

She wonders about jet planes then.

The End

This poem is an experiment in form. There are 7 syllables in every line. 13 lines. A turn in the end.  Would anyone else like to try this form out? I’d love to see your poems.

Verse and Music © Tarun Durga

 

 Games Indians Play with Naash [11:38m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

V.Raghunathan is a member of top management of the GMR Group, an infrastructure giant. He was an academician with IIM, Ahmedabad. Since 1990 he has been a Visiting Professor with the University of Bocconi, Milan where his teaching interest is behavioral finance. He has a large collection of antique locks and tinkers with mechanical watches in his spare time. Games Indians Play is his book explaining the Indian mindset using the Game Theory.

Orange Street’s distinctive sound is a combination of heavy rap-rock, Indian classical & traditional Dhol shot through an electronica bed. They have 2 albums under their belt, the most recent being Candywalk, released by Magnasound. Songs from this album were used in the award winning Bollywood feature film called “Everybody Says I’m Fine”. They are revamping their sound and have toured all over Europe recently. You can learn more about them and download their songs from here and their MySpace page.

A reporter once asked a farmer to divulge the secret behind his corn, which won the state agricultural contest year after year. The farmer confessed it was all because he shared his seed with his neighbours.’Why do you share your seed when you’ll be competing with them in the contest every year?’ asked the reporter.

‘Why sir,’ said the farmer, ‘don’t you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbours grew inferior corn, cross-pollination would steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbours do the same.’

That Indians very rarely act like this farmer is the principal theme of the book and the book uses Prisoner’s dilemma as the coat hanger to hang its thesis from.

The prisoner’s dilemma is a concept that has come to occupy a prominent place in game theory. The problem statement goes like this: Assume that you and I are co-conspirators in a crime. Each of us is selfish and coldly rational. We are being interrogated in two separate cells, and we are unable to communicate with each other. The interrogator tells you that he has enough evidence to put each of us away in the slammer for two years each. However, if you squeal on me and help him prosecute me, he will set you free immediately and imprison me for five years. He also tells you that he will make an identical offer to me (though you and I cannot communicate). If each of us betrays the other, he will put us both away for four years. Being selfish and rational, we have to respond to the offer in terms of what is in our best self-interest.

Now, here is our dilemma: Should we defect and squeal against each other, or should we cooperate and hold out against the interrogator? You may reason that if I defect, it would be in your interest to defect as well — otherwise you will be stuck in the prison for five years while I go free. And if I do not defect, it is still in your interest to defect, since you will walk free immediately. So you decide to defect. I follow the same reasoning, and I defect as well. As a result, each of us ends up with four years in prison. Had we both cooperated instead, both of us would have been better off, getting only two years each in the slammer. Thus, even if we were both selfish, it would have paid us to cooperate!

Prisoner’s dilemma situation is such that we believe that if we do not cooperate, we benefit more. Rather than just do the “right thing”, we put ourselves in the other person’s situation and ask: If he does not cooperate, why should I? And if he does cooperate, it is still in my interest not to cooperate, because I benefit more by not cooperating. So no matter he does, it is best for me not to cooperate.

Although this may sound abstract and theoretical, this is often how we as a people tend to think. Very often our exporters show samples that are of a high quality, but when the time comes to ship the goods, they send something inferior. This is very much like a prisoner’s dilemma situation. You may initially make money because you have gotten something for nothing, but going forward — in an iterative kind of a context — you will most probably fail. You will stop getting export orders when your customers figure out that they cannot depend on your quality. They will stop trusting you and start suspecting you. In my book, I cite examples like our exporters who supplied largely red brick powder in place of red chillies and lost their contracts for good, not unlike killing the golden goose for a one time gain.

The prisoner’s dilemma also explains why for instance, our people jump red lights with impunity; drives with the high beam on, dump our garbage all around us, jump queues, run our water full blast in our sink, indulge in corruption in every walk of life, and so on.

Imagine a town with very low water pressure. One fine night you get a bright idea to quietly install a pump in your sump. As your neighbor hears the whirr of your motor, he knows what you are up to. Since your pump adversely affects his already weak pressure at the tap, he also installs a pump for himself. Before you know it, virtually everybody in the town has a pump installed and consequently the pressure is back to where it was, while every citizen is worse off than before, having invested unnecessarily in the pumps! However, the citizens could have saved this unnecessary expense had they had the wisdom to exercise some self control on the impulse to install the pumps! Almost each aspect of our behavior is like the denizens of this imaginary town. Games Indians Play helps us introspect on our collective conduct.

© V. Raghunathan., all rights reserved. Music © Orange Street., all rights reserved.

 

 Love Just Is and The One I Adore [9:11m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Catch Pratishtha Shrotriya’s fun and innovative fashion writing on ShotCouture.com. Her witty general work can be found on ChronicBohemian.com.

Jenna Andrews is a Canadian singer from Toronto. This pretty singer’s honey and butter voice brings back memories of good old fashioned romance. Visit her MySpace profile to know more. You can also catch her on You Tube.

Define love. Go ahead. Try to even remotely capture its essence in words. Try to explain its simplicity, its complexity, its profundity … I’d love to see you do that. Would you? Could you? Maybe. Maybe later. Maybe never.

I’d try, but I am too overwhelmed. Where do I start? There is so much to say. There is a lot that needs to be understood before I even begin. There have been so many times… of falling in love, heart break. So many moments, memories of tears, of smiles shining through. But I am going to do this because this needs to be done. So here we go.

My first memory of love smells of mom. It feels like her long hair; soft wisps of dark brown that would kiss my face before she did. It feels warm, like her comforting breath on my forehead on a wakeful night of fever and pain, as she sat, awake, on my bedside. It tastes of the salty skin of her cheek, that I kissed goodnight, every night. It aches like a single tear in her left eye, it’s always the left eye, when I was leaving home for college.

And love followed me, away from her hearth. It beckoned, in whispers and shadows, forbidden but sweet-nothings. It twinkled in the eyes of the young beholder. It called, at a late hour, waiting for a cup of coffee and some mindless rant. It brought me flowers, chocolates and the bitter truth of two-timing betrayal.

It cooed in the yellow eyes of a feline gypsy. A furry ball of attitude, it hissed and threatened to attack. It got playful in the nights, much to the roommates’ half-hearted chagrin. It gulped down quick mouthfuls of milk and baby-food. It hated baths and played with wool. It dug in its nasty claws and drew blood from my arm, in the vet’s waiting room. It left behind a pain of parting that never healed.

It visited again, this time wrapped in a sheet of verse. It sounded like music, a melody that promised to last. It sang and laughed and spewed Kafka. It popped un-prescribed pills and kept a hidden diary. It got possessive and began to hurt. It taught me the twisted reality of the “snow” that a man can inhale. It was a love I ran away from, never to return.

Love came back into my life, yelping, on four tiny feet. It wagged a stumpy tail and grinned a dumb, canine smile. It doted, unconditionally. And spoke a language, bereft of words, yet rich in honesty and innocence. It taught me that love transcends number of legs, tails or not, bark and meows and growls, floppy or pointed ears, red or brown noses. That love doesn’t see specie or gender. That love just is.

And only after I understood love in almost all its entirety… that it shone, brighter than ever before. Like once before, it came with a poem. But this one rhymed. And became a ballad that endured years, trials, misgivings, tantrums and fear of commitment. It stayed, and grew. It went past the ephemeral phase and became eternity. It became a bridge to the past and a foundation for the future. And then I realized that I haven’t understood it one bit.

Love has threatened, cajoled, pampered, bitten, and sulked. It has loved me back, and it has spurned me. But it has remained with me. From the moment I was just a dream in a mother’s heart, to the time when someone gave me a place in their heart. It changed faces, language, species, places. But it stayed. I have given up explaining. Like I said, love just is.

© Pratishtha Shrotriya., all rights reserved. Music © Jenna Andrews., all rights reserved.

Hi Ignore me… I’m only a test post. I’m not important enough to mean anything significant. In fact, I’m just like that guy who knocks on your door to verify your address for a bank loan or a passport or a new credit card. Yes. You don’t know his name. I’m like that. Nameless. But doing my job. I’m a message to test whether the correct notifications are reaching you. Don’t mind me. I’m only a little critter. Fly on the wall. An itch. And the more you read me, the bigger I get. Hah! I’m high as a skyscraper now and you didn’t even know… hah! I loom over your wrist watch like a dark shadow or a cloud of passing time. Hah! You lose. I win. Now did you get me or some stupid old post?

 

 Amok and the Devil [8:07m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Thanks for the music Gary. Find out more about Gary Jules from www.GaryJules.com and you can download his album from www.cdbaby.com. For more info please visit Gary’s MySpace Page. The rights to this track lie with Gary and it may not be used for commercial purposes without his permission.

We rage against the world, not against leaders, not against governments, not against policies, we rage against people. They are everywhere and tragically, we are them. We are the traffic jam, the collective cloud of rank body odor in sardine cans also known as public transport, trains, trams and buses. We are the swarm of stampeding pedestrians running amok on crowded footpaths and subways of urban jungles. We are space invaders, invading our neighbor’s space as someone else trespasses our personal boundaries. Our raging tempers could cause glaciers to melt. What is global warming in front of the human viral condition? We spread everywhere.

The word ‘Amok’ derives from the Malay word ‘Amuk’ which basically means ‘mad with anger’. It’s a social condition where an otherwise average person showing no inclination towards violence, wakes up one morning and snaps. He flies into blind rage, acquires a weapon and goes on a killing spree, hurting, murdering anybody who comes in his way.

Stand on Zanzibar, a new wave novel written in 1968 by John Brunner, speculates a near future, 2010, where the population of the world has grown to 7 billion. The world is not enough, the land is not enough and the crowd is practically knee deep in the ocean. He writes about people called ‘Muckers’ (derived from ‘Amuck’) who go on sudden rampages and have to be put down. Their condition is caused by the fact that they feel trapped not by prison bars but by other people and the frustration builds up to a point where it explodes into spontaneous acts of violence.

Now figure this, as of February 2008, the population of the world is estimated at approximately 6.60 billion. Bang on Mr. Brunner.

I’m not concerned with acts of organized terrorism, my focus is on the Columbine Effect and other average citizen generated crime waves that are sweeping across the world. The statistics are making bigger, bloodier stains every year. Violent crimes were attributed to the economically challenged. The middle class was living in a socially antiseptic environment. The contagion has caught up with us. Violence is not the means to an objective. Violence is the objective. Money is not the motive anymore. I think people are. Road rage has a younger brother now and you don’t want to mess with him. He studies in school. He goes to college. He runs down your neighbor. He even has a pistol in his bag. Does your child know him? I hope not.

Don’t get me wrong. The growing population is definitely not the only reason for the increase in the rate of violent crimes. I’m just bringing to your notice something that you notice as you live your life day after day.

If that’s not enough, check this out. In ‘Indian Army Vision 2020’, the author, Gurmeet Kanwal writes about emerging security challenges for India. The prime most challenge is of growing population and the likelihood of mass migrations from Bangladesh and Nepal. This is going to threaten India’s food reserves and endanger food security. Increase in population will raise the issues of energy and water security. Demand for electrical power is on the rise. Domestic oil production has reduced while the demand has gone up substantially. According to Tata Energy and Resources Institute, the demand for water will almost double from 564 billion cubic meters in 1997 to 1048 billion cubic meters in 2047. Slow development in maintaining water resources will lead to further hell as Himalayan states begin to consume more water.

Leave the statistics aside. Feel the static instead. Do you feel the trip wire trapping your foot, limiting your movements, threatening to blow? Do you see the bubble grow bigger and bigger? The enemy is not external anymore. This is our world. We better find a way to migrate to other planets, because ours won’t contain us much longer. Science fiction isn’t what it used to be. Yesterday’s speculations are today’s hard facts and you can’t stare them down.

© Tarun Durga., all rights reserved. Music © Gary Jules.

 

 Crytsal Sunrise [2:05m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Sometimes we meet

Sometimes we part

We eye a distant future

We let that future pass

In hopes of a crystal sunrise

Sometimes we know

Sometimes unawares

We hurt those that matter most

We use words encore abrasive

Yet hopes for a crystal sunrise

Sometimes we lookup

Sometimes we expect

We experience tenderness and softness

We let ourselves guile by strangers

They exude hopes of a crystal sunrise

Sometimes we see hues

Where nothing was, just elephant grey

Sometimes we forge love

In eyes, dead long ago

Unwittingly, in hopes of a crystal sunrise…

Crystal hopes…

Crystal dreams…

Crystal lives…

That can be shattered…smithereens…in single smashes…

All rights reserved. Copyright © EnchantedWorld.sulekha.com

Visit Enchanted World’s blog for more of her work. You’ll like it. Don’t forget to leave your comments here.

Music: ‘Drifter’ by Andy McGee. He’s an awesome guitarist and you can buy his albums here.