Lady Gaga: The truth about present day musicians and the gory death of many genres

Lady Gaga, who does not know her? A pop star who is considered outspoken, has more than 10 million twitter followers. But who exactly is Lady Gaga?

Few call her a salvation to the pop music world that was tottering at its nadir thanks to Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, for their constant whining about love, sex and ideal mate. Well, that may be true to an extent given her content and the boldness she has visibly shown in their composition. Others call her ’The Liberated Soul’ who is not under the clutches of the social fabric that has curbed all the freedom and innocence of most of us.

To me, she is just another singer who is different from others in her portrayal of emotions through songs. Wearing a meat dress, openly supporting Gays through her song “Born this way”, being rebellious and non-conforming to societal norms don’t make someone a great idol. This is where I differ from others; for them, lady Gaga is the epitome of feminism and liberation of women. She is just a rebellious attention grabber for me, nothing more… coz at the end of the day she is just another capitalist living on the fact that we are supporting her by buying what she sells. It is obvious for anyone to sell something that we easily accept and conform to, being rebellious and not accepting the rules and the social structure for what it is makes Lady gaga what she is. They promote nihilism, anarchy and narcissism.

Justin Beiber has 2 Billion YouTube hits. Well, Selena Gomez, Justin Beiber to name a few... if this is the future of music, then I am happy to live a life in the past... The 70’s and 80’s where music was experimented and blossomed.

But my worry has been the degradation of modern music and the destruction of many genres. Music evolves a lot by experimentation and fusion of existing music forms or genres. If you look at the past, the way music evolved. You would see King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Alan Parsons Project, Genesis, Yard Birds (They gave us 3 great guitarists – Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton), U2 and many more.

King Crimson and Velvet Underground are credited for development of 3-4 present pseudo rock genres like punk etc. Pink Floyd revitalised the lost genre of psychedelic rock along with Yes, Genesis. Jimmy Page went on to form Led Zeppelin and U2 was recognised as one of the best rock and roll bands and they experimented with each album, every album was different and indicated a new genre.

That period is called a lost decade for most and was the time when the world was stagnant but music forms flourished. If we look at the world famous guitarists, the music instrument I love the most... we see Steve Vai, Michael Hedges, Gary Moore, Jeff Beck (Yard Birds), Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin, Yard Birds), Eric Clapton (Yard Birds), Slash (G’n’R), Edge (U2), Carlos Santana, Joe Satriani, John Petrucci (Dream Theatre) , Pete Townsend (The Who), Kurt Cobain (Nirvana) and finally the perfection of usage of “ELECTRIC GUITAR”- the one and only “JIMI HENDRIX”. There are a lot more but my point is to drive home the fact that the World of music is just becoming commercial and is coming to stagnancy and a stand point.

Music is way of expressing feelings like Rage, Anger, Love, Fear, Hate, Faith, Belief etc. It is the way we want to see ourselves. It helps us in discovering what we really are and what we can be and hence its evolution is a must for the evolution of thought and ideas for the human race.

God, for this same reason, don’t let few retards ruin music… the thing I love the most. 

Perfection: What is it?

We all crave for it and would want to be perfect; but what actually is perfection or for that matter being perfect.

The notion of being perfect had the sense of invincibility attached to it in olden days; people who were intrepid, and gallantly fought many a battles and won them with ease. That was when man was nomadic and barbaric, hunted for food and still did not master the power of fire, wheel and in general did not nurture the power of science.

As has art, even the notion of perfection has evolved over time. Art, few might say changed with regard to the perceptions of the society but I feel it has degraded over time. The age of renaissance, people admired the complexity of any painting; be it the Mona Lisa or the virtuoso man of Da Vinci or other painters like Rafael, Donatello, Giorgio Bellini, Michelangelo and many others. At present we try to find a meaning in a painting, which obviously doesn't depict anything much in the name of modern art or demean our own deities in paintings in the name of secularism and open society.
 
For mathematicians, perfection meant accuracy and precision, for art it meant flawlessness. At this point, I remember a concept called "Perfect Number" in maths, a number is said to be perfect if the sum of all its divisors is equal to the number. The 1^st perfect number is 1+2+3 = 6. I stated this to say that we, the people are so obsessed with numbers and values associated with everything that we want to be measured perfect.
It is just numerical; our life is just filled with some idiotic numbers. Nadia Comaneci, The perfect 10 Lady is remembered not for being Romanian or a great Olympic gymnast. She is just remembered for scoring all 10.0 in uneven bars. Our obsession for statistics has indeed ruined the way we learnt to live.

People have become anorexic as they want to have a size-zero figures like their role models. People want to build bodies and resort to artificial protein supplements and drugs like steroids. I want to be an IITian, IIM grad or an IAS officer. All have some goals that if achieved would lead to perfection.

We have our own predefined notions of perfection and have our own role models who themselves are imperfect. We cognitively, in search of perfection have taken a path that leads us to further imperfection. But we are all in a mode of denial and live our lives happily or assume that we are living happily.

So what can be called perfection, can someone be perfect. Well, it is something that cannot be answered by a mere mortal like me, but I can say that there is someone who is perfect and he is known as God to the world. But we can try to be human and be as godly as possible by caring for the society, environment and thinking of the society and putting your own country ahead of you. It needs us to be altruistic, philanthropic to the extent possible and helping everyone around in all possible ways rather than liking a few videos on facebook.
I hope people would want to be perfect in real. Hope to see all of us trying to build a brighter future for everyone around. That is what I would call perfection…

 

Democracy: Changing landscape under Lokpal Bill & Black Money issue

Democracy, a notion that has evolved over time is at the helm of change again. For the Greeks, Democracy was a rule of a council dominated by the aristocrats with little power given to the proletariats. But that was a development over the Spartan way of monarchy. Solon did acknowledge the inherent drawbacks of managing all the factions and of giving Plebs an appropriate representation. Cleisthenes came with an improved structure after the Pisistratus hiccup. Pisistratus was required for giving the system a shock to realise the inherent deficiencies of the authoritarian system. The people's leader, a populist one would never be called a Tyrant in modern era but that was the irony of life that the Greeks who gave the world Democracy, Called a people's leader, a Tyrant.

Coming to the present World, Let us look at India, acclaimed to be a successful governance structure as well as the biggest democracy in the world. With a population of 1.2 Billion, Direct Democracy is impossible to accomplish and Representative Democracy has always been under question as it neglects the common man's concerns and ideas to some extent, hence we need to adopt a system that takes into consideration, the most important of all things, common man's opinion and civil society's point of view. 

The Lokpal Bill and the issue of Black money have brought Indians under one umbrella, alas after a long time. It is heartening as we have been divided on caste, race, and region for a long while. The British used the mantra of 'Divide and Rule', which was supposed to be buried under the ink of the preamble of our Constitution that promised Socialism, Sovereignty, Secularism but flourished under the mat of modern day politics and is still being wielded as a weapon in the hands of contemporary politicians.

Now, let us look at the issues that are under debate. How can civilians be involved in decision making in a representative democracy and if indeed they are involved, who are the ones whose opinions need to be heard and catered to?

The present situation does boil down to a classic chicken and egg problem. Representative democracy lets people elect the ones whom they feel are capable enough to express the opinions that are for the greater good of the society. To nominate a few select personnel who will talk on behalf of the civil society is as good as electing your representative in the house or the senate. The incorporation of civil society in the way it is being expressed to be done is a reinforcement of the system that the civil society is opposed to, a Representative Democracy as that has integrated corrupt means of operation in its nature of governance.

Anna Hazare & Baba Ramdev might seem ideal representatives of the Civil Society and they do enjoy a huge following. So were people like Fidel Castro, Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong, and Joseph Stalin; all were populist leaders and their ideologies well appreciated. But all those administrations did go haywire and the civilians of those countries were in need of help. Might be it is a pretty weird comparison, but my point is to say that power can transform the mindset of anybody.

This does point out the most important aspect of human nature, which has been highlighted in many movies of late like Lord of the Rings, Dark Knight Etc as well as in books like Devil & Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho. Human mind is susceptible to greed, power and can easily be corrupted. I would like to highlight Freud, He said "we all are born with animal instincts and the fear of law and society lets us curb them and live in peace; but given a chance we all will unleash the animal inside us". Greed, as in being corrupt is one of the seven sins which no one can escape from. A famous movie line says, "Everyone has a price". All will fall to greed at some point, few for thousands, and few for millions. People from the government especially congress are already questioning the integrity of Baba Ramdev. Maybe Digvijay Singh's statements need not be paid any heed given his comments on Karkare and Malegaon blasts. We can neglect this verbose as a ploy of congress to decoy from their own vulnerability given the circumstances of anti-corruption drive and a high inflation smothered economy. 

Another point, why would the existing representatives allow others to intervene in decision making and formulate rules that will allow independent bodies to prosecute them? Nobody would want to give away the power that they wield. But, things can change if people think on social grounds. Game theorists and social sciences folks say that "People enjoy more power by having less of it and sharing more of it". That is the power of Unison, when the whole society is in harmony and all share a part in decision making.

We, Citizens, have our own fault lines. We are so happy living our own life and always criticize the system and the dysfunctional nature of the government. We are so involved in flocking the net and supporting all programs by just mere clicks. Given 50% of the country is under 35, virtual world plays an important role in daily life but still we ought to live in reality and come out in open and support causes. Collective action, a thing long forgotten, rotting under communalism, and casteism need to revive like a Phoenix for our beloved nation to survive a long awaiting catastrophe. 

Proper checks and balances need to be incorporated like James Madison said in his federalist papers. Judiciary & bureaucrats are under the scrutiny of the Legislature in India, which was never the intention of the law makers. People like Mayawati transfer bureaucrats like piece of garbage. This is the core issue that needs to be addressed. 

Alienate bureaucrats and judiciary from legislature and give them adequate power to negate the pressure from power thirst and corrupt political babus. Corruption in bureaucracy can be eradicated if the pay scales can be revised by setting up an independent commission, rather than under one carpet called the Pay Commission.

The other issue is, can PM or the CJI, the ones who are the representatives of this great nation to the world can be under the purview of a civil body and be prosecuted under the civil code of law. 

At this point I remember a very famous saying, "Who will monitor the ones who monitor us". Also, the UN convention on Corruption sought to include everyone who holds a post in public office under purview. So, how are we different from the rest of the world? Is our PM really different from the President of US, who is considered to be the most powerful man on the planet? 

When the most powerful man in under the radar, why can't our PM and CJI be under the radar? Hence, it is up to the people to decide; do they indeed want to make a bill that does monitor the ones who do monitor us - the people.