Couch potato no more

NOTE - Read the quotes carefully
" Television is not the truth! Television is a God-damned amusement park! Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, side-show freaks, lion tamers, and football players. We're in the boredom-killing business! So if you want the truth... Go to God! Go to your gurus! Go to yourselves! Because that's the only place you're ever going to find any real truth.
But, man, you're never going to get any truth from us. We'll tell you anything you want to hear; we lie like hell. ...... We'll tell you any shit you want to hear. We deal in *illusions*, man! None of it is true! But you people sit there, day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds... We're all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the tube is reality, and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you! You dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even *think* like the tube! This is mass madness, you maniacs! In God's name, you people are the real thing! *WE* are the illusion! "

These are some of the infamous quotes of the character "howard beale - The mad prophet" from an all time Hollywood classic 'NETWORK '.

I was quite amused and baffled at the same time when I had finished watching the movie.
There it was , the harsh reality right in my face and i couldn't deny it. Although the movie was released in 1976 ,i couldn't help but draw parallels between the current Indian media and what I just saw.
All the atrocities that are happening on Indian television on a daily basis are  bread and butter for the Indian minds now. We , the people are feeding on the most intoxicating weed ever produced by the artificial reality business. The biggest democracy in the world is sucking on to the venomous content of the 'Twisted truth' and worse , we have started to believe in it.

Pitting mother-in-laws with daughter-in-laws against each other and creating vamps in every single household scenario was a different issue but this , this is crazy.
People are now inhaling the perverse truth and enjoying the so called "reality world" .
Its reality television everywhere , be it 'sach kaa saamna' ,some stupid quack's swyamvar or some degenerates doctored by bigger degenerates for a fun and frolic is some ' jungle' .
A mockery has been made out of the news channels , news in general. I hate to admit my deepest fears that this is a change brought on by 'demand and supply' , where the perverse minds demand for such wayward content and all the entertainment industry is doing is to fulfill those demands.

Please oh please be selective and know when to stop before we all succumb to our own creation and turn into Zombies feeding on the flesh of our own kind.

I think its time to "TURN IT OFF" .

Its Showtime

As an employee of Reliance communications , the recent drought of televised advertisements by Reliance ADAG group is making me very uncomfortable.
Its entities mainly consisting of Reliance communication , Reliance capital and BIG TV have completely stopped advertisements via the motion picture channel.
Initially it felt like the company was about to implode despite the fact that the Q4 results have been quite impressive .
Though i understand that there are obvious cut backs in expansion plans of all the major enterprises but the action taken by the Marketing team of Reliance was quite unsettling.
First , let me tell you all that Reliance communications have launched their GSM services and still there has not been a single Ad for its GSM services since its inception.
It has left me and my sense of organizational dynamics in tatters.
I go by my thumb rule that the 3 Major functions in an organization are:
1> Product development and Service Delivery
2>Marketing
3>Operations and maintenance
All the other functions like finance, HR and revenue assurance are support functions which assist the stated major functions to operate smoothly.
The 3 stated Functions are interlinked . Once you have a Product to sell you have to formulate the processes for its service delivery.
Then you market the product making the masses aware of your availability and that's where Advertisement is such an integral part of marketing be it pictorial or tele-advertisements.

Once these 3 integral cogs of an organizational wheels are functional and moving , they complement each other by providing resources for further expansion hence gradual growth.
If you take the GSM service as a your "product developed" and me being a part of the service delivery team assuring this suit also ready for action then it is quite baffling to see the marketing front sitting idle .

I am really looking forward to the IPLT20 world cup not just for the obvious reasons but also because the company is one of its global partner. Lets see what does the marketing group has in store for us.
Lets see how they plan to outdo the brilliant Zoozoo campaign of vodafone .

L.K. Advani for PM ????? !!!!

OK, How do i start ........For god's sake he is 81 years old ... 81 !!!!!!!!!
One of the biggest parties of our country after Indian national Congress(INC) is selling "Advani for PM" via high tech medium of internet advertisements so as to reach the developing Indian society. Ok i agree that is just good marketing strategy but please look at the product you are trying to sell , please please take a long hard look .
So let me get this straight , he was born sometime in 1927-1928 and we could end up having him as the Prime Minister of india ????
Our current Prime minister is 76 and look at him , he is suffering from ill-health and just went through a bypass.
Dont we have an age limit for people to hold the office ??
I know we dont care about the criminal records of the M.L.A.s that make catfights look lame in lok sabha , and we dont have a qualification criteria for them to get a ticket but this ....

How do we conceive of our country to be like in the next 5 years ?? Do we see our self standing upright and firm or crooked and coughing with one hand on the back and a stick in the other ??
I know he is one of the most respected politicians of our country but everything has an "expiry date" .Are we trying to fulfill his "last wish" ??
I am not trying to be offensive but this is an outrage , at 81 he should be mentoring a young ling and imparting his wisdom of experience to others.
We desperately need some youth in our ranks , someone who can reach to the majority of our population which is the youth.
It is the youth that has the power to construct or to terminate.
I got so much to say but cannot find a subtle way to put forward my point .I also don't intend to shift into the domain of being obnoxious because the fact remains that he is the power behind rise of BJP , party that broke the autonomy in Indian politics.I just want to flip your product once and check the expiry date before it's too late.

Rock n Roll Hall of fame - Part 1

21st june , 2008.
Well, as soon as i woke up i was feeling as hopped up as a kid high on sugar.
The reason was simple , i was about to visit a museum which is called "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame" museum in Cleveland and i was darn excited about it.
I wish i could put to words the kinda feeling you have when u are about to charter into an unexplored territory , somewhere u always wanted to be.
The best example i can give is of a 'virgin' groom about to enter the room (empty room) with just his bride , just imagine the kind of anticipation he keeps in the abyss of his deepest desires :P.

By the way , just so you know all rallies that "look" like peace rallies are not always what they look like and COULD be a part of joyous celebrations of the "UNHOLY" (HOMO-ERECTUS as i put it) of their "UNHOLYNESS" if you know what i mean... we will talk about that later.

lets just skip to the part where i entered the GATES of the museum and let me just tell you that it took me like a minute to realize what mistake i had made and i tried to choke myself as soon as i realized that . I entered at 1:45 P.M. and museum closed at 5:30 .... nd i knew within seconds that this time was not enough (and the 23$ ticket made sure that my MOM wont let me visit it again).
So let me just take you all through a breezy tour through the Museum.
It started of with beautiful portraits of Legends like chuck berry ,Lennon , Elvis ,Dylan and mick jagger as a warmup.Then was the actual start , roots of Rock nd roll were on display.
Their were portraits, information and recording samples of d FATHERS AND MOTHERS of rock n roll , with the likes of Robert Johnson,Luis Jordon , Jimmy roger ,Lead Belly , Luis Armstrong , charlie christian etc etc (dont remember them all).Heard and was impressed by the works of Robert Johnson , The 1st modern day bluesman and the tunes of his early tracks such as "Crossroad blues" and "love in vein".Then another bluesman caught my attention , The infamous "louis Armstrong" and heard his track "Westend blues" atleast thrice.
Then came across the mentors such as T-bone walker -Electric blues guitarist , Jimmy yancee ,Hank Williams and none other then "LES PAUL" .
Of all of them there were some that hit me in a way that made me go for some soul searching , Mainly Woodie Guthrie .His work made me notice the similarities between the works of Bob Dylan and Bruce springsteen and i knew where the greats came from.
More of like Willie Dixon , Dinah washington , Elmore james , Pete seagar , Bill Monroe were on display.
There were many more but due to lack of Memory reserves and lazy nature (didnt right all of them down) i cant remember them all :P
After this there was a digital section where we could see and compare the modern day artists and their influences and hear their similarities in music and song writing .
I came to know that An old timer named "Bert jansch" was the influencing factor in shaping up the works of Jimmy page and Neil Young.
Willie Dixon had inspired a lot of lyrical styles of Led Zep , and Woodie Gutherie and chuck berry providing a major sense of direction to Bob Dylan.
By the way i have decided to check out the work of "CREAM" in near future which unfortunately i haevnt yet coz a lot of bands have marked them as a major influence in their musical styles.
After breezing past some small exhibits i crashed into d father of all , ELVIS PRESLEY.
It had his Appreciation letters , Shirts , The famous JUMPSUIT ,show tickets , concert tickets , guitars , donation slips and d best of all his "LINCOLN MARK IV COUP" , the slanderous shiny beast with a look to kill for.

Meeting the GODs

Finally , I am writing the blog for which i created my blog account in the 1st place.
I know this should have come earlier but i was not in a state of stable mind to write anything about The "Liquid tension experiment" concert in BB King's grill nd pub at New york city :) !!
I was stationed at Cleveland,Ohio at my mausi's place and we left Cleveland at 3:00 , morning of 23rd , so early because it was an 8 hour drive to New york city.
Once reached , the whole day went by while visiting Statue of liberty and Empire states .... lets skip past the whole chapter and come to the point when me and my cousin were standing in front of the BB King's at 10:00 at night in the midst of the lavishing Times square and were taken aback by the loooooong queue in front of the club.
While there i met an authentic DT fan named Ben , the guy having visited DT's 7 concerts including SCORE and HAMMER OF GODS. We totally started chatting like long lost brothers abt Portnoy ... Petrucci ... Ruddess .. DT and on and on and on. My cousin brother was kinda confused but he is pretty new to the sanctuary of dream Theater sooooo.... .
So the stage was set , a couple of beers inside nd i was raring to go and there they were .... Potnoy followed by petrucci , levin and ruddess and then they start off with ... "ACID RAIN" !!!
"Shit .... thts Ruddess standing 5 mtrs away ... shit thts Levin 6 mtrs away ... shit thts Petrucci 8-9 mtrs away ... shit thts Portnoy 10-12 mtrs away ... shit i m watching them live ....
oh Fu!@ ... yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....wohoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo" were the exact words and emotions that were oozing inside my brain as soon as they strted , more of a fit if u may say :)
The crowd was selective , the ambiance was gripping and the beers were expensive :P,but who cares , you got a date with the GODS !!!!
After getting us all charged up by "Acid Rain" and following it by "Kindred spirits" there was a small intro by Mr. Portnoy and his sly sense of humour was at work ,and then a bit of silence ......................... 'wats it gnna b' , 'wats it gnna b' and then you see Ruddess's skillful fingers grace the Synth with an accord and we had "Biaxident" !!
Ohh i was soo thrilled that i pushed myself towards d 2nd row rite in front and i mean rite in front of Jordon Ruddess ... i just couldnt stop like i was getting sucked in by the mesmerizing tunes,my eyes fixed at his fingers dancing on the synth .
I have no clue how many musicians have the balls to pull off something like that but Portnoy in a very casual way ASKED if we mind if they could open jam for some time ..... HaH who d Hell would say no .
My oh My the Thumping sound of levin's stick bass and the mood signatures of Portnoy gave the jam a kick start and as soon as Pettruci and Ruddess joined in i named their jam Magnum Magnificence .
the "state of grace" , the "Universal Mind" and the "Another dimension" kept hitting me like cupid's arrows rite from my heart to my butt BUT the pinnacle of the concert for me was "When The Water Breaks" which if did not break then atleast stretched all the boundaries of Dulcet compositions.
Rite after that i gave a 'la salute towards Ruddess and he noticing it gave me a thankful salute back :) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All and all the end was was fitting as it could be with d Geniuses finishing with an encore of paradigm shift and osmosis.
I Did miss Bom there ... he would have cried for sure :D , bommy we will attend a DT concert together for sure ... "yeh mera waada hai" :)!!

Anyways they finished their set , Portnoy said he was tired playing twice in a row that night but satisfied by the response and love they got and we were standing in the middle with an awe filling our hearts and a sinking feeling that the set was over but we did all gave them a Biiiiiig hand and gave a loud farewell.
I came out of the pub and it started to drizzle within no time.
I closed my eyes and and i knew that in this charade of fakes and crowd of phoneys and showoffs , i just met the GODz of Rock nd ROll !!!!!!!!!