20 Mins with Arjun - Intro

19th Sept 2011, 8AM Swabhumi, Kolkata.
When I ordered to open the gates, little I knew that I had just ordered the youth to exhibit the first bloodshed of this Roadies season.
I prayed all to go well.
The guard moved the key unclockwise in the lock, and I moved a step back from  two thousand strong arms and feet rubbing against one another to pass through a 20 ft space, flimsyly held between two wrought iron columns.
I don't know when or how quickly it happened, but I'm really sure it all started with one small fumble. I could loudly hear the feet stamping against the brick embedded ground as they gushed towards the entry lane, on the opening of the gate. They ran like cattle, and I could see the rush of impatience rising to a rumbling madness of becoming a Roadie. Within seconds I saw four five legs collapse in the center and building into a chain reaction of falls. The constant push of people created a force that made it look like lumps of sugar grains rolling off a spoon tip. The heavy thrust turned loud cheers turn into a handful screams and groans. I could almost feel the unconscious layer beneath the face of the human rubble while the top still laid shouting. To harness some mobility, I pushed harder, screamed louder for some movement on unanimated bodies. The mid aged and less weighed bengali bouncers helped with an unusual muscle power and I could finally see a clumsy pair of shoulders stuck to the ground. Two bouncers next to me lifted him by his check shirt, and I saw a face rising from the pool of blood underneath.

"Is this a stampede? Is he dead? or alive? still breathing? Oh shit.. I dont want him to die! Someone please check. God! Fuck!"

On seeing the blood pool, a deep silence shot me - maybe that one moment I just went numb a heard nothing around me. But in a moment I could see a crater of shocks, shudders and anger, which worked back my conscience.

There he was - Arjun,  the youth of India. An innocent blood smudged face, scrubbed against the soil by his own compatriots.

Words we say...

How easy it is to bring about that one small change in a shade while mixing colors on a palette?
As you fondle with creativity, nothing really changes in the quality or quantity, you'd initially put together. You end up dabbing paints, growing into millions of naive shades, in turn giving birth to more unique shades.You may quote this as the greatest pay off exercised at your own whim. 
These shades reflect new thoughts and even the slightest +- leveling of the colors can rapidly alter the refection of the mood you were trying to achieve. 


Relatively speaking, 'Talk' is somewhat like moving of a brush stroke, in a certain or uncertain direction.
Every time you say something, going stroke after stroke, words pass through a little pin hole of the present. Every stroke is like creating a micro paradigm reflecting on a listener's mind.
As one moves from one sentence to the other, a multitude of expressions forms an ecg of feelings darting through the head to heart, while you just 'Talk'.
When in soliloquy, many of us just loosely put strokes of water on already painted surfaces, sometimes brightening or dulling or other times simply smudging and muddling them. 


But its not as rosy and gold leafed always.
Many of us, and I would not be afraid to include myself, have sometimes pushed our luck really far with words we say.  As we dab facts with figures, we create lethal acidic shades in the shelter of lies. 
This time the listeners cross examines and puts one's creativity to test. 
Trails run though as flash thoughts while saying, listening and understanding play on their combinations.
Its like when you look into a man's eye and feel him spying on your words as you go on and deplete something irreversibly. 
The colors now grave and murkier. You run a short and crisp prayer about cleaning that amalgamation you just created while you still talking and praying. The listener on the other hand by now becomes juror and hunts hard with a desperate ear, while you try hard to save a wreck of your integrity by carefully crafting words. Hanging by a slipknot you try to stroke the canvas clean. But its too late. Whether you succeed in convincing the listener or not, a guileful and cheerless stroke dries on the canvas. 


Day after day, every man toils for careful words, adding up to his unique master piece. 
Sometimes bright, sometimes plain or gloomy. At times kneeling down creativity before truth.
It is in this dark moment when a keen observer mysteriously loses his sight, an agile breaks into a slip disc and a guru loses his sanctity.
The words are spoken and simultaneously the strokes of impressions are made. 
The day when you die, you leave behind a painting with innumerable strokes of pain, pleasures, joys, sorrows, symphonies you made, beautiful weathers you lived, and shades of lies you told.

Anatomy of a flop

To make a television music property is really not that difficult.. What's difficult is to make a people's music property..
Here is recipe in practice and God save us from it..
U need some traditional music channel, laden with sponsors, to bring in about 5parts of investment + 4parts of an execution/production agency (execution bcuz they are really executing u while u clap sitting in the TVR room seeing the screamy live edits) + 2 parts of a bunch of commercially abused artists ready to act like they don't have the dates, but eventually agreeing to participation at almost anytime of the year + 12 parts of very talented hot looking youth, wasting time sitting as the jumping audience n being paid less than 50dollars a day + 1 part of the directors who really don't have any idea of music aesthetics, but n can faff about bollywood fan following and convince the channel biggies to pool money for the next less successful, a more raped property + a pinch of pr executives, who have actually listened to genuine music, sit backstage and machine produce critique, thus digging the channel's grave.. One bit of careful garnish must be added with expert marketing, only setting a stage for a perfect kill.
While on recordings u witness loads of laughs, giggles n sweet exchange of social stunts, only to die out on the Wednesday following the telecast of the first episode.
Music RIP.

PS :
TVR room is a small loud smoky compartment full of sceens feeding live cameras, where the live editing is done.
Tam send its weekly viewership figures to channel on Wednesdays.