SALIL CHOWDHARY- A GENIUS

A legend remembered. Tomorrow is Salil da's birthday.

Salil Chowdhury was unique, in a class by himself. Had he been alive,
tomorrow Salilda, would have turned 85. What made his music distinct? How did he go about projects?

HE WAS DIFFERENT...
Veteran musician Manohari Singh says, “harmonization, use of ‘jumping’
notes were important elements in his music. He knew well the trick of
combining notes! And he had a sound understanding of Western classical
music, a mastery in scoring background music. When the likes of Raj
Kapoor and BR Chopra needed unusual background music, they approached
Salilda.”
Let’s now meet Sabita Chowdhury. “I didn’t know what a choir meant
before meeting him at Suman’s Hall in Dadar, Bombay, during a
rehearsal of the Bombay Youth Choir in 1952. I was surprised to hear
one or two members sing the basic melody and some were singing the
same thing at a higher note... He was different from contemporary
composers in many ways ~ he was a musician, poet, lyricist, story
writer, arranger, singer, producer, director... He formed an
association for musicians in Bombay...”
Well-known guitarist Ramesh Iyer says, “Creating music was a fun
activity for him. When Dada started working for Hindi films, composers
liked his work! Dada gave birth to a new style, one that puts stress
on creative harmony. He explained techniques to blend different types
of music ~ like Bangla folk with Western classical. That was his style.”

WORKING WITH HIM...
“Salilda took me to Mumbai and helped me join Bollywood. My first
project with him was Paasher Baari and then on Madhumati’s background
score. He had in-depth knowledge of Indian folk music as well as
Western classical,” says Manohari Singh. As for Ramesh Iyer, he says,
“I worked in Plot No 5 and Chemmeen as a musician before I joined
Panchamda’s team. Since 1976 I had worked for Salilda all the time he
was active in creating music. Playing his tunes is a challenge.”

FOR THE MASSES?
“I don’t agree that he was not a mass composer. On one hand people
remember Zindagi Kaisi Hain Paheli, Kahin Door Jab and some remember the
peppy Jan-e-Man, Jan-e-Man. Dada had his style and enjoyed several
commercial hits ~ Madhumati, Anand, Chhoti Si Baat, Half Ticket and
Maya,” says one of Salilda’s close associates, lyricist Yogesh.
Sabita Chowdhury also has kinds words to share. “I consider him a
composer with class. How many people can sing his songs correctly?
Without a sense of music, it’s difficult to perform his songs. He
always dealt with quality tunes..”
As for Manohari Singh, he feels Salil Chowdhury had class but didn’t
turn his eye away from the actual viewers of Hindi cinema ~ the masses.
Salil Chowdhury had received awards from Filmfare, Sangeet Natak
Academy, Allauddin Smriti Puraskar, Maharashtra Gaurav Puraskar and so on.
Nobody can forget his contribution to the music world. To most
musicians he would be remembered as a genius.

When the song of Half ticket was getting recorded- Aake seedhi lagi., Salil da told Kishore Kumar that it is not possible to record the song as Lata ji is not able to turn up for the recording and hence they have cancelled the recording. Kishore da said so what he will also sing the female parts. Salil da recorded the song with kishore da singing the male as well as the female parts of the song. Salil Chowdhary's music had a very bengali touch to it.

The above post is with inputs from www.statesman.com

India V Australia 1st test so far

India at Lunch on day 3 has lot of work to do. The Pitch is getting slower and slower and run making is really difficult. The bounce is not true. The wicket keepers have a really difficult time and their backs are going to take a toll.
Ricky Ponting and Micheal Hussey played outstanding test cricket and showed tremendous temperament and patience to reach a big first innings score. Ishant Sharma got two wickets with the help of slower balls in the form of Brad Haddin and Cameroon White. On this pitch varying the pace is very important as there is not much in the pitch to offer for the seam bowlers. Ponting has got a very interesting field setting with a short extra cover and short mid wicket as the ball is not coming on to the bat. Johnson has varied his pace nicely it and got the maestro Tendulkar playing an early shot. Sehwag was frustrated as runs had dried up and thats what happens when you see a wide half volley- the carrot ball you nick it to slips. The old ball is reversing and Mitchell Johnson will be a threat if he is more consistent with his line and length because of his slingy action.
Nine out of the Australian ten wickets were taken by fast bowlers with Harbhajan and Kumble taking 1 wicket in 43 odd overs.Australians have 4 decent fast bowlers. With 2 spinners in the team it becomes very important that we have enough runs to bowl at and that seems virtually impossible at this stage with Dravid back in the hut. Hence the first innings score was very important as batting second time against Kumble and Harbhajan will be rally difficult. Stuart Clark is a very dangerous bowler on this pitch with the ball keeping low as he bowls wicket to wicket and as the game progresses we will see more and more LBWs and Bowled.

Fine with Over stepping

Vekatesh Prasad- the bowling coach of the Indian Cricket Team has announced a fine for the Indian bowlers bowling no balls. Every bowler has a partner in the form of a batsman and every time a bowler oversteps he and his partner have to pay a fine of 50 dollars each. I guess the partner of Ishant sharma is Gautam Gambhir. I don't know the partners of other bowlers.

Only time will tell whether this fine will help in bringing down the no balls. Also the players have to be fine with the fine. I am not sure what happens with the 100 dollar so recovered.

Had the fine been imposed by West Indies in the 80's and 90's I wonder the batsmen will be fighting not to be partners with Curtly Ambrose and Partick Patterson.

Come Home Early

A Mail I received. Too good not to post.

Son: "Daddy, may I ask you a question"

Daddy: "Yeah sure, what it is?"

Son: "Dad, how much do you make an hour"

Daddy: "That's none of your business. Why do you ask such a thing?"

Son: "I just want to know. Please tell me, how much do you make an hour?"

Daddy: "I make Rs 500 an hour"

"Oh", the little boy replied, with his head down.

Looking up, he said, "Dad, may I please borrow Rs. 300?"

The father was furious,"if the only reason you asked that is so you can borrow some money to buy a silly toy or other nonsense, then march yourself to your room and go to bed. Think why you are being so selfish. I work hard everyday for such this childish behavior"

The little boy quietly went to his room and shut the door.

The man sat down and started to get even angrier about the little boy's questions.

How dare he ask such questions only to get some money?

After about an hour or so, the man had calmed down, and started to think:

"May be there was something he really needed to buy with that Rs. 300 and he really didn't ask for money very often!"

The man went to the door of little boy's room and opened the door.

"Are you asleep, son?" He asked.

"No daddy, I'm awake," replied the boy.

"I've been thinking, may be I was too hard on you earlier", said the man, "It's been a long day and I took out my aggravation on you. Here's the Rs.300 you asked for"

The little boy sat straight up, smiling "oh thank you dad!" He yelled.

Then, reaching under his pillow he pulled some crippled up notes.

The man, seeing that the boy already had money, started to get angry again.

The little boy slowly counted out his money, then looked up at his father.

"Why do you want money if you already had some?" the father grumbled.

"Because I didn't have enough, but now I do," the little boy replied.

"Daddy I have Rs. 500 now. Can I buy an hour of your time?

Please come home early tomorrow. I would like to have dinner with you"

MORAL OF THE STORY

It's just a short reminder to all of you working so hard in life.
We should not let time slip through our fingers without having spent some time with those who really matter to us, those close to our hearts.
If we die tomorrow, the company that we are working for could easily replace us in a matter of days.
But the family & friends we leave behind will feel the loss for the rest of their lives.
And come to think of it, we pour ourselves more into work than to our family....

1/0 is not defined and 0/0 is indeterminate

1/0 is not defined and not infinity.

x divided by y means to make "y equal parts of x". Since it is not possible to make 0 parts of 1, 1/0 is not defined.

Proof goes like this
consider the series 1/(1/2) , 1/(1/3) , 1/(1/4) , ...................................
The denominator in the series becomes smaller and smaller and eventually will become zero. Thus eventually we will get a number1/0 in the series.
The series becomes 2 , 3 , 4 , ................................ Hence we can conclude 1/0 = infinity

consider the series 1/(-1/2) , 1/(-1/3) , 1/(-1/4) , ...................................
The denominator in the series will become zero. Thus eventually we will get a number1/0 in the series.
The series becomes -2 , -3 , -4 , ................................ Hence we can conclude 1/0 = -infinity

Hence we get 2 values of 1/0. We are not sure whether 1/o is infinity or -infinity.
Therefore 1/0 is not defined. Anything which doesn't make sense is not defined.

Proof 2
Let 1/0 = x .
Hence 0*x = 1. No value of x satisfies the equation. Hence x is not defined.
Therefore 1/x is not defined.

On the other hand consider 0/0
Let 0/0 = x.
Hence 0*x= 0. Any value of x satisfies the equation. Hence x cannot be determined.
Therefore 0/0 is indeterminate.

Note Indeterminate and not defined are not one and the same. Indeterminate means the solution can take any value. However not defined means the solution doesn't have any value.

So called Spirit

I hear lot of news channels and people saying terrorists cannot break the spirits of the people. People are back on track the next day be it after the train bomb blasts in Mumbai or the recent Delhi blasts. Is this spirit of the people or just that people are not concerned, self centered or they dont have an option but to get back on track.

The scene in the pics is the real spirit of people that actually hurts the terrorists and not the fact that people get back to work the next day. Actually when the terrorists see people get back to their routine the next day they are actually happy and feel that the people out there are not concerned at all.

I am blaming myself also for the things happening as I am not doing anything great to bring about a change. Yes I would love to be a part of solution rather than a part of problem and make an endavour to move from the problem side to solution side. You can say I am already moving. The more the gap between rich and poor the problems will multiply and we have done enough things to ensure this.I dont want to be a liability to the planet. I always pray to God to make best use of me.

Stop Terrorism

I was thinking how terrorism can be reduced if not stopped. I got the answer from Bawa. Bawa is an IITian and an art of living teacher. The following extract is taken from his blog where has posted this . His blog is awesome www.bawandinesh.name

Whenever, wherever they want, they plant the bombs and blow them off. Are we really helpless?

No. They do this because of lack of education. They do this because they think that a cause is more important than a human life. There are many ways that this can stop… here are some:

1. Many people have to go through the Art of Living training and learn to value life. I have had quite a few (muslim) students who have been approached by these terror outfits to join them and they have refused because they have this Knowledge… So go out of your way to bring Art of Living in people’s lives… You may prevent a person from becoming a terrorist!

2. When many, many people meditate on a very regular basis, then that increases the Satva in the environment. There have been studies and experiments done to prove this. A group of 10,000 people meditated in rotation for about a month in a city in the US, and the crime rate in that city dropped dramatically, “normal” crime dropped by 35% and violent crime between 38% and a staggering 85%. So if you have learned to meditate, see that you do it everyday!! You may just have a hand in preventing a bomb blast!

3. Organizations and governments need to drop their pseudo secular stance, by encouraging everyone to learn to meditate, do Sudarshan Kriya… Some classify Art of Living as “religious” or “Hindu” and they are doing so at the peril of the security and safety of our country and the world in general. Art of Living is a purely spiritual orgnization, has nothing to do with religion and will always stand up for whatever is right! If you are working in any organization, please see to it that you initiate and carry through the training of Art of Living wherever you work or study. This becomes mush easier if you excel at your chosen field. So exceling at work or studies becomes of paramount importance, because, then as far as society is concerned your words have weight… and you can use that to make people learn how to breathe :)… Who would have thought those good grades could help prevent a bomb blast huh?!

4. Everyone needs to develop the attitude that: The ONLY thing we will not tolerate is intolerance! It is intolerance, a non verifiable concept of God, a childish concept of an angry and vengeful God who will reward few people in the hereafter and punish everyone else… Everyone needs to realise that everyone and everything is God’s creation and He is not going to get any kick out of people killing each other in His name… We definitely follow one path, but we respect all… we learn from all.

5. We need learn to celebrate diversity and soak in the richness of diversity. Let go of the notion that everyone should be like me, that everyone should beileve in what i believe, that you are “good” only if you are on my “team”. We should wonder at the diversity there is and seek to preserve it. And at the same time realise that basically we are all part of a universal spirit first… gender, race, nationality, religion are all secondary and really not worth fighting about. The diversity there is has been created for our pleasure, and is not to be destroyed!

6. Look for the similarities in different belief systems and come together with those and then celebrate the differences… Most so called leaders have become arrogant and spend all their time in finding differences in what they believe and what others believe and then become very creative in finding ways to undermine, insult and destroy the other. These leaders really need to be dethroned, because they are a disgrace to the faith they represent and a blot on the humanness of humanity. All of us have to learn to understand that there are many ways to the Truth, and that Truth itself is multifaceted and beyond any logic. And we need leaders who will teach this to their flocks instead of the we are right, they are wrong.

7. Everyone has to vote! We all have to take responsibility about who we are choosing to govern our country on our behalf. The reason that the government and the politicians are doing minority appeasement, is because the vast majority doesn’t vote! So, until we have politicians who are really interested in the good of the country and who are ready to serve instead of rule, we citizens have to make our voices heard through our voting. The automatically, these power hungry people will be compelled to wield their power to serve the good of all, rather than appease the minority.

8. Whenever the media does an unfair or biased reporting about an event, we the people, should utterly flood their mail boxes and choke their telephone lines and tell them that we don’t appreciate such sensationalism in the news.

The biggest problem i think is that we don’t DO all these things that we know we should be doing. We ourselves are lazy, and we don’t want to move… and it’s always so very easy to become a victim and blame other people… All of us have it within us to stop this terror, if we only get up and start doing something about it, rather than just moaningand groaning and complaining about it…

So, breathe and meditate, get people to breathe and meditate, get people to get people to breathe and meditate, take responsibility for governance by voting and media by expressing outrage at sensationalism, involve more people into this process, educate lovingly and patiently, have zero tolerance for intolerance, stop complaints and being in victim consciousness, get up and take action.

Most importantly Pray. Prayer has the power to transform even the most rigid individual. But don’t get stuck only praying… prayer coupled with intelligent action can move the entire planet!

Sri Sri Ravishankar's closing remark in His speech at the Millennium Peace Summit at the UN in New York was: “I pray AND i take responsibility!”