Kinda Long Re-view

One of the best news I have heard in recent times – EMI-Virgin India plans to reduce prices of import music cds by almost 50%. Strangely, no official press releases have been made, but both Sangeet Saagar and Planet M salesmen showed me the same catalogue, a 30-page pamphlet of CD titles whose prices are coming down. The original prices were 350 INR for a single cd, anything between 595-700 for double-CD packs, and about 900-1100 for 3-CD packs. The revised prices are 199 INR for single CDs, and 350 and 540 for 2 and 3-CD packs.

The list that was shown to me has a lot of old titles, mixed with dozens of Western Classical albums and 80’s rock – I remember seeing artistes like Joan Baez, Mike Oldfield, Blur, Radiohead it, and even oddball albums like Monty Python collections ( yes, in audio! ), Laurel and Hardy collections, decidedly ancient albums like The Best of Marlene Dietrich. In short, everything a music fan dreamt of, every possible way of spending more money than one spends right now.

This was supposed to be in effect from May 1, but so far, I have seen two or three albums with the revised price tag, a Johnny Hatez Jazz collection and an Eddie Calvert album that Chandru prompty bought. The guy at Sangeet Saagar said that the stock might take some time to arrive. Hmm.

Of course, I couldn’t just come out without buying anything, so I got myself three nice albums. There was this offer going on, by which you can buy two albums and get one free, and I picked the cds of Singing In The Rain: Original Soundtrack and Caution Horses by Cowboy Junkies, and got Remo Fernandes’s Politicians Don’t Know How to Rock and Roll for free. Pretty good choices, as it turned out.

Singing In The Rain has a lot of extended and bonus material on the cd, different versions of the songs, which are highly enjoyable. It does not have the tap dancing sounds from the movie, but that does not affect the sheer energy of the songs. One of the best musicals ever, one of my favorite movies, and now one of my favourite Soundtracks too.

Remo’s album, strangely enough, does not sound as dated as it should – I love the guy. No pretentious accent in his English, and pretty fun lyrics and music. Starts off with this catchy and hilarious “Everybody wants to *Ugh* without the fear of AIDS”, then moves to a hardhitting “How Do You Feel”, addressed to Indian politicians. A slightly cliched “A Song For India”, with carnatic violins and the tabla, and words like “elephants” and “mysticism” popping up in the lyrics. “Don’t Kick Up The Rao” is a song dedicated to ex-PM PV Narasimha Rao – Remo, it seems, wrote a letter a letter of apology to PVNR about the song, and he got a tongue-in-cheek reply headed as “No Remo(rse)”. A good album.

I haven’t listened to the Cowboy Junkies CD completely yet, but the first track is just awesome.

A short quiz. I am not posting this on Quizbusters because of a couple of reasons. Primarily because this is not a good quiz. This is more of an ego-stoking thing, brought about by a few discoveries made while I was using ( what else! ) Google for not-so-official purposes over the weekend. Also because these are not meant to be answered – Now that’s stupid, I know – what else are questions for, if not answers? – but really, it’s the sixth question you need to get, not all of them. If you get six, you get the rest. Of course, you can also work Question 6 out if you get any, or some of questions 1-5.

Non-Indian answerers:- Feel free to use google to get the connect. The desis ( even the non-resident ones ) better play fair.

Onward, then.

1. A film by Robert Altman, based on Raymond Chandler’s penultimate novel, in which Altman reinvents Philip Marlowe as someone who has been sleeping for thirty years and wakes up in LA of the 1970’s. Altman called it his “Rip Van Marlowe” concept. Arnold Schwarzenneger’s second movie ( he plays a dialogue-less muscleman ) Name?

2. ______, ‘Badshah Hamara‘ by Rajbhuja Dutt Choudhary, ‘Namo Hindustan‘ by Saraladevi. Fill in the first blank, along with requisite fundaes.

3. In Indian mythology, its curative properties were attributed to the belief that a few drops of heavenly nectar fell on it. It was the main protection from Insects, who were said to be the creation of Asuras. What?

4. The measurement scale was invented by James Hardy and his research colleagues Herbert Wolff and Helen Goodell at Cornell University where from 1950 to 1959, they carried out pioneering experiments on pain. Hasrdy, Wolff and Goodell used precisely calibrated radiant heat directed to the foreheads or hands of trained experimental subjects. They asked the subjects to report each “just noticeable difference” in the intensity of pain they experienced, and graphed their responses on a scale they called ____. Which scale?

5. Ok, a dud. I can’t really think of anything to connect to the theme. But let me try something that connects to Question 4. Pretty straight and simple – who is the female vocalist on the haunting interlude of The Prodigy’s Smack My Bitch Up?

6. A key element in Sufi thought, and is analogous to Nirvana in Buddhism. Once the Sufi becomes assiduous in dthikr, or rememberance of Allah, they claim that he acquires sufficient tranquility of heart to experience a delusion which helps him pass through the various stages described below. First he is bewildered, then intoxicated with love of the Remembered One, and finally he passes through the stage of ___________, or annihilation, in which he becomes fully absorbed to the point of becoming unaware of himself or the objects around him. Every existing thing seems to vanish, and he feels free of every barrier that could stand in the way of his viewing the Remembered One and nothing else.
the ultimate goal of the Sufi movement is _____, and Wusool the meeting and unification of the human soul with Allaah in this life. Fill the gap.

Well, tha-tha-that’s all, folks. Don’t kill me!

I am supposed to be working. Supposed to be this nice little professional guy working his shift and a little more so that the teensie-weensie buggies on his plate are gently put to sleep. Just me and the buggies, one on one, in the corner of a deserted cubicle, that’s the way it’s supposed to flow.

Until The Bat intrudes.

The script for Batman Begins is what I mean. Kick-ass, absolutely. Must-reading for the Batman fan, and also for non-believers who don’t care too much for comic-book movies and would rather go watch Main Hoon Na.

Minor Spoilers…

IIT Madras has been my quizzing pilgrimage for the six years now. I was kindof depressed because I could not make it to Saarang this year, partly because I was trying to convince myself that it was time to come out of the college-quizzing mode and partly because of work, loads of it. I was in Madras the last day of Saarang, for the Odyssey quiz, but I didn’t go to the college. Maybe someone up there was trying to keep my record intact – two weeks ago there was a personal mail in my inbox, and an official quiznet mail, both saying the same thing – an open quiz at IITM. In adherence to my no-arguments-with-Fate policy, I decided to attend.

The train journey was the same as most train journeys are, when you have a good travel-companion. The only problem was that our tickets, mine and Anil’s weren’t confirmed, so we had to use the same berth. At one AM, the TTE wakes us up from our heap-y slumber and directs us to proper berths. As I drifted off to sleep again, I could hear a lot of ticketless dumbheads, the ones who had been happily occupying the berths we were sleeping in, arguing with the TTE, and he saying things to the effect of “Naansense!”

I woke up twice in the night, once when a lot of coins in my pocket fell out, jangling to the floor, and the other time when my cellphone fell out of my other pocket and got stuck between berths.

IIT Madras ( The heat! ) was fun. The quiz ( The heat! ) was held in the SAC which is short for the Students Amenities Centre, and I had this mental image of how the SAC of an institute should be, based on my four years hanging around an SAC in my college. (Oh, the heat! ) Well, the IITM authorites certainly know that a fully equipped auditorium is a Student Amenity. Here I was, expecting a slightly-bigger-than-normal room where you would need to sit crosslegged on the carpet and answer questions, and here was this gigantic hall that’s bigger than the (Oh, the heat! ) average college auditorium.

It’s a little hot in Chennai this time of the year.

Beatzo – redefining understatements everytime. Any time.

Five minutes before the quiz was due to start, we find out that Dhaaji, our third teammate and the only guy who knows our fourth teammate, is in Hyderabad instead of Madras ( where he’s supposed to be doing is summers) , and the guy who was to be our fourth teammate has a team of his own. Freakin’ cool. Thank God for errant IIM Calcutta passouts who come to quizzes Just For Fun, we got ourselves a third partner just in time.

Yeah, the quiz was good. Except for the brief power struggle in the middle of the prelims, that made the students go gaga trying to shout out questions aloud. (Oh, the FRIGGIN heat! ) The finals began well, with a 77-visual connect ( which we cracked midway ) Loads of sitters interspersed with fundoo questions followed. The quiz ended at about 9:30, with us getting the third prize. A firm belief – it’s only in IITM that you find questions with words like macha and hajaar fundaes popping up from time to time. It’s the only place where the preferred mode of questioning is “modified” infinite bounds ( the scheme by which if team X gets a question and none of the teams answer it, the next question goes to team X again. ) Did I tell you that there was a Hattori Hanzo sword on the poster advertising the quiz? We loves IITM quizzes. We also loves hanging around in IITM campus after missing all trains to Hyderabad, swigging Appy and coffee and talking fundaes.

Amusing Anecdote from the IITians: The logo for the quiz was a question mark and an exclamation mark, arranged as your familiar communist symbol – the question mark as the sickle and the exclamation the hammer. The usage of this symbol caused some priceless moments with the Dean ( “If you want to express your political idealogies in a quiz, you can go look for sponsors yourself!” ) and other IITians ( Somebody scratched the words “Headquarters, CPI(M)” on Shamanth’s door, Shamanth being one of the quizmasters )

Menacing voice calls Siddharth up just before the quiz.
MV: Hello!
IITM Guy: Yes?
Is this IIT Quiz?
Yes, we have a quiz on Sunday.
What is the subject of your quiz?
It’s a general quiz, sir.
No, no, what is the subject?
It’s a general quiz, open to all.
Is it Communist party quiz?
*Blink* Oh, no, no. That’s a question mark and an exclamation mark.
Oh. *click*

Monday was Landmark-and-Ritchie Street day. The Day Kill Bill Volume One:The DVD was bought. You know what? It’s not like I am a pirate by choice or anything. I wanted the damn thing, and it wasn’t on sale in a normal outlet, so I had to go buy it at a shady place in a shady street.

True to the IITM quizzing spirit, I did not opt for a reserved train ticket while coming back. Bought a general class ticket, paid a coolie 20 rupees to “reserve” a seat for me, and sat on a wooden chair for fourteen straight hours. Finished T Coraghessan Boyle’s Road to Wellville and Gaiman’s Coraline on the way.

A weekend well-spent!