If the world only comprised narcissists at one extreme, and the most polite and courteous who profusely praise others at the other end, it would be a very boring place. Things are never black and white. There are various shades of grey in life. In our interactions we often cannot resist the temptation of putting-down a pompous person by a clever repartee, prick his ego by a smart one-liner, use various figures of speech from irony, pun, tongue-in-cheek statements, sarcasm to trenchant scorn. Even with dear friends or respected persons we often indulge in mild leg-pulling and harmless humour.
Miscellaneous
In praise of a woman’s beauty
A keen reader S. Joseph often suggests some themes to write on. He once wrote to me that there were many songs of a man praising the beauty of a woman, and also, somewhat less, of a woman praising a man, and it might be a nice theme for the blog. I felt diffident precisely for this reason – that this was too common and almost all the bloggers I follow have written on this. But I now realise, after ‘Songs of narcissists’ some balancing has become necessary lest you should get the impression that the world is full of people obsessed with themselves.
Songs of Narcissists
Narcissism is seen as some kind of personality disorder denoting an exaggerated sense of self-importance, arrogant, self-centred behaviour and need for excessive attention and admiration. Narcissus in the Greek mythology was cursed by the gods to fall in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. When he saw his reflection he became transfixed in love, he slowly pined away and died. If anyone calls you a narcissist, you will become defensive, and vehemently protest. But my views have changed after I became an admirer of the girl from Gujarat (GFG) since she decided to marry herself, as she could not think of anyone she would love as much as she loved herself. It is trite that one has to love oneself to be happy. A low self-esteem would make a person brooding, sad and a misfit in the society. No one admires a person who pines Ab mera kaun sahara or Teri duniya mein dil lagta nahin, wapas bula le. You would much rather prefer a wild person who prances around with Yaar chulbula hai.
Songs of Yore completes twelve years
In normal times, completing twelve years of blogging would have been a matter of joy, and possibly a bit of crowing. That would look quite out of place in these unusual times. We thought that we would be getting some respite from Covid. But now there is a scare of the fourth wave hitting the country. It is clear by now, the scientists are as clueless as we all are. Otherwise, we would not have got conflicting signals: It would be very mild, it would be like any normal flu; Don’t take it lightly, it has mutated into extremely virulent variants, you have to continue following Covid-appropriate behaviour. Masking is the only remedy, make it a part of your life; masking creates a sense of fear. A friend tells me, forget everything, enjoy your normal life, अधिक से अधिक क्या होगा, मर जाओगे, in the long run we are all dead. But I am not in a hurry to reach there.
Impossible Songs
Wishing the readers a very Happy Holi
The regular readers of SOY are aware that on Holi, when everyone is out throwing coloured water on each other, I often reflect on some serious issues. Not on things like “What is the Ultimate Reality”, or the nature of Brahma (ब्रह्म) and Jeev (जीव) – Are they different or the same? I leave that for more learned people like Swami Venkataramanaji; I limit myself to songs and films. Some songs frankly leave me confused, these are impossible for me to visualise within the possibilities of physical senses. Now I am not talking about the basic contradiction between science, and literature, poetry and other creative fields. We all know that the moon’s surface is cratered, and, therefore, it can be a metaphor for a pock-marked face, but not for an ethereal beauty which evokes ‘Chaudahvin ka chaand ho ya aaftaab ho’.
Romancing the Jaadugar Balma
By now the regular readers of the SOY can easily answer if Amitabh Bachchan were to ask on KBC, बलमा के कितने प्रमुख प्रकार हैं? It is sad that this season of KBC has come to an end; if it is revived, he might some day ask this question! We have met with anaari, pardesi, ajanabi, and beimaan balmas. It is difficult to make an exhaustive list of the several types of ‘balmas’ found in our films – in which category would you put the ‘Balma’ Shakti Kapoor in Chaalbaaz (1989)?. But there is one major category, Jaadugar Balma/Baalma, which was quite ubiquitous in our films once, and quite distinct from the other forms covered on SOY. These categories are not watertight compartments. There are shades of meaning and the context which may overlap in more than one category. In my last post on the ‘Beimaan baalma’, many readers posted songs which were closer to ‘Jaadugar baalma’, and I had to be careful not to let out this planned post.
Romancing the Rogue or Songs of Beiman Balma
Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year
Readers would recall that one favourite of our film heroines was the Dunce, who went by various names such as anari balma, naadan balma, bhole balam etc. Raj Kapoor was the leading light of the type, followed by Bharat Bhushan. They were clueless about the girls, which was a part of their charm. The girls would patiently woo them and teach them about the birds and bees. They would sing songs which we have seen in Romancing the Dunce.
Songs of women for the women by the women
Wishing the readers a very Happy Chhath festival
My fellow bloggers Madhu and Anu are apt to say, no sooner do you put two women together in our films than they start singing. There must be something about women and singing – female solos outnumber male solos by more than three times, and female duets outnumber male duets likewise. Therefore, if there are several women together that should instantly lit a spark for singing. And that is what happens in our culture, which has sanskars and rituals from birth till the end of life, all accompanied by women’s songs.
Q&A in songs
We used to learn in our schools that literature is the mirror of society. As I grew, I realised this is more true of our film songs which mirror every aspect of the society and our lives. No wonder there are a large number of ‘I ask, you answer’ songs. Questioning and seeking answers is fundamental to our existence from ancient days. Our Upanishads asked, What is the Ultimate Reality, What is the Human Soul? Most Upanishads – and not only the Prashnopanishad – had Q&A between a seeker and a teacher. Puaranas talk about creation, Ye kya hua, kaise hua? The blind king Dhritrashtra asked Sanjay, who had been blessed with divine vision, to tell him exactly what was happening on the battlefield, Mujhe sach sach bata, and that became Bhagvad Geeta. As soon as someone arrives after a journey, before he gets a chance to freshen up, we crowd around him to ask where all he had been and what he saw. This is how the epic Mahabharat starts. The great sage Ugrashrava, son of Lomharshan, lands in Naimisharanya in the course of his wanderings where the assembled rishis ask him in unison, Kahan kahan gaye, kya kya dekha. Ugrashrava said, he had been to Janmejay’s snake-sacrifice where Vaishampayan narrated the wonderful tale of Mahabharat, which had been written by Vedvyas. The epic is full of Q&A, for example, Yaksha-Prashna is a very well-known episode in it.
Songs of Yore completes eleven years
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,…. it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” Charles Dickens started his “A Tale of Two Cities” with these lines. If we look at the last two months, this has been a period of unmitigated darkness, the winder of irredeemable despair. In fact, the eleventh year of the SOY began in a state of Lockdown, but then it was a piece of statistics for us, these things do not happen to us. The recent second wave has been ferocious beyond imagination, and there is hardly anyone who is unaffected by it.