There are many things that my soul seeks, In every nook and corner of conversations it peeks, To find speed, love, adventure or friendship, And take me into an exhilarating trip.
I'm tired of complacency and resignation, It has been a long process of fruitful fermentation, I'm itching to get into high spirited action, My hands are on my destinyation!!
Ordinary things and ordinary people cannot keep me up at 4:30 am and make me write a blog entry on them. Well, on what I am writing today, is in the true sense extraordinary. Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Sahab.
X&Y.The axes on the graph paper. The axes of my soul. After listening to Ustad, I realized that there exists an axis Z in my soul. Just like a string on a harp, it emerges only when struck. And for sure, Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Sahab's music truly struck mine causing some resonance!
His music, along with depth and elevation in pitch, has variation which is refreshing. When I listen to "Kinna sona tenu rab ne banaya" I feel like having a crush on somebody. And truly, "Dil kare dekhta rava"!
The Ustad is truly the maestro as far as his classically 'qawali' trained voice is concerned. He modernizes Qawali by using western instruments like the electric guitar, trumpet, electric keyboard and the drums in many of his songs. And it comes out beautifully, soulfully, in a brilliant contrast.
The fusion in his music is unlike any other in this world. The thing about his songs which touches my heart the most is that from a background of the hectic techno/modern music, emerges purity, love, melancholy and an emotion filled voice.
The following song in the video makes me happy from inside. I feel a two way itch. My sole itches to reach the floor and my soul itches to be let in heaven. This song is in the classical qawali style with classical instruments like the tabla and the harmonium.
"Dam mast kalandar"
A beautiful solo by Ustad. One of my favourite songs ever. And he does more than justice to it as the lucky audience watches a great recital. "Sanu ek pal"
This is the song that I loved from the very first time I listened to it. A marvel created by the star lyricist Javed Akhtar Sahab and Ustad himself.
"Afreen"
A classic, OST of Dead Man Walking featuring Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Eddie Vedder.
"Face of Love".
I could keep embedding videos here. Its already an hour up and I realise it's just about an hour for the sun to rise. Will sleep for a hour and a half before I get back to studying, but with eternal and overwhelming music in my heart.
It has been a while since Dhoni has been captaining India brilliantly. But I have failed to relate to him as the captain of the Indian cricket team inspite of his winning streak individually, as well as a captain. It always has been Ganguly for me. As i write,Dada wears the Indian test cap for the last time today.
It will not be so much fun to watch cricket without him. I will miss the spinners being hit for sixes from half pitch down, so clean, elegant and not to forget, out of the ground. After the way he united the Indian cricket team and got a period of glory back to Indian cricket - after he fought his way till the end in the face of injustice and politics, I bid Dada adieu.
Here is a perfectly fitting write up for his farewell.
He Played From The Heart (Author:Boria Majumdar Courtesy:Times of India-10th November,2008)
How will one best remember Sourav Ganguly? What will be his most enduring legacy? These are questions being asked all over the cricketing world on a day when Ganguly will wear his India colours for one final time in Nagpur. While some say that he will be best remembered for his never-say-die spirit and perhaps as India’s best ever captain, history will also surely remember him as someone who rescued Indian cricket from its deepest low: the tribulations of match fixing.
At a time when the match fixing scandal was eating into the very edifice of Indian cricket and the national side under Sachin Tendulkar was in disarray, Ganguly assumed the mantle of leadership. Fans had started to lose interest in the game and only a handful in the cricket fraternity — one of them being Ganguly — was above suspicion. To compound problems, he was soon challenged by Steve Waugh’s record-breaking Australians seeking to conquer the “final frontier”. It was a team that came to India on the back of 15 wins on the trot.
Ganguly’s initiation into Test captaincy in 2000 could not have been more dramatic. To add to his woes, India was mauled at the Wankhede in a little under three-and-a-half days in the first Test of the series. Add to this the scoreline at the end of Day 2 at the Eden Gardens in the second Test: Australia having scored 445 and India reeling at 128-8, the situation looked set for Ganguly to lose the captaincy even before he had warmed up to it.
Reality, however, could not have been more different. India won at the Eden match thanks to a miracle partnership between V V S Laxman and Rahul Dravid and a match-winning spell by Harbhajan Singh. This was followed by a series-winning victory at Chennai. It was perhaps the best Test series ever to be played on Indian soil and suddenly to borrow the words of the man of the moment, Barack Obama, Indian cricket had a three-word mantra: “Yes we can”. Under Ganguly, nothing seemed impossible and innovation was routine.
Ganguly converted Virender Sehwag into an opener, discarding all the conventional idioms about opening the batting. It was a decision that still continues to pay dividends. Remembering the decision, Ganguly suggested in a conversation last week at the end of the Delhi Test, “In India you need quick runs at the top of the order for once the ball gets older, you can’t score fast. And if you get off to a flier the opposition will always be under pressure. Sehwag was our best bet.”
He played Dravid at number six and promoted Laxman up the order, an innovation that won India the Eden miracle, and could be something we need to resort to again to get Dravid back in form. He inspired Harbhajan to become a proven match-winner in all forms of the game and motivated the team to win in adverse overseas conditions. In doing all this, his hair may have turned grey and his batting form may have suffered but the nation surely gained.
Ganguly’s personal journey may be divided into two distinct phases — the pre- and post-Greg Chappell periods. While the first witnessed near unrivalled elegance in batsmanship, the second was a more cautious and hardened phase, one in which he valued his wicket much more. While in the first, dancing down the track and hitting spinners out of the ground was routine and caressing the ball through the offside to the boundary second habit, in the second, milking the ball for ones and twos was the norm.
The first phase resulted in comments like Sourav was god-like in his offside play; the second forced critics to acknowledge that he was more mature and solid after his stunning comeback in South Africa in the 2006-07 series.
The one link between the two periods was his aggression. Be it the over-the-top waving of his shirt at the Lord’s balcony after the Natwest victory in 2002 — something that he gets slightly embarrassed about when reminded of — or making Steve Waugh wait for him at the toss in the 2001 series or his valiant counter-attack en route to scoring a series-defining century at Brisbane in 2003, aggression and confidence have been his defining traits.
In retirement, too, Ganguly stands out. Even in his final Test match at Nagpur, Ganguly scored a flawless 85. Giving it up before critics call for his head, despite knowing full well that he could have continued for some more time given his current form, he remains someone who has always exceeded expectations and fought his way out of trouble. In fact, it is this ability that endears him most to the owner of the Kolkata Knight Riders, Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan.
In commenting on his legacy, one is forced to acknowledge Ganguly’s ability to surprise one and all. You may not trust him with your life if you apply the parameters of reason and rationale, but you can certainly bank on him if you think with your heart. And who better to tell us than Ganguly that modern competitive sport is more often than not played from the heart and not in the mind.
As the God of the off-side walks to the pavillion for good today, I thank him for putting breath into the cricket team, cricket players, his own career and cricket in India. which was not in a state of less than paralysis, just a few years ago. O Captain,my captain! We all will miss you!
Have you ever felt zero? Blank, empty and void. As if there was nothing that was ever done by you. Nothing ever achieved by you. And even if there was, doesn't make any difference today. Because today you have failed. Big time. There is no ego, no motivation, no happiness. Numb, is all that you are. You know what it will take to get there from here. You know you can do it. But you are tired to begin. Begin all over, once again. The snake bit you at 90 odd, you are back in the first row of the game. No ladder seems inviting enough. One of the few moments in life when you remember God. Think how He functions, what His aims in His life might be. A realisation dawns on how selfish you are to remember God only now. All claims of perfection in aspects of your life have turned false. You are stranded. The only way out to come out of the chakravyu is action, out of self belief. Will you believe in yourself one more time? Will you act?
