Lbednur

If only I could be so brilliant in my right headedness as I am in my blunders. Which are always admirably original, creative.

But I can’t indulge in this self admiration for long, because life never passes up an opportunity like this, though I keep giving it so many. So, Thwackk! I have this recurrent dream that I am a cricket ball being hit squarely and vanishing out of the boundary, followed by a roar from the cheering crowd. Oh yes, if you ever need a large audience and quickly, make a big blunder. 

But mistakes are good. They bring out the best in you and that is not just the blood, sweat or tears. I always make a mental note of how squarely I take the blow, never mind the thousands I have already taken before.

The daze that follows the blow is almost nice. Sharp criticisms reduced to a dull drone. Dark thoughts closing in, in a slow, hypnotic circle. The lovely sinking feeling. It would be so simple now to just give the whole thing up and live in this brooding state forever. 

Lost and lonely climbers freeze and die in the snow when they give in to the drowsiness that steals gradually over their blistered nerves. Brooding too lulls your spirit to death but in your own room.

I stir. And instantly feel the stabbing pain, like sensation returning to limbs that have been numb for a very long time. Regret. The forgiving face of mistake. It’s crushing pain is life saving. For it means I still have the wits to face things, I am still in the fight.

But it takes all my remaining strength to just move my finger. The button I am scrambling to touch in my dulled brain can get the whole shocked machinery started again. I have to find my flaw. And then, even deep under the monstrous system, like an automaton, it can tighten a loose bolt somewhere. Or click a piece in place. To put my finger on it surprisingly takes more strength than I am willing to muster sometimes. But when I see it, the flaw becomes a lovely thing. I am flawed. To say these words is to step out of a dungeon. Into vision, change, sunlight. Into compassion for the self.

Handshake time with myself, till the next mistake again.

Fuzon

A great music collector friend of mine recommended this video of Pakistani alternative rock band Fuzon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npkPqWRFZpQ&feature=related

It shows their beautiful flair for music composition. Blending melodious hindustani vocals with cutting edge guitar and key boards. Shallum Asher Xavier, one of the trio band, has worshipped the guitar since age nine. And innovates pretty good with the acoustic. Imran Momina, aka Emu, the other founder member, band is a bold and experimenting composer. Self tutored on the piano and keyboard, he uses his technical prowess to break the mold. Rameez Mukhtar who is the lead vocal in the band after Shafqat Amanat Ali left it, holds an MBA for marketing. Shafqat had sung with the band for their first Album ‘Saagar’ and we Indians remember him well for the song ‘ Mitwa’ for Kabhi Alvida Na Kehena and ‘Yeh Honsla’ for Nagesh Kukunoor’s film Dor.

Bauchklang – Vocal Groove

Last week, I went down to a club in Town. To catch an Austrian band of six musicians called Bauchklang, playing live. Well it’s wrong to term them ‘musicians’. Though for the next three hours they blew the crowd away with music which was a punch of hip hop, technoid and drum n bass. Why weren’t they musicians then? We’ll come to that in a minute.

First, the acoustic blitz.  Sonic booms from the percussion sending the house wild. Mind shattering synth and guitars piled up sounds so thick you could smell the scorched wires. The tempo effortlessly rode up and down the scale. Rocking from ambient sounds to electronica, trip-hop to reggae. 

But the magic of the evening was not just the sound. But it was in the bewildering mismatch of what we were hearing with what we were seeing. For, we couldn’t see a single musical instrument with the live band. Unless, you call the voice box, mouth and lung as the most sophisticated music instruments there can be. Bauchklang belts out whole musical experiences from their mouths. And they like to make it lush, a richly layered cake of music. True, it overlaps with the beat box tradition which is as old as music itself. But it’s also on a different plane altogether. Their swinging harmony and rap builds a musical force which grips your mind. 

Indian music is familiar with creating rhythm and beat out of thin air – bol is fundamental to tabla. No wonder, when Hanief Khureishi and Pandit Zakeer Hussain, who were in the crowd, joined the Austrian ‘musicians’ and blended their ‘bol’ with their acoustics, a tumult arose in every beating heart present there. Maybe because the music rode out on the back of an exhalation but it rang more true than ever. And left us breathless! We came back feeling giddy with happiness , like we had had a gorgeous evening on ocean waves!