Historical Accuracy in Music
Sydney Assbasket
to the time period portrayed in the film. For example, is the music in
Mughal-e-Azam anachronistic in any way? What about a more recent time period
like Pakeezah?
________________________________________________________________
If love of money is the root of all evil, why do churches want it so badly?
Remove "bination" to reply.
UVR
>
> I'd like to know whether the music in Hindi historical films has been accurate
> to the time period portrayed in the film. For example, is the music in
> Mughal-e-Azam anachronistic in any way?
Methinks it's anachronistic in every conceivable way!
> What about a more recent time period like Pakeezah?
Perhaps more accurate.
(Just trying to push the discussion along; hopefully someone
with some *real* input will pitch in).
-UVR.
ajit
> Sydney Assbasket wrote:
> >
> > I'd like to know whether the music in Hindi historical films has been accurate
> > to the time period portrayed in the film. For example, is the music in
> > Mughal-e-Azam anachronistic in any way?
>
> Methinks it's anachronistic in every conceivable way!
Can u elaborate please?
vsr...@hclinfinet.com
>
> Sydney Assbasket wrote:
> >
> > I'd like to know whether the music in Hindi historical films has been accurate
> > to the time period portrayed in the film. For example, is the music in
> > Mughal-e-Azam anachronistic in any way?
>
> Methinks it's anachronistic in every conceivable way!
>
> > What about a more recent time period like Pakeezah?
>
> Perhaps more accurate.
What time period do you attribute to Pakeezah?
>
> (Just trying to push the discussion along; hopefully someone
> with some *real* input will pitch in).
>
> -UVR.
-Rawat
UVR
>
> UVR <u...@usa.not> wrote in message news:<3CE49F79...@usa.not>...
> > Sydney Assbasket wrote:
> > >
> > > I'd like to know whether the music in Hindi historical films has been accurate
> > > to the time period portrayed in the film. For example, is the music in
> > > Mughal-e-Azam anachronistic in any way?
> >
> > Methinks it's anachronistic in every conceivable way!
>
> Can u elaborate please?
Okay. Let's 'integrate by parts'. Add "IMO" everywhere. I
think all of these are anachronistic:
(a) Singing style: The singing style adopted by Rafi/Lata or
other singers in this film doesn't seem to have been the
style of Tansen and other court singers of Akbar's time.
(b) Background music (in the film): The kind of background
music played in the film is not from Akbar/Salim's
time-period. Most of those instruments came into India
AFTER the British came.
(c) Orchestration (for the songs): See (b). I also have
serious doubts as to whether effects such as a main
singer singing to the accompaniment of a human chorus
were used during Akbar's reign.
[BTW, this is not *anachronistic* per se, but I don't think
the story of Salim and Anarkali as retold in Mughal-e-Azam
has too much historical truth to it. Salim, who became
Jahangir when he ascended the throne, did marry his 'child-
hood sweetheart' Mehr-un-Nissa, a commoner, but she was neither
a dancing girl in Akbar's court, nor was she "diivaar me.n
chunvaao'ed" (== buried alive). Infact, she ruled as Queen
Noorjehan by Jahangir's side for many long years.]
-UVR.
Ritu
> ajit wrote:
> >
> > UVR <u...@usa.not> wrote in message news:<3CE49F79...@usa.not>...
> > > Sydney Assbasket wrote:
> > > >
> > > > I'd like to know whether the music in Hindi historical films has been accurate
> > > > to the time period portrayed in the film. For example, is the music in
> > > > Mughal-e-Azam anachronistic in any way?
> > >
> > > Methinks it's anachronistic in every conceivable way!
> >
> > Can u elaborate please?
>
> Okay. Let's 'integrate by parts'. Add "IMO" everywhere. I
> think all of these are anachronistic:
No **real** input UVR but some opinions..
>
> (a) Singing style: The singing style adopted by Rafi/Lata or
> other singers in this film doesn't seem to have been the
> style of Tansen and other court singers of Akbar's time.
> (b) Background music (in the film): The kind of background
> music played in the film is not from Akbar/Salim's
> time-period. Most of those instruments came into India
> AFTER the British came.
> (c) Orchestration (for the songs): See (b). I also have
> serious doubts as to whether effects such as a main
> singer singing to the accompaniment of a human chorus
> were used during Akbar's reign.
Agree with all this. But then the next question is can we think of any
historical/period drama dating back that far which is authentically
represented? Infact.. is there any real documentation on the kind of
music that prevailed those days? I assume we can look at the singing
styles prevelant at the beginning of the last century and try to
gauge?
I feel in each era whenever a historical has been made the music has
been Indian but in essence it reflects the era it was made in. So,
Mughal-e-azam had the typical 50-60s feel whereas Umrao Jaan had the
80s feel to it. And Lagaan has the 2000s feel.
A friend of mine had put up this very valid argument when I was
complaining against ARR using a very western beat in 'Mitwa'.
Historicals generally are interpretations of the bygone era ***from***
a particular era. Composers might borrow tunes, rhythms but they never
go all the way.
>
> [BTW, this is not *anachronistic* per se, but I don't think
> the story of Salim and Anarkali as retold in Mughal-e-Azam
> has too much historical truth to it. Salim, who became
> Jahangir when he ascended the throne, did marry his 'child-
> hood sweetheart' Mehr-un-Nissa, a commoner, but she was neither
> a dancing girl in Akbar's court, nor was she "diivaar me.n
> chunvaao'ed" (== buried alive). Infact, she ruled as Queen
> Noorjehan by Jahangir's side for many long years.]
I don't know.. but I either read or heard that there is Anarkali's
mazahar(grave) in Lahore.. though Salim/Jahangir was quite capable of
having 2 legendary romances!..Though there is no documented proof on
the existence of Anarkali.
Cheers
Ritu
>
>
> -UVR.
UVR
>
> No **real** input UVR but some opinions..
>
> > (a) Singing style: The singing style adopted by Rafi/Lata or
> > other singers in this film doesn't seem to have been the
> > style of Tansen and other court singers of Akbar's time.
> > (b) Background music (in the film): The kind of background
> > music played in the film is not from Akbar/Salim's
> > time-period. Most of those instruments came into India
> > AFTER the British came.
> > (c) Orchestration (for the songs): See (b). I also have
> > serious doubts as to whether effects such as a main
> > singer singing to the accompaniment of a human chorus
> > were used during Akbar's reign.
>
> Agree with all this. But then the next question is can we think of any
> historical/period drama dating back that far which is authentically
> represented? Infact.. is there any real documentation on the kind of
> music that prevailed those days? I assume we can look at the singing
> styles prevelant at the beginning of the last century and try to
> gauge?
Which "last" century are you referring to, Ritu? Mughal-e-Azam
*was* made in the last (20th) century, wasn't it?! :-))
Jokes apart, I don't think we can ever know exactly what kind
of music was played/sung in Akbar's court. Heck, we can't even
say exactly what Tansen's singing style was, and he was a
*classical* singer -- haven't Gharana-styles changed over time,
too? We _can_ perhaps use the teachings of traditional music
texts and descriptions from, may be, Abul Fazl's Akbarnama,
and try to guess that Tansen's voice would have been loud,
booming, powerful ... etc.
Having said that, I think we *CAN* make rather accurate guesses
as to what kind of music was NOT present during Akbar's time.
For instance, we can state to a reasonable degree of certainty
that orchestration of the specific kind used in Mughal-e-Azam
could not have been not present during Akbar's time, if only
because of the kind of instruments he has used. Similarly,
the kind of 'light and soft' (weak?), non-booming, lyrically
clear singing of a 'bekas pe karam kiijiye' (my fav. from the
movie) or a 'mohe panghaT pe nand laal chhe.D gayo re' was
perhaps not used [what a pity!].
> I feel in each era whenever a historical has been made the music has
> been Indian but in essence it reflects the era it was made in. So,
> Mughal-e-azam had the typical 50-60s feel whereas Umrao Jaan had the
> 80s feel to it. And Lagaan has the 2000s feel.
>
> A friend of mine had put up this very valid argument when I was
> complaining against ARR using a very western beat in 'Mitwa'.
> Historicals generally are interpretations of the bygone era ***from***
> a particular era. Composers might borrow tunes, rhythms but they never
> go all the way.
Okay. But you and your friend are addressing the question
of *WHY* film music is anachronistic [and, perhaps, why it
is okay for it to be so], whereas the original question was,
"IS [the music of Mughal-e-Azam] anacronistic?" The answer
to that question, IMO, is, "yes."
-UVR.
Anindya
one movie where the MDs (LP!) *tried* to sound authentic, in terms of
period instruments etc., IMHO, was Utsav. Though I suspect, that could
have been more because of Girish Karnad (the director)'s insistence
than LP's.
Anindya
Surajit A. Bose
rc0...@rediffmail.com (Ritu) wrote:
> Agree with all this. But then the next question is can we think of any
> historical/period drama dating back that far which is authentically
> represented? Infact.. is there any real documentation on the kind of
> music that prevailed those days?
Let's answer those two questions in reverse order, shall we?
On the question of how we know what the music of Akbar's day might have
been like: There is some documentary evidence. Abul Fazl's
ain-i-akbarii, for example, lists the musicians of Akbar's court and the
styles they performed in.
Beyond that, there is historical evidence. I'm not sure of the bases on
which historians make claims about musical styles, but it's generally
known that dhrupad flourished in the court of Raja Man Singh Tomar of
Gwalior (15th century). Note that this is not the same Man Singh who
shows up in Mughal-e-Azam as Akbar's brother-in-law and henchman. His
wife Mriganayani was from the Gujjar clan, and the raag Gujri Todi is
said to be either her creation or that of her teacher--IIRC the teacher
is supposed to be Baiju Bawara. It was probably at Man Singh's court
that dhrupad went from being "mandir dhrupad" to "darbarii
dhrupad"--that a religious genre was adapted into a courtly art form.
This darbarii dhrupad was the dominant form until well into the 18th
century. Thus it's a safe bet that the court musicians of Akbar's day
(16th century) would be primarily dhrupad performers. Many dhrupads
attributed to Tansen and his contemporaries have come down to us through
the oral tradition. So there is some lyrical and musical evidence too.
Dhrupad was originally accompanied by the "biin". Not the kind played by
snake charmers, more like the kind played by Asad Ali Khan and
Baha-ud-din Dagar today, i.e. the rudra veena. So there was some sort of
orchestration, or at least "sa.ngat", not just the unaccompanied voice.
This much we know. Now for the other question, whether there has been
any authentic historical drama. Well, despite all the evidence, there
are still some unknowns. For example, we don't really know that raags
with the same name were necessarily sung the same way, or even had the
same notes as they do today.
As for historical dramas that are accurate in representing the music of
the era in which they are set: well, in some respects SANGEET SAMRAT
TANSEN comes close. The song "sapt suran tiin graam" is in dhrupad
style. The taal, chautaal, is the one most commonly used in dhrupad
compositions, and the rendition (esp. the repetition of the lines at
varying speeds) is also fairly dhrupad-like. The second half of the
song, "raag bhairav pratham shaant ras jaake", is a form technically
called a "raag saagar". A raag saagar takes the six parent raags of the
raag-raagini system and goes through them in turn. So this section of
the song duly begins with Bhairav, and goes past Malkauns, Hindol,
Shree, and Deepak before concluding with Megh. The raag-raagini paddhati
is defunct and obscure now, but there's a sporting chance it was known
in Akbar's day.
So also "sudh bisar ga_ii aaj": the layakaarii and sargam passages there
are vaguely akin to those prevalent in dhrupad compositions set to
jhaptaal, which are called called saadaraas. Also, I've never had the
privilege of hearing mandir dhrupad (I am told they are still sung in
places like Mathura and Darbhanga), but I am tempted to speculate that
"he naTaraaj ga.ngaadhar shambho bholenaath jaya ho" may be akin to that
genre.
Of course this accuracy can only be pushed so far. There's a difference
between a singer accompanying him/herself on the veena and a full-blown
orchestra. There's a whole bunch of straight filmi songs in that movie
too: "sakhii kaise dharuu.N mai.n dhiir", "jhuumatii chalii havaa". The
second half of "TuuT ga_ii mere man kii viiNaa" is sung,
anachronistically, in Khayal style: "madhur madhur sa.ngiit sunaavo,
gaavo re". Also, if one grants the possibility that the raag-raagini
system was known in Tansen's day, then the whole episode at the end with
Gauri and Raayapraveen "not knowing how Megh goes" bit is quite
incredible. I mean, either Megh is a primary raag or it's an obscure
one. It can hardly be both at the same time. (I mean, I have never
learnt Poorvi, but because it is currently considered one of the primary
scales of Hindustani music, I have enough of a general idea of its shape
that I could essay a few phrases in that raag if it were a matter of
life and death.)
> I assume we can look at the singing
> styles prevelant at the beginning of the last century and try to
> gauge?
Why would styles prevalent at the beginning of the 20th century
necessarily tell us anything about the 16th- and 17th-century styles of
Akbar's and Jahangir's courts?
-s
Surajit A. Bose
andy...@hotmail.com (Anindya) wrote:
> one movie where the MDs (LP!) *tried* to sound authentic, in terms of
> period instruments etc., IMHO, was Utsav. Though I suspect, that could
> have been more because of Girish Karnad (the director)'s insistence
> than LP's.
Period instruments? The sitar, which is all over the score, is a
relatively recent development (no iconographic or textual evidence
refers to the instrument before the early 1800s), and UTSAV, based on
mR^ichchhakaTikam, is set in the classical era.
-s
rkus...@rogers.com
"Anindya" <andy...@hotmail.com> wrote:-
> one movie where the MDs (LP!) *tried* to sound authentic, in terms of
> period instruments etc., IMHO, was Utsav. Though I suspect, that could
> have been more because of Girish Karnad (the director)'s insistence
> than LP's.
and if RDB was the composer of Utsav, it would have been due to
him and not Girish Karnad.
Joi Ponchom.
RK-
Cricfan
>
> Agree with all this. But then the next question is can we think of any
> historical/period drama dating back that far which is authentically
> represented? Infact.. is there any real documentation on the kind of
> music that prevailed those days? I assume we can look at the singing
> styles prevelant at the beginning of the last century and try to
> gauge?
>
Ys, there are historical records. Additionally, if the cruel cad
Jahangir hadn't had his father's historian Abul Fazl murdered, there
would've probably been more records!
Here's a very detailed article from the British Journal of Musicology
which lists sources.
http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/music/mclayton/bje9-2finalpdf.PDF
The HTML version is at
http://216.239.33.100/search?q=cache:J9oxaZaG75cC:www.open.ac.uk/Arts/music/mclayton/bje9-2finalpdf.PDF+mughal+historian+western+traveller&hl=en
Cheers
Arun
vibhendu
> In article <8777cccd.02051...@posting.google.com>,
> rc0...@rediffmail.com (Ritu) wrote:
>
> > >
> As for historical dramas that are accurate in representing the music of
> the era in which they are set: well, in some respects SANGEET SAMRAT
> TANSEN comes close
The creative merit of S N Tripathi/Bharat vyas genre of music making
apart,one serious grouse i have against 'Kalidas/Rani Rupmati and
other biopics of poets/musicians' genre is that they share production
values,cast,props,narrating style,art direction etc and of course the
MD-lyricicist with mythologicals/period pics and fantasy flicks ,thus
together constituting one genre of costume drama
.
This puts a question mark against whatever historical authenticity
they might have and in retrospect appear to me just another
menifestation of right wing propaganda of India as 'sone ki chidiya '
types.
Historical authenticity to Indian cinema (not literally) came only as
late as late 80s with Shyam Benegal's Bharat Ek Khoj and Chandra
Prakash Dvivedi's Chanakya,though ideologically they may represent two
diametrically opposite point of views of Indian history and same goes
for the musical content.
Utsav,Junoon , Shatranj Ke Khiladi,Majaffar ali 's serial on Wajid Ali
sShah 'Jaane -Alam '(mid 80s) are few other notable examples.
Being articulate was never my strength but what i mean to say here is
that most period pics of mainstream Indian cinema (specifically
tackily made movies of 1950's ) are not backed by any research and are
as much guilty of generalisations and cliches as Mira Nair in
'Kamasutra'.
And thus Kalidas,Surdas,Tansen of Indian cinema despite belonging to
different eras and musical influences somehow sang alike,spoke alike
and even resembled each other.
Vibhendu
Cricfan
>
> one movie where the MDs (LP!) *tried* to sound authentic, in terms of
> period instruments etc., IMHO, was Utsav. Though I suspect, that could
> have been more because of Girish Karnad (the director)'s insistence
> than LP's.
>
> Anindya
That is quite doubtful, given that the film has songs. There are no
songs in Shudraka's play. Also, given the statement below, it seems
unlikely that the type of music in the film would've resembled the
ones prevalent during that time period.
-->begin quote>
Critics also feel that the historical events depicted in the play
belong to 485 BC. [Re: 'Great Sanskrit Plays' translation by P. Lal,
New Directions Books, 1957]
---</end quote>
Also, while Vasantsena, Charudatta et feature in the play, Karnad has
introduced Vatsayana in the film for no reason other than comic
entertainment :-)
Cheers
Arun
Cricfan
>
> The creative merit of S N Tripathi/Bharat vyas genre of music making
> apart,one serious grouse i have against 'Kalidas/Rani Rupmati and
> other biopics of poets/musicians' genre is that they share production
> values,cast,props,narrating style,art direction etc and of course the
> MD-lyricicist with mythologicals/period pics and fantasy flicks ,thus
> together constituting one genre of costume drama
> .
There are directorial liberties taken by every director who has made
historical epics. Having said that the production values even in olden
times were not ordinary. Dramatists went to great lengths while
staging plays even in late BC's and early AD's.
[P. Ll's "great Sanskrit plays' has some interesting details about the
production of Sanskrit plays in olden days. All the rules of how a
play has to be staged were laid out. He quotes from 'The Theatre of
Hindus' by H. H. Wilson, V. Raghavan, K. R. Pisharoti and Amulya
Charan Vidhyabhushan. Also, Wilson's 'Select Specimens of the Theatre
of The Hindus' (1871) which has material on the South Indian theater
and theater architecture. Also 'The Sanskrit Drama. Its origin,
Development, Theory and Practise by A. Berriedale Keith (Oxford Univ
press). 'Theater in the East' by Faubion Bowers]
The reason I've mentioned mostly Anglo writers even though there are
many Indian scholars who Lal has listed is your statement below...
> This puts a question mark against whatever historical authenticity
> they might have and in retrospect appear to me just another
> menifestation of right wing propaganda of India as 'sone ki chidiya '
> types.
Ah, "right wing propaganda"! What term would you use for Cecil B.
Demille's endeavours? What about K. Asif and Sohrab Modi?
These are simply films on a grand scale where the director goes over
the top. It is equally true for a Rupmati or Anarkali as it is for a
Benhur or the Ten Commandments. I don't think we need to bring
politics into it. Let's just call them inaccurate and leave it at
that.
>
> Historical authenticity to Indian cinema (not literally) came only as
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Do you mean Hindi cinema?
> late as late 80s with Shyam Benegal's Bharat Ek Khoj and Chandra
> Prakash Dvivedi's Chanakya,though ideologically they may represent two
> diametrically opposite point of views of Indian history and same goes
> for the musical content.
> Utsav,Junoon , Shatranj Ke Khiladi,Majaffar ali 's serial on Wajid Ali
> sShah 'Jaane -Alam '(mid 80s) are few other notable examples.
G. V. Iyer is another director who has tried to be as accurate as
possible in his earlier works.
Cheers
Arun
vibhendu
> vibh...@hotmail.com (vibhendu) wrote in message news:<1100f078.02051...@posting.google.com>...
>
> >
> > The creative merit of S N Tripathi/Bharat vyas genre of music making
> > apart,one serious grouse i have against 'Kalidas/Rani Rupmati and
> > other biopics of poets/musicians' genre is that they share production
> > values,cast,props,narrating style,art direction etc and of course the
> > MD-lyricicist with mythologicals/period pics and fantasy flicks ,thus
> > together constituting one genre of costume drama
> > .
>
> There are directorial liberties taken by every director who has made
> historical epics. Having said that the production values even in olden
> times were not ordinary. Dramatists went to great lengths while
> staging plays even in late BC's and early AD's.
My complaint was not against indigenous theatrical traditions,but a
specific genre of film making.
I never claimed that Indian theatre whether the classical type
following Bharat Muni 's Natyashastra or the folk genres like
Bhavai,Jatra etc are berefit of any preparation or homework.
>
> [P. Ll's "great Sanskrit plays' has some interesting details about the
> production of Sanskrit plays in olden days. All the rules of how a
> play has to be staged were laid out. He quotes from 'The Theatre of
> Hindus' by H. H. Wilson, V. Raghavan, K. R. Pisharoti and Amulya
> Charan Vidhyabhushan. Also, Wilson's 'Select Specimens of the Theatre
> of The Hindus' (1871) which has material on the South Indian theater
> and theater architecture. Also 'The Sanskrit Drama. Its origin,
> Development, Theory and Practise by A. Berriedale Keith (Oxford Univ
> press). 'Theater in the East' by Faubion Bowers]
>
Despite Lal's political affiliations,his stature as historian
remains unaffected and much of what the right wing historians does
have merit.
>
> The reason I've mentioned mostly Anglo writers even though there are
> many Indian scholars who Lal has listed is your statement below...
>
> > This puts a question mark against whatever historical authenticity
> > they might have and in retrospect appear to me just another
> > menifestation of right wing propaganda of India as 'sone ki chidiya '
> > types.
Its just that Bharat Bhushan films are not historically accurate
account of times gone by but just a contemporary vision of those
times seen through the fog of the years in between and tinted by a
certain inaccurate political ideology where Mauryan/Gupta period,
Rajput courts,Mughal period all look the same.
Also the same people made fantasy flicks and mythologicals did'nt help
matters.
At best they are stories/fables told imaginatively.
>
> Ah, "right wing propaganda"! What term would you use for Cecil B.
> Demille's endeavours? What about K. Asif and Sohrab Modi?
>
> These are simply films on a grand scale where the director goes over
> the top. It is equally true for a Rupmati or Anarkali as it is for a
> Benhur or the Ten Commandments. I don't think we need to bring
> politics into it. Let's just call them inaccurate and leave it at
> that.
>
> >
> > Historical authenticity to Indian cinema (not literally) came only as
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> Do you mean Hindi cinema?
Since they were essentially made for television, they do not qualify
as Cinema , was my point.
>
> > late as late 80s with Shyam Benegal's Bharat Ek Khoj and Chandra
> > Prakash Dvivedi's Chanakya,though ideologically they may represent two
> > diametrically opposite point of views of Indian history and same goes
> > for the musical content.
> > Utsav,Junoon , Shatranj Ke Khiladi,Majaffar ali 's serial on Wajid Ali
> > sShah 'Jaane -Alam '(mid 80s) are few other notable examples.
>
> G. V. Iyer is another director who has tried to be as accurate as
> possible in his earlier works.
Yes, definitely but again they are 80s product.
>
>
> Cheers
> Arun
Vibhendu
Anindya
yes, that's why I said *tried*. Given the box office requirements
etc., it would have been difficult to imagine Shashi Kapur-Karnad-LP
coming up with a either a songless score, or pre-historic sounding
songs (in case there is such a thing). However, given the parameters,
I'd say that LP have managed to produce *reasonably*
authentic-sounding tunes (if we forgive the faux pas of using a
morning raaga (Bibhaas) for an evening song: Saanjh dhale), for
instance: the percussion in the song "Man kiyu.n bahekaa re bahekaa"
*sounds* old-worldish (may not be 5h century BC-ish, but not 20th
centurish either).
Elsewhere, you have mentioned Sangeet Samraat Tansen with its ancient
sounding Sapta suran tiin gram (3 gms of what, incidentally?....so now
we know that Tansen invented the metric system too :)), *and* its
typical HFM sounding Jhoomti chali hawa. The jhinjhoti-based Badli
badli duniya hai meri (IIRC, the only Talat song in the movie?) also
somehow doesn't sound right. My very limited knowledge of classical
music tells me that Jhinjhoti, like several other raagas, has its
roots in folk music. Would Taansen (and his fiancee) be likely to sing
a Jhinjhoti-based song, then?
Again, the concept of using as many as three singers (Rafi, Mukesh,
Talat) itself is an inaccuracy. However, all this doesn't take away
anything from S N Tripathi. I suppose the director was more influenced
by the demands of the box office than his finer sensibilities.
Its relative, therefore, *and* subjective. Within these limitations,
certain HFM soundtracks have managed to sound more authentic than
others and, IMHO, SST *and* Utsav would fall in this category.
Anindya
Anindya
> > production of Sanskrit plays in olden days. All the rules of how a
> > play has to be staged were laid out. He quotes from 'The Theatre of
> > Hindus' by H. H. Wilson, V. Raghavan, K. R. Pisharoti and Amulya
> > Charan Vidhyabhushan. Also, Wilson's 'Select Specimens of the Theatre
> > of The Hindus' (1871) which has material on the South Indian theater
> > and theater architecture. Also 'The Sanskrit Drama. Its origin,
> > Development, Theory and Practise by A. Berriedale Keith (Oxford Univ
> > press). 'Theater in the East' by Faubion Bowers]
> >
>
> Despite Lal's political affiliations,his stature as historian
> remains unaffected and much of what the right wing historians does
> have merit.
are you talking of Prof. Purshottam Lal? What *is* his stature as an historian?
Anindya
Balaji A.S. Murthy
>
>Elsewhere, you have mentioned Sangeet Samraat Tansen with its ancient
>sounding Sapta suran tiin gram (3 gms of what, incidentally?....so now
>we know that Tansen invented the metric system too :)), *and* its
>typical HFM sounding Jhoomti chali hawa. The jhinjhoti-based Badli
>badli duniya hai meri (IIRC, the only Talat song in the movie?) also
>somehow doesn't sound right.
There is a reason this does't sound right. The singer in question is the
inimitable Mahendra Kapoor :).
- Balaji
Ritu
> In article <8777cccd.02051...@posting.google.com>,
> rc0...@rediffmail.com (Ritu) wrote:
>
> > Agree with all this. But then the next question is can we think of any
> > historical/period drama dating back that far which is authentically
> > represented? Infact.. is there any real documentation on the kind of
> > music that prevailed those days?
>
> Let's answer those two questions in reverse order, shall we?
Thanks Surajit, that was extremely informative.
> Dhrupad was originally accompanied by the "biin". Not the kind played by
> snake charmers, more like the kind played by Asad Ali Khan and
> Baha-ud-din Dagar today, i.e. the rudra veena. So there was some sort of
> orchestration, or at least "sa.ngat", not just the unaccompanied voice.
Interesting, when do you think the sarangi and tanpura came in as
accompaniments? The harmonium I understand came pretty late and from
the west. Also is khayal gayaki also a recent phenomena?
> This much we know. Now for the other question, whether there has been
> any authentic historical drama. Well, despite all the evidence, there
> are still some unknowns. For example, we don't really know that raags
> with the same name were necessarily sung the same way, or even had the
> same notes as they do today.
A question that follows from this (it might be more appropriate for
RMIC) is that before Bhatkhande did any kind of documentation exist on
the raag-raagini system or was it more or less an oral tradition?
> gaavo re". Also, if one grants the possibility that the raag-raagini
> system was known in Tansen's day....
<snipped>
Is there some kind of a doubt on whether the raag-raagini system was
prevelant in Tansen's time? I ask because what about all those raags
that are attributed to Tansen.. Miyan ki Malhar, Miyan ti Todi.. etc.?
Doesn't the raag raagini system form the basis for Indian classical
music and all this finally leads to the question.. how far can we
really date back the classical form of music as we know it today? If
you trace the Dhrupad form back to the 15th centuary, what was there
before Dhrupad gayaki?
>
> > I assume we can look at the singing
> > styles prevelant at the beginning of the last century and try to
> > gauge?
>
> Why would styles prevalent at the beginning of the 20th century
> necessarily tell us anything about the 16th- and 17th-century styles of
> Akbar's and Jahangir's courts?
Nopes wouldn't tell you much..but the face of music both folk and
classical has changed drastically in the last 75 years I just meant
going back to the earliest instances of recorded music to get somekind
of idea.
Ritu
Surajit A. Bose
In article <8777cccd.02052...@posting.google.com>,
rc0...@rediffmail.com (Ritu) wrote:
> Interesting, when do you think the sarangi and tanpura came in as
> accompaniments?
It's not a question of what I "think," is it? It's a question of the
historical record. Sarangi and tanpura are probably late 18th c. - early
19th c. developments. I will have to do some more research to refresh my
memory.
> The harmonium I understand came pretty late and from
> the west.
Yes, as also the violin.
> Also is khayal gayaki also a recent phenomena?
Relatively. The form flourished at the court of Mohammed Shah "Rangile",
where two composers Niamat Khan ("Sadaang") and his nephew Firoz Khan
("Adarang") composed several Khayaals, which are still in common
circulation. Mohammed Shah was the last Mughal emperor of Delhi, late
18th century.
> A question that follows from this (it might be more appropriate for
> RMIC) is that before Bhatkhande did any kind of documentation exist on
> the raag-raagini system or was it more or less an oral tradition?
The earliest documentation on the raag raagini system is in a text by
Damodar, called (IIRC) Sangeet Martand. It is probably a 17th century
text. Bhatkhande by and large ignores the raag raagini system.
> Is there some kind of a doubt on whether the raag-raagini system was
> prevelant in Tansen's time?
The question is whether it had any practical implications for
performance. I do not think so. It is, however, hard to say, because the
system itself is pretty obscure and we don't have enough data to say for
sure.
> I ask because what about all those raags
> that are attributed to Tansen.. Miyan ki Malhar, Miyan ti Todi.. etc.?
What about them? 8-)
> Doesn't the raag raagini system form the basis for Indian classical
> music
No. It formed the basis for some pretty paintings, though. (Raags do
form the basis of Indian classical music, but the raag raagini system is
a different thing--it's supposed to be a classification of raags based
on six major raags, their wife-raaginis, and their sons. Utterly
complicated, most unscientific, and now thankfully defunct.)
> and all this finally leads to the question.. how far can we
> really date back the classical form of music as we know it today? If
> you trace the Dhrupad form back to the 15th centuary, what was there
> before Dhrupad gayaki?
Good question. Certainly what we think of as North Indian classical
music today is an outgrowth of court culture. The restriction of the
word "sa.ngiit" to music alone is a relatively recent phenomenon and
probably does not predate the rise of court culture. Prior to that,
"sa.ngiit" encompassed vocal music, instrumental music, and naaTya, or
dramatic performance. naaTya itself could be either naaTya proper (i.e.
plays), or nR^itya (dance with abhinaya, ie a dance that conveys
emotions) or nR^itta (pure dance--dance as bodily movement, where the
focus of aesthetic appreciation is not on the story told or emotions
conveyed through the dance, but simply on the patterned movement of the
body.) Music was probably an adjunct to or component of performance, not
a full-fledged field of performance in itself.
Aside from the sphere of artistic performance, there was (and remains)
bhakti music and folk music. Indian classical music has not developed
divorced from these. Some folk influences obviously still prevail in the
lighter forms (e.g. in raags like Pahadi and Maand, or genres like kajri
and chaiti), and bhakti music contributed to the development of both the
dhrupad and South Indian classical music. (And every musician pays
lip-service to the idea that classical music is meant to be a path to
the divine. The fact that few of them approach divinity in their
performances or their offstage behavior seems irrelevant.)
So: what we had before the court culture of classical music was folk
forms, religious music, and the music that served as an accompaniment to
dance and drama. People who read historical texts on Indian music are
often surprised at how rigidly structured the music seems to be (start
on this note, then in the first movement go only up to this note, etc).
Well, obviously if you're accompanying dance or drama, you can't sit up
on stage and improvise.
> Nopes wouldn't tell you much..but the face of music both folk and
> classical has changed drastically in the last 75 years
Not just over the last 75 years. Indian classical music is a living
tradition. It changes constantly. Some days ago on RMIC, Rajan Parrikar
had posted an URL with a link to an interview with Alarmel Valli who
spoke eloquently on the subject of "sampradaaya", the idea of tradition
not as an ossified hewing to rigid orthodoxy, but as a vital and
adaptive resource that shapes living forms of cultural expression. To
think of tradition historically is a difficult task; the temptation is
to try to fix tradition into some ahistorical "forever" rather than to
think of how it shapes, evolves, and responds dynamically to the world.
[T S Eliot had the right idea in "Tradition and the Individual Talent"
when he wrote that every new work of literature doesn't just add to the
tradition, but actually changes the tradition.]
Okay, flame-retardant time: obviously I am not claiming to be able to
sum up 2000 years of tradition in a few paragraphs. So when I say things
like "no aesthetic performance of music alone outside of the ambit of
dance and drama", I am speaking in broad generalities, necessarily crude
and open to all sorts of qualification. Equally obviously, I am not a
historian of music, dance, and drama. Given those two constraints,
please place an accurate valuation on everything I've written. If you
believe any of it and then it turns out to be wrong, don't blame me.
(Just let me know where it's wrong.)
In article <f43baef6.02052...@posting.google.com>,
andy...@hotmail.com (Anindya) wrote:
> typical HFM sounding Jhoomti chali hawa. The jhinjhoti-based Badli
> badli duniya hai meri (IIRC, the only Talat song in the movie?) also
> somehow doesn't sound right. My very limited knowledge of classical
> music tells me that Jhinjhoti, like several other raagas, has its
> roots in folk music. Would Taansen (and his fiancee) be likely to sing
> a Jhinjhoti-based song, then?
(a) it's Mahendra Kapoor and (b) Why not? It's a folk melody based raag,
isn't it? It's only nowadays that people in cities train as classical
singers with absolutely no knowledge of the folk tradition. There is no
reason to doubt that "classical" singers of earlier days absorbed folk
music by osmosis, the way urban people of my generation absorbed film
music.
> Again, the concept of using as many as three singers (Rafi, Mukesh,
> Talat) itself is an inaccuracy.
(a) it's seven, you left out Kamal Barot, Manna De, Krishnarao Chonkar,
and Pandharinath Kolhapure and (b) whaddaya mean, "inaccuracy"? Don't be
silly. By that criterion the only singer who would be "accurate" is
Tansen himself.
> However, all this doesn't take away
> anything from S N Tripathi. I suppose the director was more influenced
> by the demands of the box office than his finer sensibilities.
Sure, Kamal Barot was a huge box-office draw.
> Its relative, therefore, *and* subjective. Within these limitations,
> certain HFM soundtracks have managed to sound more authentic than
> others and, IMHO, SST *and* Utsav would fall in this category.
Really, "Andy", your thinking (if it can be called that) gets sloppier
with each sentence. That "therefore" is a nice touch, giving your non
sequitur of a conclusion a spurious air of actually following from some
evidence you've presented. It is NOT all relative and subjective. That
the court music of Tansen's era was dhrupad is historical FACT. Nothing
relative or subjective about it. That the raag-raagini paddhati
prevailed at the time is well-grounded historical speculation. Again,
nothing subjective or relative about it. To equate this carefully
grounded historic specificity with your knee-jerk to how the music of
UTSAV "sounds", and to say that "therefore" SST and UTSAV can be
considered equivalent in terms of authenticity, betrays either a
fundamental misuderstanding of what counts as evidence in a logical
argument, or an ego so huge that in your mind, your own uninformed
hunches act as counterbalance to the weight of historic particularity.
To my ears, the music of UTSAV sounds lovely, and fits the movie well,
but it does not follow that therefore it is historically authentic. The
fact that it "sounds" authentic to your ears doesn't add any evidentiary
weight to your claim that the music of UTSAV *is* historically
authentic.
I'm surprised that the music of UTSAV sounds like anything at all to
you. I should have thought that it would be hard to hear anything when
your head is stuck so far up your ass.
-s
naniwadekar
"Surajit A. Bose" <sb...@saintmarys.edu> wrote -
>
> Aside from the sphere of artistic performance, there was (and remains)
> bhakti music and folk music. Indian classical music has not developed
> divorced from these. Some folk influences obviously still prevail in the
> lighter forms (e.g. in raags like Pahadi and Maand, or genres like kajri
> and chaiti), and bhakti music contributed to the development of both the
> dhrupad and South Indian classical music. (And every musician pays
> lip-service to the idea that classical music is meant to be a path to
> the divine. The fact that few of them approach divinity in their
> performances or their offstage behavior seems irrelevant.)
>
paragraph suggests that you think bhakti music did not contribute to
North Indian classical music. I would say even the shringaric element
is (v v often) used as a tool of bhakti in North Indian classical music.
- dn
Surajit A. Bose
"naniwadekar" <nan...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> "Surajit A. Bose" <sb...@saintmarys.edu> wrote -
> >
> > Aside from the sphere of artistic performance, there was (and remains)
> > bhakti music and folk music. Indian classical music has not developed
> > divorced from these. Some folk influences obviously still prevail in the
> > lighter forms (e.g. in raags like Pahadi and Maand, or genres like kajri
> > and chaiti), and bhakti music contributed to the development of both the
> > dhrupad and South Indian classical music. (And every musician pays
> > lip-service to the idea that classical music is meant to be a path to
> > the divine. The fact that few of them approach divinity in their
> > performances or their offstage behavior seems irrelevant.)
> >
> In spite of the flame-retardant which follows in your post, the above
> paragraph suggests that you think bhakti music did not contribute to
> North Indian classical music.
Really? The passage you quote explicitly says that bhakti music
contributed to the dhrupad.
[Since Ritu's question was "what came before the dhrupad?", the question
of how and whether bhakti music contributed to Khayaal is irrelevant to
the discussion. Of course it did, and of course I know about it.]
-s
Surajit A. Bose
In article <sbose-970927....@news.fu-berlin.de>,
"Surajit A. Bose" <sb...@saintmarys.edu> wrote:
> > Also is khayal gayaki also a recent phenomena?
>
> Relatively. The form flourished at the court of Mohammed Shah "Rangile",
> where two composers Niamat Khan ("Sadaang") and his nephew Firoz Khan
> ("Adarang") composed several Khayaals, which are still in common
> circulation. Mohammed Shah was the last Mughal emperor of Delhi, late
> 18th century.
Which is not to say that it was first developed there. Some sources
claim that it developed at the court of Sultan Husain Sharqi of Jaunpur,
roughly contemporary with Man Singh. Nonetheless, it did not displace
the dhrupad until the late 18th century.
> The earliest documentation on the raag raagini system is in a text by
> Damodar, called (IIRC) Sangeet Martand.
Ulp. I mean Sangeet Darpan. Sorry.
-s
naniwadekar
deals in some measure with the current scene also. In that context,
I found the omission of non-dhrupad North Indian
music (read - khayal music) vis-a-vis bhakti music rather odd.
(I meant to write 'khayal music' in my last post, but ended up
writing 'North Indian Classical music'.) In light of your explanation
that you were dealing with pre-khayal times, of course I would
fully agree that bhakti music contributed to ICM.
- dn
UVR
>
> Mohammed Shah was the last Mughal emperor of Delhi, late
> 18th century.
Was he, really? I thought Bahadur Shah 'Zafar' was. Lived
in the mid-*19th* century, too, he did!
-UVR.
Surajit A. Bose
u...@usa.net (UVR) wrote:
Ravindra,
I will concede that I was wrong about one thing. Mohammed Shah
ÅRangeeleÄ
was the Mughal ruler from 1718 to 1748, i.e., the mid-18th
and not the late 18th century.
He is, however, frequently referred to as the last Mughal emperor of
India. Remember the drut ektal "mahamadashaah ra.ngiile re, sajanaa, tum
bin maikaa ... " (an adaptation of a well-known Miyan Malhar bandish)
sung by Lata Mangeshkar? Guess which movie it's from. Nadir Shah. Yup,
the selfsame dude who invaded India during Mohammed Shah's rule, in
1738, directly precipitating the collapse of the Mughal empire. The
Nizam of Hyderabad, the governer of Bengal, and the Nawab of Oudh all
set up their independent kingdoms during Mohammed Shah's reign. The
empire that used to encompass practically the whole country shrank to a
few isolated pockets around Delhi.
So stop being such a smartypants.
-s
Ashok
Why don't you take your own counsel?
Now, you are wrong about the song. It is a Lata-Rafi duet,
beautifully conceived by SN Tripathi, like the one he did
for 'Rani Rupmati': amiyaa halaahal madabharii ....
Ashok
Anindya
AFAIK/R, he died (executed) at around age 68, in around 1857, so,
technically, he "lived" in the late 18th century too. Maybe M. Shah
was an alias of B. Shah (Gujjus *really* had it good, those days :))
Anindya
Amit Malhotra
"Anindya" <andy...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:f43baef6.02052...@posting.google.com...
Actually, if you consider 11 years of age to be fully living .. then yeah,
otherwise, Technically, one can say he lived in the Early-Mid 19th
century.... u know, we are all being "techincal" here :-D
Amit
Anindya
> andy...@hotmail.com (Anindya) wrote:
>
> > typical HFM sounding Jhoomti chali hawa. The jhinjhoti-based Badli
> > badli duniya hai meri (IIRC, the only Talat song in the movie?) also
> > somehow doesn't sound right. My very limited knowledge of classical
> > music tells me that Jhinjhoti, like several other raagas, has its
> > roots in folk music. Would Taansen (and his fiancee) be likely to sing
> > a Jhinjhoti-based song, then?
>
> (a) it's Mahendra Kapoor and (b) Why not? It's a folk melody based raag,
> isn't it? It's only nowadays that people in cities train as classical
> singers with absolutely no knowledge of the folk tradition. There is no
> reason to doubt that "classical" singers of earlier days absorbed folk
> music by osmosis, the way urban people of my generation absorbed film
> music.
which is?
> > Again, the concept of using as many as three singers (Rafi, Mukesh,
> > Talat) itself is an inaccuracy.
>
> (a) it's seven, you left out Kamal Barot, Manna De, Krishnarao Chonkar,
> and Pandharinath Kolhapure and (b) whaddaya mean, "inaccuracy"? Don't be
> silly. By that criterion the only singer who would be "accurate" is
> Tansen himself.
the concept of the protagonist's voice sounding different, with
*every* song. *That's innacurate.
unlike a certain pompous ass that I (virtually) know, I had, precisely
for this reason, added IMHO at appropriate places. The effort was to
*initiate* a discussion (rather than stifle it), from a layman (I
don't have any pretensions of being a connosseur. Works better when
you don't have the constant urge to live upto the self-appointed "God"
status (illusion, actually) in every single post)'s point of view
(which is: the *average* HFM listener's point of view - since, acc.
to me, *that* was the target audience of both SST and Utsav(if
*everybody* in *every* e-group were a PhD, who would he preach to?).
"Knee-jerk" *is*, in fact, the typical reaction a lay HFM listener is
expect to display, upon hearing a particluar soundtrack, as opposed to
approaching the same with thick volumes of Classical Music
Encyclopaedia under his/her armpits. Who are we trying to kid?
Therefore (sorry but, several years ago, I got into this bad habit of
starting almost every sentence with "therefore". It's been several
years and I'm still surviving in this big, bad world despite my
imperfect ways/idiosyncracies. I therefore do not see any need to
change), I find the concept of twisting the facts to suit the theory
that SST was way more authentic, *despite* the admission that SST too,
had several songs which were very filmy, but Ustav wasn't - possibly
because it's "hip" to eulogise an older movie vis-a-vis a more recent
one (I'm not comparing the relative talents of SNT and LP, here, but
talking generically) a trifle childish, garbed cleverly in semantics.
Anindya
Anindya
> In article <9c085b63.02052...@posting.google.com>,
> u...@usa.net (UVR) wrote:
>
> > "Surajit A. Bose" <sb...@saintmarys.edu> wrote:
> > >
> > > Mohammed Shah was the last Mughal emperor of Delhi, late
> > > 18th century.
> >
> > Was he, really? I thought Bahadur Shah 'Zafar' was. Lived
> > in the mid-*19th* century, too, he did!
>
>
> Ravindra,
>
> I will concede that I was wrong about one thing. Mohammed Shah
>
> He is, however, frequently referred to as the last Mughal emperor of
> India. Remember the drut ektal "mahamadashaah ra.ngiile re, sajanaa, tum
> bin maikaa ... " (an adaptation of a well-known Miyan Malhar bandish)
> sung by Lata Mangeshkar? Guess which movie it's from. Nadir Shah. Yup,
> the selfsame dude who invaded India during Mohammed Shah's rule, in
> 1738, directly precipitating the collapse of the Mughal empire. The
> Nizam of Hyderabad, the governer of Bengal, and the Nawab of Oudh all
> set up their independent kingdoms during Mohammed Shah's reign. The
> empire that used to encompass practically the whole country shrank to a
> few isolated pockets around Delhi.
>
> So stop being such a smartypants.
my less-than-average knowledge of Indian history tells me that
Aurangzeb was the last of the Greater moghuls, and that B H Zafar was
the last Moghul. Now I know that there was a *third* category called "
the last of the midsized moghuls".
One learns everyday in this newsgroup.
Anindya
UVR
>
> u...@usa.net (UVR) wrote:
>
> > > Mohammed Shah was the last Mughal emperor of Delhi, late
> > > 18th century.
> >
> > Was he, really? I thought Bahadur Shah 'Zafar' was. Lived
> > in the mid-*19th* century, too, he did!
> I will concede that I was wrong about one thing. Mohammed Shah
> ÅRangeeleÄ
was the Mughal ruler from 1718 to 1748, i.e., the mid-18th
> and not the late 18th century.
>
> He is, however, frequently referred to as the last Mughal emperor of
> India. Remember the drut ektal "mahamadashaah ra.ngiile re, sajanaa, tum
> bin maikaa ... " (an adaptation of a well-known Miyan Malhar bandish)
> sung by Lata Mangeshkar? Guess which movie it's from. Nadir Shah. Yup,
> the selfsame dude who invaded India during Mohammed Shah's rule, in
> 1738, directly precipitating the collapse of the Mughal empire. The
> Nizam of Hyderabad, the governer of Bengal, and the Nawab of Oudh all
> set up their independent kingdoms during Mohammed Shah's reign. The
> empire that used to encompass practically the whole country shrank to a
> few isolated pockets around Delhi.
>
> So stop being such a smartypants.
It's not a matter of being a smartypants. It's a matter of, as
you have said elsewhere, the "historical record". Don't try to
rewrite history.
-UVR.
Cricfan
He was also the only Mughal king to pen lyrics for a Hindi film song -
and he did it while he was in Burma! :-)
na kisii kii aa.Nkh kaa nuur huu.N, na kisii ke dil kaa qaraar huu.N
Cheers
Arun
Vijay Kumar K
> Long. Responding to two posts.
>
> In article <8777cccd.02052...@posting.google.com>,
> rc0...@rediffmail.com (Ritu) wrote:
>
> > Interesting, when do you think the sarangi and tanpura came in as
> > accompaniments?
>
> It's not a question of what I "think," is it? It's a question of the
> historical record. Sarangi and tanpura are probably late 18th c. - early
> 19th c. developments. I will have to do some more research to refresh my
> memory.
>
> > The harmonium I understand came pretty late and from
> > the west.
>
> Yes, as also the violin.
flag and was known in those times as the "ravanastom". Seems to have gone west
from India before being re-imported.
>
> > Also is khayal gayaki also a recent phenomena?
>
> Relatively. The form flourished at the court of Mohammed Shah "Rangile",
> where two composers Niamat Khan ("Sadaang") and his nephew Firoz Khan
> ("Adarang") composed several Khayaals, which are still in common
> circulation. Mohammed Shah was the last Mughal emperor of Delhi, late
> 18th century.
Hmm.. This is certainly not right. The last Mughal Emperor was Bahadur Shah
Jafar, ain't it so? And he died in 1873, 16 years after being deposed.
Mr. Rangila, on the other hand, was the emperor shortly after Aurangzeb...IIRC,
he was the ruling monarch at the time of Nadir Shah's raid in 1739, and his
reign ended around that time. He had a surprisingly long reign, given the
turbulent times following Aurangzeb's death in 1707.
Just confirmed from this URL
http://www.med.unc.edu/~nupam/delhi1.html
Faruksiyar followed Aurangzeb, and then Mohammad Shah was in power from 1719
to 1748.
Vijay
naniwadekar
"Anindya" <andy...@hotmail.com> wrote -
>
> Therefore (sorry but, several years ago, I got into this bad habit of
> starting almost every sentence with "therefore". It's been several
> years and I'm still surviving in this big, bad world despite my
>
I had a wonderful school-mate who once declared that he would
like to urinate in every room in the school. His friends insist he
succeeded in what he was aiming at. No doubt after completing
50% of the task, he took stock and reasoned to himself that
despite his idiosyncracy, he was surviving in this big etc... and
therefore etc... When he becomes prime minister of India, I will
suggest your name for a Cabinet berth.
>
> > I'm surprised that the music of UTSAV sounds like anything at all to
> > you. I should have thought that it would be hard to hear anything when
> > your head is stuck so far up your ass.
> >
>
> "Knee-jerk" *is*, in fact, the typical reaction a lay HFM listener is
> expect to display, upon hearing a particluar soundtrack, as opposed to
> approaching the same with thick volumes of Classical Music
> Encyclopaedia under his/her armpits. Who are we trying to kid?
>
We have never disputed the above assertion. But we would also like
to add that such petulant statements don't constitute a sound argument
and merely make you look silly on a public forum. If you don't burden
your armpits with books and intend to make them look as close to your
groin as you can, it has one salutary side-effect, though. The dislocation
caused to your centre of gravity by your head having moved up your ass
will at least be partially offset by your pubic hair moving to your armpits.
- dn
rkus...@rogers.com
I loved Surjit p****g on your face:-
=================================================
Really, "Andy", your thinking (if it can be called that) gets sloppier
with each sentence. That "therefore" is a nice touch, giving your non
sequitur of a conclusion a spurious air of actually following from some
evidence you've presented. It is NOT all relative and subjective. That
the court music of Tansen's era was dhrupad is historical FACT. Nothing
relative or subjective about it. That the raag-raagini paddhati
prevailed at the time is well-grounded historical speculation. Again,
nothing subjective or relative about it. To equate this carefully
grounded historic specificity with your knee-jerk to how the music of
UTSAV "sounds", and to say that "therefore" SST and UTSAV can be
considered equivalent in terms of authenticity, betrays either a
fundamental misuderstanding of what counts as evidence in a logical
argument, or an ego so huge that in your mind, your own uninformed
hunches act as counterbalance to the weight of historic particularity.
To my ears, the music of UTSAV sounds lovely, and fits the movie well,
but it does not follow that therefore it is historically authentic. The
fact that it "sounds" authentic to your ears doesn't add any evidentiary
weight to your claim that the music of UTSAV *is* historically
authentic.
I'm surprised that the music of UTSAV sounds like anything at all to
you. I should have thought that it would be hard to hear anything when
your head is stuck so far up your ass.
===========================================
warm regards.
RK-
Ket...@att.net
says...
>
>Dear Andy,
>
>I loved Surjit p****g on your face:-
Oh dear! What did "Surjit" Singhji do now? Let's see from the number of letter
indicated by RK, it could be "paling". "Andy" didn't think you were that scary
looking. But then..
:)
Ketan
Cricfan
> Long. Responding to two posts.
>
> In article <8777cccd.02052...@posting.google.com>,
> rc0...@rediffmail.com (Ritu) wrote:
> > Also is khayal gayaki also a recent phenomena?
>
> Relatively. The form flourished at the court of Mohammed Shah "Rangile",
> where two composers Niamat Khan ("Sadaang") and his nephew Firoz Khan
> ("Adarang") composed several Khayaals, which are still in common
> circulation. Mohammed Shah was the last Mughal emperor of Delhi, late
> 18th century.
>
Btw, Ritu - you may want to hunt for a documentary titled "Khayal
Gayaki" shown on DD in 1989-90 which traced the history of this genre.
It was compered by Zakir Hussain.
Cheers
Arun
surjit singh
> Dear Andy,
>
> I loved Surjit p****g on your face:-
What! This is historically inaccurate.
I never at any time did no such thing nohow.
Surjit Singh, a diehard movie fan(atic), period.
> =================================================
> STUFF GONE
===========================================
>
> warm regards.
>
> RK-
VSR...@hclinfinet.com
No way was he executed, unless you have some insider's view of hidden
games.
He was exiled to Burma (current Myanmar) where he lived emprisoned till
he died of natural causes.
I had read that while he was emperor in Delhi, his four sons were
beheaded and their fresh heads were presented to him in covered big
thaali.
-Rawat
Anindya
>
> I loved Surjit p****g on your face:-
> =================================================
hmmm...are you getting *paid* to write this (one would think da Prof
would at least choose a more eloquent a**-licker :)) or are you doing
this gratis for him?
RK, advice to you: quite clearly, the concerned thread is way above
your comprehension levels (as are most threads). Therefore, it'd
probably be better if you stay out of this (you could, instead,
respond to responses addressed to you, rather than cleverly ducking
them).
The last time around, when I took your pants off (which, apart from
not being musically very relevant, nevertheless revealed that the
adjective "stand up", as in stand-up comic, is to be applied to you
only metaphoricaly, when it comes to certain parts of your anatomy),
you ran with your tail between your legs (what *else* can *you* hide
between *your* legs, anyway?).
Since I'm tired of taking your pants off every now and then, here and
on rsc,(I wouldn't like to be accused of animal sex and, besides, it's
no fun bullying a retard), so, from now on I'll ignore your posts,
unless in the unlikely event that there are any musical references in
them where I feel I can contribute/dispute.
So breathe easy, Mrs Yeeeeeellleeeeyaarajjja (when EDD, btw?).
Anindya
Anindya
> "Anindya" <andy...@hotmail.com> wrote -
> >
> > Therefore (sorry but, several years ago, I got into this bad habit of
> > starting almost every sentence with "therefore". It's been several
> > years and I'm still surviving in this big, bad world despite my
> > imperfect ways/idiosyncracies. I therefore do not see any need to change.
> >
> I had a wonderful school-mate who once declared that he would
> like to urinate in every room in the school. His friends insist he
> succeeded in what he was aiming at. No doubt after completing
> 50% of the task, he took stock and reasoned to himself that
> despite his idiosyncracy, he was surviving in this big etc... and
> therefore etc... When he becomes prime minister of India, I will
> suggest your name for a Cabinet berth.
nice story...bit contrived, though....and you didn't complete it :(
with the constant fixation for p*** and a**es that certain RMIMers
display, I'm sure they could take up latrine cleaning as alternative
professions, in the event of a recession (people would *still* need to
pee - thank god latrine-cleaning is a recession-proof industry!).
I'm surprised that the music of UTSAV sounds like anything at all to
> > > you. I should have thought that it would be hard to hear anything when
> > > your head is stuck so far up your ass.
> > >
> >
> > "Knee-jerk" *is*, in fact, the typical reaction a lay HFM listener is
> > expect to display, upon hearing a particluar soundtrack, as opposed to
> > approaching the same with thick volumes of Classical Music
> > Encyclopaedia under his/her armpits. Who are we trying to kid?
> >
> We have never disputed the above assertion. But we would also like
> to add that such petulant statements don't constitute a sound argument
> and merely make you look silly on a public forum.
which one is a petulant statement:
A: given the parameters/constraints of HFM, *IMHO* the music of SST
and Utsav sound *relatively* more authentic than some of the others
or
B: film X had some *very* authentic music in certain songs, *despite*
the fact that several other songs in the movie were completely filmy,
while film Y had lovely music, which fits the movie well, which
doesn't necessarily mean that
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
it's authentic (how on earth is the music supposed to *fit* a period
movie well and yet not sound authentic at all. What then, is the
definition of fitting the movie well?) . Yet, its blasphemous to club
X and Y in the same bracket even when one is clearly talking about
authenticity *relative* to other HFM soundtracks, and not comparing Y
with X. So blasphemous that it requires an unprovoked (and totally
unnecessary) personal diatribe to try and put the "errant" poster in
place?
and *who* decides if a statement is petulant or not?
If you don't burden
> your armpits with books
then I'll at least not need to cover up my ridiculous faux pas
(instead of gracefully acknowledging them) with even more ridiculous
statements like "Mohammed Shah was *frequently* referred to as the
last Mughal", so big deal.
Sometimes, it's better to be less educated.
Anindya
Anindya
another: Shamshiir wohi naa...film: Mandi. (Preeti Saagar/Vanraj Bhatia).
Anindya
rkus...@rogers.com
"Anindya" <andy...@hotmail.com> wrote
drivel deleted in the interest of sanity
> So breathe easy, Mrs Yeeeeeellleeeeyaarajjja (when EDD, btw?).
someone got irritated bigtime. mission accomplised.
wr.
rk-
naniwadekar
Anindya <andy...@hotmail.com> wrote -
>
> which one is a petulant statement:
>
You suggest that since a lay film-watcher offers knee-jerk reactions,
it is okay (or even incumbent) for you to do the same.
You write irrelevant drivel accusing other posters of having read books.
You grandly announce the books are thick in size. You boast you have
not read them. You expect this to count in your favour.
>
> Sometimes, it's better to be less educated.
>
more petulance from you.
> (one would think da Prof would at least choose a more
> eloquent a**-licker :))
>
BTW, even Surajit Singh, alongwith Surjit Bose (mis-spelling is/are
deliberate), fits the description 'da Prof'.
- dn
Anindya
> Anindya <andy...@hotmail.com> wrote -
> >
> > which one is a petulant statement:
> >
> Use the plural please - petulant statements.
>
> You suggest that since a lay film-watcher offers knee-jerk reactions,
yes, I do
> it is okay (or even incumbent) for you to do the same.
and how exactly do you get *that* impression, if I may ask? I was
trying to present a case from the lay HFM listner/movie watcher's
point of view. the Directors and MDs of SST and Utsav weren't making a
film for the Cannes festival. In mainstream cinema, quite obviously
the target audience, and therefore the product, will be different.
What I was saying was, *within these parameters*, certain
films/soundtracks appear, on a normal listening/viewing, to be
*relatively* more authentic than others...and all this in my humble
opinion. There was no effort on *my* part to offer last words on
anything. You have mixed up posts.
In fact, what I had stated was exactly that: we need to look at period
movie soundtracks the *relative* context of HFM sountracks, and that
the whole thing was subjective..(and will differ from listener to
lister). I assumed the part I've now put within parantheses would
implicitly follow from the earlier sentence. Obviously, I had grossly
over-estimated the comprehension skills of certain RMIM-ers.
>
> You write irrelevant drivel accusing other posters of having read books.
> You grandly announce the books are thick in size. You boast you have
> not read them.
again, no. I had said that a *lay* HFM viewer *does not* do any such
thing...(and, therefore, *that's* the hat one needs to put on while
evaluating the authenticity of period-music soundtracks and *why* such
and such composer did or did not sound 100% authentic, throughout the
soundtrack). Once again, I assumed the part I've now put in
parantheses........grossly overestimated....etc.
>You expect this to count in your favour.
your deductive ability will put even Microft Holmes to shame.
> > Sometimes, it's better to be less educated.
> >
> more petulance from you.
>
You butted in to a response addressed to someone else (which would
have been perfectly ok if there had been any musical inputs in your
post but not otherwise) once again with unprovoked, personal comments
(what's hurting *you* so much...and why this urge among "veteran"
RMIMER's to outdo each other in the bid to become the official
scatologist of the group? Is the prize money huge?). If you feel
*that* was in good order, then my retaliation was, too.
Anindya
Cricfan
>
> No way was he executed, unless you have some insider's view of hidden
> games.
>
> He was exiled to Burma (current Myanmar) where he lived emprisoned till
> he died of natural causes.
>
> I had read that while he was emperor in Delhi, his four sons were
> beheaded and their fresh heads were presented to him in covered big
> thaali.
>
> -Rawat
Actually, he was no more than a master of the Red Fort. The title
"Emporer" and "King" of Delhi/Mughal empire was obviously his
sychophants' way of clinging to the dying remnants of past 'glory'.
Cheers
Arun
rkus...@rogers.com
"Cricfan" <asi...@My-deja.com> wrote
> Actually, he was no more than a master of the Red Fort. The title
> "Emporer" and "King" of Delhi/Mughal empire was obviously his
> sychophants' way of clinging to the dying remnants of past 'glory'.
the first mutiny of 1857 was to place BSZ back in Delhi. No wonder
Sikhs sided with brits and fought against mutiny.
RK-
naniwadekar
"Anindya" <andy...@hotmail.com> wrote -
>
> What I was saying was, *within these parameters*, certain
> films/soundtracks appear, on a normal listening/viewing, to be
> *relatively* more authentic than others...
>
Roshan never enjoyed the kind of popularity which R D Burman did.
Probably Khemchand Prakash does not have a yahoo egroup
dedicated to him. Within those limited parameters and within the
limited universe your brain can comprehend, RDB is a more talented
MD than KcP and Roshan. Sure.
> *within these parameters*
>
The parameters you choose to operate within tell me a lot
about you.
- dn
rkus...@rogers.com
> You are getting tiresome.
> Roshan never enjoyed the kind of popularity which R D Burman did.
> Probably Khemchand Prakash does not have a yahoo egroup
> dedicated to him. Within those limited parameters and within the
> limited universe your brain can comprehend, RDB is a more talented
> MD than KcP and Roshan. Sure.
HA HA HA HA.
RK- [ enjoying the balatkaar of Anindya ]
Ritu
Thanks for the pointer Arun, shall try and do so though I am doubtful
about being successful. Meanwhile, the link you had posted with the
European travellers accounts of medival and modern india made
interesting reading.
Tks
Ritu
>
Ket...@att.net
>"Anindya" <andy...@hotmail.com> wrote -
>>
>> What I was saying was, *within these parameters*, certain
>> films/soundtracks appear, on a normal listening/viewing, to be
>> *relatively* more authentic than others...
>You are getting tiresome
And you are beginning to sound like Naushad, and Nalin Shah.
>Roshan never enjoyed the kind of popularity which R D Burman did.
>Probably Khemchand Prakash does not have a yahoo egroup
>dedicated to him. Within those limited parameters and within the
>limited universe your brain can comprehend, RDB is a more talented
>MD than KcP and Roshan. Sure.
A case can be made out for RDB being more talented than Roshan and KcP in some
ways. Usage of rhythm in HFM is just one example. If you can't accept that, it
shows the parameters you are working with and how narrow minded your views are
on what counts as talent.
Ketan
Pradeep Dubey
pis gayaa aan kaa aaTaa, 'pissing' ye rok lii hotii
Pradeep
andy...@hotmail.com (Anindya) wrote in message news:<f43baef6.02052...@posting.google.com>...
Surajit A. Bose
> which one is a petulant statement:
>
> A: given the parameters/constraints of HFM, *IMHO* the music of SST
> and Utsav sound *relatively* more authentic than some of the others
Whether or not it's petulant, it's certainly inarguable, since it deals
with opinions and not facts. And it's certainly not what you said; your
original claim was that the music of Utsav used "period instruments".
Period instruments forsooth! That's a laughable claim, and nothing
you've said since makes it any less laughable.
> B: film X had some *very* authentic music in certain songs, *despite*
> the fact that several other songs in the movie were completely filmy,
> while film Y had lovely music, which fits the movie well, which
> doesn't necessarily mean that
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> it's authentic (how on earth is the music supposed to *fit* a period
> movie well and yet not sound authentic at all. What then, is the
> definition of fitting the movie well?)
Read Ritu's post--she specifically asked what the historical record was
regarding the music of previous eras, and whether there was any movie
that stuck to the historical record. By that specific criterion, Sangeet
Samrat Tansen is to some extent authentic. Utsav is definitely not. No
matter of rhetorical contortions on your part can redefine historical
authenticity.
> . Yet, its blasphemous to club
> X and Y in the same bracket even when one is clearly talking about
> authenticity *relative* to other HFM soundtracks, and not comparing Y
> with X. So blasphemous that it requires an unprovoked (and totally
> unnecessary) personal diatribe to try and put the "errant" poster in
> place?
Deliberate stupidity is unforgivable--particularly when instead of
admitting that you're just plain wrong, you persist in being an
imbecile. Do you think, "Andy", that by repeating your childish and
misguided arguments over and over again, you make them convincing?
Or do you think that the rest of the RMIMers will have missed what you
conveniently refrain from mentioning, the fact that I called the
soundtrack of Utsav "lovely"? Do you think they won't know what worth to
place on your insinuation that it's just a prejudice for older music
that leads me to state that Utsav is not historically authentic? Just
because you choose to misinterpret and misrepresent, do you assume that
everybody else will follow suit? If so, you're a bigger moron than even
I give you credit for.
> then I'll at least not need to cover up my ridiculous faux pas
> (instead of gracefully acknowledging them)
And where exactly have you been acknowledging a faux pas? Far from
it--you're PROUD of sticking to your guns even though you're dead wrong.
I guess all the pressure on your brain must be cutting off the blood
supply and affecting your thinking. Alas, your ongoing posts give no
indication that your head will free itself any time soon from the narrow
confines in which it's currently lodged.
-s
vibhendu
> In article <f43baef6.02051...@posting.google.com>,
> andy...@hotmail.com (Anindya) wrote:
>
> > one movie where the MDs (LP!) *tried* to sound authentic, in terms of
> > period instruments etc., IMHO, was Utsav. Though I suspect, that could
> > have been more because of Girish Karnad (the director)'s insistence
> > than LP's.
>
> Period instruments? The sitar, which is all over the score, is a
> relatively recent development (no iconographic or textual evidence
> refers to the instrument before the early 1800s), and UTSAV, based on
> mR^ichchhakaTikam, is set in the classical era.
>
> -s
Isn't Amir Khusro credited with creating sitar and he died a few
centuries before even 'early' 1800s started.
Or was Khusro's sitar different from its modern day avatar?
Vibhendu
Surajit A. Bose
vibh...@hotmail.com (vibhendu) wrote:
> Isn't Amir Khusro credited with creating sitar and he died a few
> centuries before even 'early' 1800s started.
> Or was Khusro's sitar different from its modern day avatar?
> Vibhendu
Oh, Amir Khusro is credited with practically everything 8-) but he never
mentions the sitar in any of his writings, and there is no iconographic
evidence of the sitar's existence until much later. For these reasons,
no respectable historian of music gives credence to the claim that
Khusro created the sitar.
-s
vibhendu
think that the sitar bit is also apocryphal.
Though this may not count as his 'writings' but in a riddle again
'credited' to Khusro, there is a mention of sitar.
'Sitar kyoon na baja? Aurat kyoon na nahayi? Parda na tha. '
Also, then what is the earliest iconographic evidence of the sitar's
existence?
Another related question, what is the 'shastra' in shastriya sangeet?
Are there any texts on music ( not Natyashastra) along the lines of
those by Patanjali on Yoga,Panini on grammar and even Vatsyayan on you
know what.
Vibhendu
Surajit A. Bose
vibh...@hotmail.com (vibhendu) wrote:
> Also, then what is the earliest iconographic evidence of the sitar's
> existence?
The early 19th-c. pictorial representations of Indian music in the
documents of East India Company travellers.
Prior to that, a text that dates to c.1736 (the reign of Mohammed Shah
"Rangile") mentions Niamat Khan, his brother Khusro Khan, and Niamat's
nephew Firoz Khan. Niamat Khan and Firoz Khan are, of course, Sadarang
and Adarang. This text mentions that Firoz Khan was a player on the
sitar. This is the first recorded instance of the existence of the
instrument. It is possible that a conflation between Khusro Khan and
Amir Khusro led to the mistaken attribution.
> Another related question, what is the 'shastra' in shastriya sangeet?
> Are there any texts on music ( not Natyashastra) along the lines of
> those by Patanjali on Yoga,Panini on grammar and even Vatsyayan on you
> know what.
Yes, scads. The most famous of course is Sangeet Ratnakar by Sarangdeva.
I've mentioned Damodar's work earlier in this thread. Lochana Pandit's
Raag Tarangini, Hriday Narayan's Hriday Prakash and Hriday Kautuk, the
works of Purandara Dasa, and works in Arabic and Persian (such as the
Madan ul'Musiqi) are all part of a long and far from monolithic
tradition of treatises on music.
Unfortunately I do not know Sanskrit or Persian, so my own knowledge of
these works is second- and third-hand. From what I gather, however, they
have as much relation to contemporary musical practise as Vatsyayan does
to the bar scene in the Castro district of San Francisco. I.e. the
conditions of performance as well as what gets performed have changed so
drastically that such continuities as exist need to be examined with
historical as well as analytic rigor. For my money, Bhatkhande remains
the nonpareil when it comes to discussing these earlier works; his sharp
intellect, his breadth of knowledge, and his forensic attitude toward
the question of the relationship of ancient theory to modern practise
make for a truly breath-taking achievement. More recent attempts (eg
Thakur Jaidev Singh's "Indian Music", impressive in its scope) don't
bring brainpower of the same wattage to the subject.
-s
Ambika Sukla
"Anindya" <andy...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:f43baef6.02052...@posting.google.com...
> "Surajit A. Bose" <sb...@saintmarys.edu> wrote in message
news:<sbose-A43707....@usenet.stanford.edu>...
> > In article <9c085b63.02052...@posting.google.com>,
> > u...@usa.net (UVR) wrote:
> >
> > > "Surajit A. Bose" <sb...@saintmarys.edu> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Mohammed Shah was the last Mughal emperor of Delhi, late
> > > > 18th century.
> > >
> > > Was he, really? I thought Bahadur Shah 'Zafar' was. Lived
> > > in the mid-*19th* century, too, he did!
> >
> >
> > Ravindra,
> >
> > I will concede that I was wrong about one thing. Mohammed Shah
> > ŒRangeeleāļ was the Mughal ruler from 1718 to 1748, i.e., the
mid-18th
> > and not the late 18th century.
> >
> > He is, however, frequently referred to as the last Mughal emperor of
> > India. Remember the drut ektal "mahamadashaah ra.ngiile re, sajanaa, tum
> > bin maikaa ... " (an adaptation of a well-known Miyan Malhar bandish)
> > sung by Lata Mangeshkar? Guess which movie it's from. Nadir Shah. Yup,
> > the selfsame dude who invaded India during Mohammed Shah's rule, in
> > 1738, directly precipitating the collapse of the Mughal empire. The
> > Nizam of Hyderabad, the governer of Bengal, and the Nawab of Oudh all
> > set up their independent kingdoms during Mohammed Shah's reign. The
> > empire that used to encompass practically the whole country shrank to a
> > few isolated pockets around Delhi.
> >
> > So stop being such a smartypants.
>
> my less-than-average knowledge of Indian history tells me that
> Aurangzeb was the last of the Greater moghuls, and that B H Zafar was
> the last Moghul. Now I know that there was a *third* category called "
> the last of the midsized moghuls".
>
> One learns everyday in this newsgroup.
>
> Anindya
VSR...@hclinfinet.com
>
> AURANGZEB WAS NOT GREAT. HE WAS A MOTHERFUCKING SON OF A BITCH.
>
Which of the mughals was not? Starting with Babar.
> "Anindya" <andy...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:f43baef6.02052...@posting.google.com...
> > "Surajit A. Bose" <sb...@saintmarys.edu> wrote in message
> news:<sbose-A43707....@usenet.stanford.edu>...
> > > In article <9c085b63.02052...@posting.google.com>,
> > > u...@usa.net (UVR) wrote:
> >
> > my less-than-average knowledge of Indian history tells me that
> > Aurangzeb was the last of the Greater moghuls,
maybe modified as he was the last mughal having large emipre.
> > and that B H Zafar was
> > the last Moghul. Now I know that there was a *third* category called "
> > the last of the midsized moghuls".
> >
> > One learns everyday in this newsgroup.
> >
> > Anindya
-Rawat
Anindya
> In article <f43baef6.02052...@posting.google.com>,
> andy...@hotmail.com (Anindya) wrote:
>
> > which one is a petulant statement:
> >
> > A: given the parameters/constraints of HFM, *IMHO* the music of SST
> > and Utsav sound *relatively* more authentic than some of the others
>
> Whether or not it's petulant, it's certainly inarguable, since it deals
> with opinions and not facts. And it's certainly not what you said; your
> original claim was that the music of Utsav used "period instruments".
> Period instruments forsooth! That's a laughable claim, and nothing
> you've said since makes it any less laughable.
yes, my mistake. What I had in mind was the off-beat (metaphorically)
percussion instruments used in Man kyu.n baheka re beheka aadhi raat
ko...but I guess different-sounding isn't enough evidence to call them
period-instruments.
(this is probably the *only8 tme in my life that I went *this*
out-of-the-way to defend an LP soundtrack!)
>
> > B: film X had some *very* authentic music in certain songs, *despite*
> > the fact that several other songs in the movie were completely filmy,
> > while film Y had lovely music, which fits the movie well, which
> > doesn't necessarily mean that
> > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > it's authentic (how on earth is the music supposed to *fit* a period
> > movie well and yet not sound authentic at all. What then, is the
> > definition of fitting the movie well?)
>
>
> Read Ritu's post--she specifically asked what the historical record was
> regarding the music of previous eras, and whether there was any movie
> that stuck to the historical record. By that specific criterion, Sangeet
> Samrat Tansen is to some extent authentic. Utsav is definitely not. No
> matter of rhetorical contortions on your part can redefine historical
> authenticity.
repeating the question (*now* you know what I meant by sight-impaired
RMIMers):
"how on earth is the music supposed to *fit* a period movie well and
yet not sound authentic at all. What then, is the definition of
fitting the movie well?"
> . Yet, its blasphemous to club
> > X and Y in the same bracket even when one is clearly talking about
> > authenticity *relative* to other HFM soundtracks, and not comparing Y
> > with X. So blasphemous that it requires an unprovoked (and totally
> > unnecessary) personal diatribe to try and put the "errant" poster in
> > place?
>
> Deliberate stupidity is unforgivable--particularly when instead of
> admitting that you're just plain wrong, you persist in being an
> imbecile.
hmmm...someone was saying something about Md. Shah being *frequently*
referred to as the Last Mughal?
(yes, I *am* getting tiresome...but, more than that, I'm getting a bit
disturbing, I guess...going around busting double standards of people
I am probably supposed to talk to with utmost reverence).
<snipped>
Just
> because you choose to misinterpret and misrepresent, do you assume that
> everybody else will follow suit? If so, you're a bigger moron than even
> I give you credit for.
I take it that I *now* get an entry into the veteran RMIM-ers club?
then I'll at least not need to cover up my ridiculous faux pas
> > (instead of gracefully acknowledging them)
>
> And where exactly have you been acknowledging a faux pas? Far from
> it--you're PROUD of sticking to your guns even though you're dead wrong.
>
> I guess all the pressure on your brain must be cutting off the blood
> supply and affecting your thinking. Alas, your ongoing posts give no
> indication that your head will free itself any time soon from the narrow
> confines in which it's currently lodged.
alas..you'll *never* make a good neuro-surgeon. Suggest you stick to
English literature.
Anindya
Anindya
no matter how much you kick a mutt, it keeps coming back at you for
more kicks. Strange is the psyche of a masochist.
Anindya
Surajit A. Bose
> no matter how much you kick a mutt, it keeps coming back at you for
> more kicks. Strange is the psyche of a masochist.
What an apt characterization of your contributions to this thread.
-s
Anindya
even as I was writing out this sentence, I was expecting *exactly*
this predictable, cliched and puerile response from the addressee, but
hardly from you. One would have thought that years of dabbling with
the Queen's language would give one the edge and ability to be more
subtle with repartee and choice of epithets. You disappoint me, with
regard to *your* contribution to this thread as well.
I guess overflow of negative energy affects ones productivity.
Anindya
Surajit A. Bose
andy...@hotmail.com (Anindya) wrote:
> even as I was writing out this sentence, I was expecting *exactly*
> this predictable, cliched and puerile response from the addressee, but
> hardly from you. One would have thought that years of dabbling with
> the Queen's language would give one the edge and ability to be more
> subtle with repartee and choice of epithets.
One must pay the piper according to his tune. Subtlety is lost on folks
like you.
-s
rkus...@rogers.com
LOL.
Or one must let assistant play the piper. No need to play it self.
bechara Anindya. He thought he can provoke me into a flame war,
and all I have to do is to sit and relax. why should I even bother
to respond.
sorry anindya. Keep trying. good luck and hopefully improve ur
taste to atleast that extent when u consider "rekha o rekha"
(from Adhikar) as a raddi song. Plain raddi song.
RK-