Tuesday, January 11, 2011

This is our culture - Murder a classic!

I actually had tears in my eyes when i saw this video. After watching this video (not the entire length for God's sake but just the first 30 seconds) you may well ask why? "Isn't this a regular movie sequence? Idiotic may be but tears in your eyes? C'mon, you're overdoing it!".



Here's the reason: The song(kirtana) is originally a divine soul-touching classical composition. Please read the entire article about the kirtana's saint-composer, Sri Bhadrachala Ramadasu at the wiki-link here.

Here are the lyrics:
O, Rama! Is it that a word from your mouth is so precious and rare?
Why don’t you respond when I call you? I who have never forgotten your thoughts even in my dreams.
The kriti evokes devotional thoughts in anyone who has at least a tinge of sattva. How could they even do this? Don't they have a sense of shame? A sense of heritage, culture, pride, dignity? The scary thing for me is that i feel the overwhelming majority of people will end up liking the 'song' in this fashion. Now we know why the country is in this state.

Now after all this if you are wondering what the original is like, please hear the below video. Note that this is not really classically rendered (i for one find some elements added rather corny) but i've included it to demonstrate that while one may take some liberty, at least preserve the basic ethos of the song (this is difficult to define but i think easy to know).



And this is one way it is traditionally rendered. I've taken this video since it shows you the kind of absorption and involvement that goes into the kirtana unlike that crass video right at the top.

1 comment:

Sandeep Bhasin said...

The shamelessness with which a section of our society has been degrading the culture combined with our endless tolerance has resulted in this situation.

I have noticed that the Hindus residing out of India have been more sensitive...

Unfortunately, I can only rant and do no more.