adarsh bhat’s blog

American singer-songwriter James Victor “Vic” Chesnutt ended his own life on Christmas Day by overdosing on his muscle relaxant medication.

Vic Chesnutt and his work were completely unfamiliar to me until I first heard his interview on NPR’s Fresh Air, which is hosted by the wonderful Terry Gross. Vic Chesnutt’s story, just like his music is very moving.

Vic Chesnutt (source: Wikipedia)

Vic Chesnutt met with an accident in 1983 while driving in a drunken state when he was eighteen. He broke his neck and partially damaged his spinal cord. Partially quadriplegic since then, he had limited movement below his neck and was restricted to a wheelchair.

He managed to gain some control back and was able to play simple guitar chords and sing again. Here is a sample of his music. This song is called “Flirted with you all my life” from his latest album “At the Cut”.

If you pay attention to the words of this song, the listener initially thinks that the singer is addressing a lover when he says “I flirted with you all my life, even kissed you once or twice.” But half-way through the song, it becomes obvious that he is not really addressing a lover, but death. In real life, Vic Chesnutt has had several brushes with death, which included several attempts at suicide both before and after his car accident in 1983.

He also says in his song, “clearly I was not ready.” In his early-December interview with Terry Gross, Vic said this was his break-up song with death — that he felt he wasn’t ready for death yet.

You know, I’ve attempted suicide three or four times,” he said. “It didn’t take. And this is really a breakup song with death.”

Here is another song by Vic Chesnutt: “Courage of the Coward.” I like it because of the intensity of both the words and of the musical arrangement.

During the interview Chesnutt said he wasn’t ready for death yet. He seemed very well put together and gave the feeling to all his listeners that he was not going to make another attempt on his own life.

I was personally very disturbed to hear recently that Vic Chesnutt took his life on Christmas day, just a few weeks after the original interview. He overdosed on prescription muscle relaxant. After two days in coma, he eventually succumbed.

Vic Chesnutt’s writing is very open, painful and transparent. In his own words:

Other people write about the bling and the booty. I write about the pus and the gnats. To me, that’s beautiful.

Here’s an example from the song “Panic Pure” from his CD “West of Rome.”

and so all you observers in your scrutiny
don’t count my scars like tree rings
my jigsaw disposition, it’s piecemeal properties
are either smoked or honey cured
by the panic pure

Related:

• Vic Chesnutt’s early December interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air (audio, 39 min)
• Fresh Air’s follow-up story following Vic Chesnutt’s death (audio, 46 min 45 sec)

music

We live in an interesting time. Where we once simply remarked that India is changing, today we get to see that change happen. A liberal India is emerging out of the shackles, freeing herself from the grips of the ‘moral police’. Being open-minded and a free-thinker yourself, I am sure that you agree with me when I say that the recent Delhi High Court judgment reading down IPC section 377 is a giant leap for equality in India.

The judgment has been given a lot of press coverage in India and abroad. It deserves every bit of it, and not only because it decriminalizes homosexuality. The judgment has thrown the focus back on the very basis on which our society, country and constitution were formed.

If there is one constitutional tenet that can be said to be the underlying theme of the Indian Constitution, it is that of ‘inclusiveness’. This Court believes that the Indian Constitution reflects this value deeply ingrained in Indian society, nurtured over several generations. The inclusiveness that Indian society traditionally displayed, literally in every aspect of life, is manifest in recognising a role in society for everyone.

I believe that this judgment is historic, and the next generation of Indians will look at us with shock, and ask us what took us so long.

I realize that not everyone approves of gays and lesbians. I would like to ask these people how many gay friends they have; how many gay people they know on a personal level. My guess is that the answer is zero. Zilch. Nada. It is easy to judge an entire population or community en-masse when you don’t know anyone in the group on a personal level. It is easy to think that Muslims are terrorists; to think that blacks are inferior to whites; to think that queers are perverts. But go meet a real man who follows Islam, a real black person and a real gay man. You will find that your blanket opinions will shift sooner than you thought possible.

Go out and make friends with a gay man or woman. My hunch is that you will find that person personable and just like everybody else. (I don’t mean to suggest that you should make love to someone of the same sex. That would be entirely up to you.)

“Well,” you say, “so where does one go to find a gay friend?”

My answer to that question is that you don’t have to ‘go’ anywhere. All you have to do is open your mind and your eyes, and look around you. Queers are everywhere. It could be your close friend, someone in your class, someone at your workplace, your brother or sister, an uncle, an aunt or even a parent. But they may not be out to you yet, because they think you wouldn’t understand. Let people around you know that you are OK with homosexuality — tell them that — and you will find that they will come out to you themselves.

It is entirely possible, dare I say very likely, that you already have a gay friend. You just don’t know about it yet.

homosexuality, india, society

I had one of those rare opportunities last evening — when the weather was in the seventies, and when I felt like moving my muscles a tad. Given the erratic weather in Chicago this season, I have had such luck only once every week in the past month. Running on the lake trail by Lake Michigan surely has its upsides, as you will soon find out.

Half-way through my run, I was drawn by a disturbing albeit familiar sound. When I moved closer toward the source of the sound, I recognized that sound as one of my favourite genres of music — Qawwali. I crossed the BP bridge with much anticipation, hoping to see the rehearsals at the Jay Pritzker pavilion at Millennium Park. To my surprise and utter delight, it wasn’t a rehearsal, but an actual live concert. Gigantic stacks of speakers blaring Allah Hu, Ali Ali and then some catchy Punjabi numbers on the lakefront of Chicago. It reminded me of home. (By the way, you don’t know high notes until you’ve heard some of these Qawwali singers go.) I settled down among the audience, although I was in my workout clothes and completely soaked in sweat.

Faiz Ali Faiz

Everyone seemed to be enjoying the music — black, white, brown. But towards the end of the concert, the south asians in the crowd began to get really excited. And could you blame them? One by one, they moved toward the stage, and scattered a few notes in the air, in that style that you would be familiar with if you have attended Indian weddings or other ceremonies — lutaing money, if you will.

I had the opportunity to sit back and watch many people do this, one after the other. After my observations, I have concluded that not everyone has the knack to do this right. And yes, there is a right way of doing it. It takes patience and some musical knowledge to achieve the perfect effect.

Qawwali music has this unique style, where the music rises in a quick crescendo — with the backup singers repeating a rythmic phrase, and the lead singer improvising on the raga and hitting the high notes. Well, what you think are high notes. And then he goes beyond that to hit higher notes, and then higher-er notes, and then goes two steps beyond what you thought was the highest note possible. And then all of a sudden there is a pause when everyone goes silent. The audience begins to applaud, thinking that the song is over, but then the tabla and the back-up singers pick up right where they left off and the song goes on for a while after that.

I admit that was a long description. But it’s all relevent, because the exact timing when you should luta your money has to do with that pause in the music.

The right moment to let go of the handful of crisp currency notes is at the exact moment when the highest musical note has been hit, but the pause hasn’t begun yet. This of course has to be an underarm throw, or it will look disrespectful. During the pause, the bills reach the top of their trajectory. Everything is really quiet. And then just as the tabla and backup singers pick up again, the notes rain down and scatter creating a confett-like effect.

Glorious!

I didn’t know about this until I saw some rookies screw up, and hasten back to their seats. And then the pros showed us how it’s done.

I’m convinced that this is the way to do it. You should try it next time. And let me know how it goes.

PS – If you’re interested, the artist was Faiz Ali Faiz from Lahore, Pakistan. This concert was part of the Music Without Borders series. Faiz Ali Faiz has an amazing style where he blends western music here and there in to familiar Qawwali numbers — Qawwali Flamenco and Qawwali Gospel. Sounds interesting? Check him out!

music, qawwali

This must be the first time I am blogging because I have nothing else to do. Previously, it was always an effort to take time out of whatever I was doing to make lengthy blog posts. Turns out the longer you work, the more time you have. (But other things suffer — like the laundry.)

Time is not moving at all today since we took a break from our super long days and weekend-less weeks.

When I was at San Francisco last year, my friend Vinay recommended a comic book to me that he had just finished reading. They were also going to make a movie based on it, and it was going to be awesome. He even showed me the trailer online.

Watchmen. I had never heard of this cult classic comic book series from the late 80s. That wasn’t a big surprise, because I had never read a serious comic book before, and how should I know? A couple of months ago, however, they started playing promo clips of Watchmen in movie halls, and the visuals looked pretty darn good. They said it was from the director of 300, and the ripped CG abs immediately came to mind. This had to be good.

I wanted to read the book before watching the movie. As luck would have it, my friend Annie’s brother had gifted her a copy of the novel for Christmas, and she said I could have it!

My first thoughts after reading the book were… they are not making a movie out of this book.

Don’t get me wrong. I loved the novel, and could appreciate a lot of elements in it. But it is obvious to anyone that reads it that it’s simply not movie material. Anyone who tries to make a movie out of it is doomed to fail. Unless of course, he changes the story or presentation significantly — which is, of course, ruled out from the word go because the book has such a cult status and its geeky fans would never forgive any changes from the base script.

It is only a matter of turning on the news before stories of the economic recession and its consequences begin to flow. Non-stop. No matter what time of day. You know how we sometimes try to console ourselves after a loss by thinking that the other guy failed too, and I’m not alone. This time, it’s a little different.

“It’s like being on the sinking Titanic,” the woman on the news said.

Company only makes it worse.

economy

Awesome quotes about the Mangalore incident:

We were just having a good time and next you know people pulling your hair, hitting you and calling you names like prostitutes, whores..
One of the victims

…if I apologize, the girls will do it again
Prasad Attavar, state convener, Sri Rama Sena

Drinking by women is not Indian culture. It’ll morally degrade our society. Women are our mothers and they should behave like that
Prasad Attavar, state convener, Sri Rama Sena

For years, we have been undertaking various programmes to see that the culture of boys and girls going hand-in-hand to pubs and malls is stopped
K Narahari, RSS secretary in the southern states

The Sene would continue with the same if the authorities and people don’t stop diluting Hindu culture, allowing girls and women resorting to the “shameful act”
Jitesh Kumar, state co-convener, Sri Rama Sena

Even Lord Sri Rama will be ashamed to know the act carried out by Sri Rama Sene. If they (Sene) is concerned about women, let them build toilets in rural areas, where women till today have to wait for sunset to answer Nature’s call…
Vatal Nagaraj, Kannada Chaluvali Vatal Paksha president and former MLA

It is against Indian culture and women are to be blamed for the episode. Government has given licence and permitted men to visit pubs
Bhargavi, President, Karnataka Mahila Rakshana Vedike (state womens protection forum)

The main agenda of Sri Ram Sena is an end to fashion shows, which they say is against Hindu culture.
News report

india, society

I’ll let the video do the talking. Turn your volume up.

It is always important to get the other party’s viewpoint. So, here’s reaction from the media in Pakistan about the recent Mumbai attacks (in Urdu mixed with English). I can’t really defend India against all the accusations made. But I don’t dare call this unbiased coverage either. Six videos will play one after the other below, covering the entire show.

Thanks to Mekin for sharing the link.

mumbai, terrorism

In my post about the recent terrorist attacks on Mumbai, I wrote that India’s measures to counter the threat of terrorism will pose a challenge to the civil rights of citizens of India. I would like to elaborate on that in this post.

The urban youth of India have been shocked by the audacity demonstrated by the terrorists in the Mumbai attacks. There is wide spread disapproval of the Indian government over its inability to prevent such attacks. These same people also believe that India should take the same path America did post 9/11. The basis of this argument is that America has seen no large foreign terrorist attacks on US soil since 9/11 and this is because of the steps taken by the Bush administration; hence this is a method that works, and we should do the same. To these arguments, my response is that we have more information available about the US example that than little misleading factoid. We should do our best to learn from the mistakes that the US made, and not blindly make the same mistakes all over again.

The first casualties in the US efforts were not terrorists, but the freedom and the civil rights of ordinary citizens of America. In a surge of patriotism, not unlike what we feel today, the representatives of the people voted for the PATRIOT act in a hurry without any real debate. There have been similar controversial laws in India in the past to fight terrorism — TADA comes to mind immediately. The opposition has already made a demand for stricter laws in India, so there is the real danger of putting too much power in to the hands of the government, at the expense of the civil rights, and even human rights, of the ordinary citizen.

In the name of strengthening laws, empowering the police department, and reducing bureaucracy, they may make it easier to arrest and detain people on a whim while bypassing the usual procedures of the law. There may be gag orders on the press. They make make torture of arrested terror suspects under detention legal. They may award the death sentence with more ease. More likely than not, they may violate the privacy of the citizens. If it really got down to it, at least in practice if not on paper, there may be special background checks for Muslim candidates for jobs and college admissions.

Here is a recent example of such occurrences in India. Such incidents will happen more often, and may even become “legal”.

On the surface these may seem like acceptable trade-offs to some people. But we have to remember that real terrorists form a minuscule fraction of the population, but the laws are going to affect everyone. Before any such laws are passed, we need to take time and debate their pros and cons thoroughly. We cannot rush through them in a hurry, in a bid to imitate America, only later to realize what we have lost, and fight for our rights at the end, again like America.

It is often argued that things like privacy aren’t very important in India. There are no explicit provisions in the constitution for the right to privacy either. But India has ratified a number of international treaties and agreements, and is bound by international law to protect civil rights of her citizens. Also it is not correct to take away peoples’ rights just because they don’t know they are entitled to it.

Recently, when sexual minority groups in India demanded their rights in the courts, the government — thanks to ex-home minister Shivraj Patil — took the stand that they did not deserve to have those rights. Given that the government has demonstrated that it is keen on denying basic rights to people, it should come as no surprise if they actually try to do everything that I have described. We can’t let them go scissor-happy on our rights. And if they try, we must fight them with every ounce of strength left.

P.S. A few weeks back, I had written criticizing a blog that had some strong pro-hindutva (and anti-government) writings. It turns out that after the Mumbai attacks, that site has been taken down. If it is indeed true that the government has ordered this site to be taken down, as some websites have suggested, then this is clearly a violation of the freedom of speech. This is unconstitutional, and needs to be reversed.

EDIT (Dec 01 2008): It turns out that the site was down due to increased load and is now being hosted at a temporary new location. But I have to confess that it was a good story.

mumbai, politics, terrorism