Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Rhymes Without Reason - Part 1

Sanjay a.k.a 'SunRun' was sitting in his room blasting hip hop music on his 1600w system. It was cold Saturday morning for Chennai. Valentine's day was approaching with no luck in his pursuit of cupid's arrows, let alone lady love. He thought of making it big rhyming words like 'here' with 'beer'. "Rap is always misundersood in India. If only I could prove them wrong!" was a constant thought that kept hitting him. The dust laden wind was sneaking into his room through the open window. Sanjay was lost in his music that neither the dust nor cold breeze unnerved him. By the afternoon, he had had his meal of sambar rice and Eminem's Marshall Mathers LP album. Things were starting to get busy for the Saturday evening.

Monday, March 08, 2010

CyHi Da Prynce!

Lately, I've been listening to this new artist CyHi Da Prynce, who I think is the next big thing after a co-sign by Kanye West. Just thought I'd embed the song Sweet Georgia & I wish (Remix) by Yelawolf. CyHi Da Prynce kills it in both the songs. Sweet Georgia has been on a repeat loop in my iTunes.

Nice!



Thursday, March 04, 2010

#nithyananda - God or Fraud?

I maybe the 10 millionth person probably posting about this muck. I know, this message would get drowned out in the lynch mob that is after the now famous-for-wrong-reasons sex-scandal godman. I remember seeing this guy way back in 2002, maybe 2003. He was buying private airtime on a couple of channels to spread his spiritual message. As always with money, power and fame, came the adoration or gifting of several 'luxuries'.  This mostly included a huge devotee following, loads of money, lots of free land as gift and of course the category 'Other'. This category deals with everything under the sun, including sexual favors. In this case, I'd fault the woman in question too, the Indian (more Aryan-Persian, but Dravidian too in terms of culture of origin) way of blaming the woman and condemning her while basically doing a character assassination of everyone involved. 

Why is in the human mentality (I was about to type Indian, but was reminded of Tiger Woods) to meddle with people's sex lives? That's a psychology topic I wouldn't touch with 10 feet pole. I'm not a social reformer nor a great opinion maker. I read about stuff and try to share some interesting stuff with you guys out there in the blogosphere.

"So, what interesting thing is it?", you may ask. My answer is 'Leave me alone'. I don't want to be part of a judgemental self-righteous cult that wants to take out another cult. I see videos of youngsters beating this Nithyananda's ashram to pulp, burning his effigies. Most of them trying to get rid of their worries in life, their frustrations, creating somewhat of a Rosarch Test of their being pissed off with the struggles of life while this guy claims he is god and has escapades with movie actresses. "How dare he? While I sit here and try to follow the righteous path of hiding all my 'bad' secrets, he goes from zero-to-hero-to-zero." Who wouldn't want their name trending on twitter (any publicity is good publicity). The fraud that he may or may not be, the media trial has started and ended. He has attained mortality and pretty much has his eulogy written by the media through the sting operation. In 3 days, I've grown tired of reading all the news about him and his evil deeds. Can I get some other news, oh Indian news channels?

This situation also gives credence to the skeptics out there. I see a Dravidian Movement 2.0 that could culminate with pretty much no godman left with an ounce of respect. The interesting thing is pretty much his entire spiritual life / career is now ashes due the fact of his 'sins'. The memories of Indian society maybe short-term in politics, but in stuff like sex scandals, rumors, mass hysteria they tend to live on for generations. I don't think the video is tampered with, as the godman's ashram folks suggest. Their lines of graphics-doctored-backstabbing falls flat. However, I do believe its part of conspiracy due to the swami's land grabbing tactics. Years of work in building reputations can go down within seconds. That is precisely what is happening right now.

Oh, the comic fodder this gives rise to. Nithyananda was a trending topic of twitter, woo-hoo. I bet many youngsters are prowling the intertubes to spread the hate on him whilst propagating the awful videos around. I bet many are trying to get their hands on the full version rather than the 'lite' one. That's the thing about viral video, it doesn't stay a 'secret' for long. Its the first viral news I've seen by a Tamil TV channel. I bet 'Sun TV' has become the new 'Aaj Tak', the sensationalist always wins (the only thing that came close was when MK was arrested). What about the actress in the video? She's pretty much doomed to live the rest of her life hanging her head in shame or taking the easy way out and settling abroad (DPS anyone?).

In the end, I'll finish with the title of this post. God or Fraud? 
I don't know, I don't care. Leave me alone, internets. Bah!!

P.S: The cult reaction to the cult reminded me of this great South Park clip.