Dio, another day

Heavy metal suddenly feels hollow. Ronnie James Dio has passed.

On May 16, heavy metal lost some of its heaviness. The Iron Man of metal, Ronnie James Dio, 68, whose fearsome stage persona won him millions of fans around the world, died of cancer. The rich tenor that soared smoothly into an operatic baritone, the wild hairdo, the over-the-top dressing and commanding stage presence that belied his puny stature (he was shorter than Sachin Tendulkar) is finally still. To the very end, his music was powerful and consistently excellent, with deep lyrical thought pervading every fibre of his being. He was a standard bearer who held aloft the metal pennant with a dignity and integrity rarely associated with the genre. After he died, rock musicians of every hue lined up to pay tribute to the master, the dragon-slayer with a heart, the Michael Jackson of metal. 

Dio's career spanned over half a century, starting out with rockabilly bands as a teenager. His near-classical style of vocal production was developed before the age of amplification, when the singer had to project his voice to the back of the hall by his own strength. Along with Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden and Rob Halford of Judas Priest, he pioneered the semi-operatic style of vocal production in metal, one instance among many of the genre's classical roots. Variously described as a 'class act' and a 'thorough gentleman', there is no record of him ever having refused an autograph. 

Though he started his career in the late '50s, it wasn't until the early '70s that his band, Elf - they used to open for Deep Purple - started getting noticed. In 1975, Purple's guitarist, Ritchie Blackmore, hired Dio for his new band, Rainbow, which brought him fame. It's another matter that Dio's golden vibrato closely resembled that of Ian Gillan, Purple's singer. In 1979, when trouble began to brew in Black Sabbath, the founders of the heavy metal genre, iconic singer Ozzy Osbourne was fired for his drug and alcohol addiction, and Sabbath's manager's daughter Sharon (who later married Ozzy) suggested that Ronnie should head the world's most formidable metal act. 

The three years he spent with the Sabs brought him worldwide renown, as much for his voice as his prodigious song writing. His first album with the band, Heaven and Hell, is still the holy grail of metal. More than merely a singer, he was an accomplished and articulate lyricist with the aura of a troubled poet. Though many think that the band's dark name and Dio's gothic personality - he was obsessed with skulls, chains and occult imagery - indicated that he was a Satanist, Dio was never really a devil worshipper. (He was raised Catholic and thought as a child that nuns were "penguins who would smack you if you went wrong". ) For him, devils and dragons were metaphors of the ancient battle between good and evil. 

It was with Sabbath that Dio popularised the cornuto, or the devil's horns, metal's most enduring symbol. Dio didn't invent the devil horns, nor did he claim to. He once explained that it was an Italian superstition (his parents migrated to the US from Italy) that the devil's horns, called the 'maloik', was used as a sign to ward off the evil eye. 

Widely regarded as one of the most affable and unassuming metal heads in history, he rarely left a performance without posing with every fan who wanted a picture with him. Many fans call him "the nicest man you'll ever meet". He was also closely associated with Children of the Night, an organisation, which rescues America's children from prostitution, and his metal version of Live Aid raised massive funds for famine relief in Africa. 

The metal community is in mourning. Online forums are heavy with tributes in an outpouring not witnessed since Michael Jackson's death. One Mexican fan recalls how he wasn't allowed into the hotel Dio was staying at, and shouted, "Dio, Dio", till Dio himself came out and asked security to let him in. When security refused, Dio walked out in the rain and signed autographs and posed for pictures with everyone present. Metallica's Lars Ulrich credits his entire career to Dio's influence, Killswitch Engage called him "one of the greatest metal singers of all time", and Slipknot's Corey Taylor called him a "great man with a smile and a handshake for fans and peers alike". 

It's unlikely that the metal community will ever forget Ronnie James Dio. The volume of work and reputation he leaves behind ensure that he will always be a Rainbow in the Dark.

This article was first published in The Times of India's Crest edition on May 22, 2010.

Kabul's drum song

Afganistan's indie rock band is rocking in a not-so-free world 

Nigel Britto

Khaled Hosseini's searingly tender novel, The Kite Runner, familiarised millions with the Afghanistan of the late '90s, a country in the clutch of religious extremists. Under the Taliban, the self-proclaimed guardians of Islamic morals, music was condemned as sinful, old classical instruments broken, cassettes nailed to posts as a warning to those who dared disobey. Bombed out and war-ravaged, a new USsponsored Afghanistan is slowly taking shape today. Not all is well: orphans swarm the streets;the government is corrupt to its core and poverty, stark. But there are also signs of redemption. The new Afghanistan is being born not only to the sound of drones but also to the sound of drums and guitars. Music may not yet be a stairway to heaven, but it is no longer the highway to hell.

What do you get when you cross one of the world's most violent zones with rock 'n' roll? Death metal, right? Wrong. Kabul Dreams defines itself as Afghanistan's first rock band, with a rapidly expanding international fan base. Unlike the Baghdad-based band Acrassicauda that used Metallica-like metal to express frustration and rage before the civil war forced it to disband and flee, Kabul's fab three have a stoic, Norman Vincent Peale-like approach: positive thinking. Significantly, their lyrics, while engorged with the conventional teenage dirt bag subjects - running away from home, love and girls - make no mention of the subjects that have become synonymous with Afghanistan-war and death. In their original, I wanna run away, the crooner alternately sings and screams the same four words over and over again, a simple statement that most Afghan youth seem to agree with.

The band was forged in 2007 on the strength of a friendship between three young men who decided to be the voice of a generation in the only way they knew how - through rock. Not surprisingly, none of them lived in Afghanistan during the Taliban regime;all three had to seek refuge with their slightly more liberal neighbours. 

Sulyman Qardash, who at 20, is the baby of the band, lived in Uzbekistan during the terror years, and studied guitar there. When on stage, he has a distinctive Pete Doherty look about him, and writes most of the lyrics he sings. He idolises bands like Gorillaz and Oasis, whose influence is obvious in his music. Bass guitarist Siddique Ahmed, who is 28, lived and studied in Islamabad during the insurgency, and references a whole range of bands from the Beatles to Metallica. Drummer Mujtaba Habibi, 24, lived and learned music in Iran, and is a fan of progressive rock bands like Dream Theater. 

Their eclectic range of experiences and sonic influences have turned the three Afghan youth into quiet rebels. They sing in English, not only because they come from different parts of Afghanistan and speak different languages (Dari, Pashto and Uzbek), but because they believe English is the language of protest. "Linguistic and ethnic differences have been misused for personal and political interests in the past, so we consider it a sign of protest not to sing in any of our languages, " Ahmed, who is the unofficial spokesman of the band, told TOI-Crest. "Also, we don't want to limit our audience to Afghanistan. " 

Ambition is one thing the band does not lack. Ahmed says they want to represent Afghanistan at international festivals, get a record label contract, go on a world tour, "get Grammy awards and play at Glastonbury". The audacity of hope, one may call it, but the band is hell-bent on showing the world a different picture of Afghanistan. They hate the fact that the international media focuses only on the 'bad things'. "We want to show the world that there are people living here, especially youngsters, who love music and have the right to live like the youth elsewhere, " says Ahmed. 

But the dream seems to be some distance away. For now, more mundane tasks beckon. Qardash is a local TV anchor, Habibi runs a home studio that records young Afghan singers, and Siddique is a student of social science at the American University of Afghanistan, where Kabul Dreams played last month to a princely audience of 200 (remember, this is rock music in Afghanistan). The three also work at Kabul Rock Radio, a station devoted to rock. And the response is what keeps them going. Their first official video, Can you fly, debuted early this month, and its YouTube clip had people from around the world praising their talent in particular and Afghanistan in general. 

Interestingly, many older Afghans are familiar with rock 'n' roll. When Kabul Dreams played at an embassy in Kabul, Ahmed says "an old man in his 60s came up and asked us to play covers from the Beatles, Stones and Queen, music 'from our times'". Yet, the band is thankful that rock's novelty in Afghanistan means that most people don't know what it is, because "if they did, we would have faced bigger problems". Ahmed, Qardash and Habibi are lucky to come from educated families where their parents don't mind their choice of career - even if the odd relative does make a nasty comment or two. "Afghan society in general are music lovers, " says Ahmed. "They even listened to music when it was banned. So if they risked harsh punishments and going to jail over music, they won't mind giving rock 'n' roll a try. " 

While the band is not exactly aggressively promoting itself, it's perhaps Malcolm Gladwell's theory that word-of-mouth is the most powerful form of advertising that's bringing people from around the world to the Kabul Dreams' MySpace and Facebook pages. From Spain, Brazil and India, people from civilised democracies are learning about hope and love from three young men who belong to a country that was until recently only associated with war and death. The dream has only just begun.

This article was first published in The Times of India's Crest edition on May 22, 2010.

From Lace to Arsenic

Heavy metal, the impregnable domain of hyper-masculinity, is being infiltrated by iron maidens

Nigel Britto

It was an icy evening in Worcester, Massachusetts, in January this year. The temperature outside hovered around zero. But inside the Palladium theatre, Arch Enemy was rapidly raising the heat with a vicious display of death metal: shrill guitar riffs, a skinhead drummer pounding his double-bass pedals at the speed of light, a hyperactive vocalist snarling incomprehensibly into the mike. The only thing missing was an unkempt beard on the leather-lunged singer’s face. But that was okay too, since the growler was the tall, blonde Valkyrie Angela Gossow. 

The women in the mosh pit looked fawningly up at the reigning queen of metal who had taken a largely obscure Swedish band and transformed it into one of the most revered death metal acts on the planet. Gossow’s word was law inside the Palladium. At her gruff command, the crowd would scream, fall silent, sing along, crowd-surf, anything. At least one amateur wrestler learned his lesson: Do not mess with women at a metal show. You’ll probably get hurt.

Almost half a century after Black Sabbath invented this most dreaded and cussed genre of music, metal remains a largely male bastion. But even its most testosterone-friendly practitioner will concede that it now has a uniquely feminine side. “Metal’s no longer the male-dominated genre it once was,” Gossow told TOI Crest. Her vocals may be extremely guttural, a technique usually reserved for and mastered by men, but there are other women who are willing to flaunt their femininity even while fronting a metal band. Tarja Turunen, for instance. As the singer for Nightwish, the Finnish soprano merged the band’s power metal with her own operatic style and out came a whole new sound: Symphonic metal. Her influence as a classy metalhead became so inescapable that the Finnish president labelled her the ‘Voice of Finland’. Turunen left Nightwish in 2005 and was replaced by mezzo-soprano Anette Olzon.

In the formative years of heavy metal, the role of women was limited to providing ‘relaxation and rejuvenation’. The loyalist female ‘groupie’ who followed the band around on its tours and fooled around with various members backstage — Kate Hudson’s winsome if drug-befuddled turn in Almost Famous — became a fixture with early metal bands. I’m With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie is a scandalous first-hand account by Pamela de Barres, who spent her best years tailing the rock ‘n’ roll bands she adored. “I would go on tour with them, on planes, in the back of limos, to parties. I would be on stage with Led Zeppelin, the Stones, The Who and The Doors. It was a magic time,” she writes in her book. She details her sexual exploits with some of history’s greatest rock stars. Though de Barres says the debauchery started with Zeppelin, it was the early glam bands like Motley Crue which hit the world’s headlines for their travelling ‘harem’. The lace-clad band’s most popular and enduring hit, Girls, Girls, Girls was about the band’s hard sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle and their penchant for living up their nights at Los Angeles’s many strip clubs.

The journey from bed to stage wasn’t easy. Sam Dunn’s landmark film, Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey documents this change. In the ’80s, a woman going on stage to perform was unheard of, what with high-energy bands like Slayer, Metallica, Megadeth and Anthrax around. Male metal musicians had two ‘genders’: Men who dressed like men (leather jackets, skin-hugging trousers), and men who dressed like women (the frills of Motley Crue, Cinderella and Twisted Sister). The ‘third’ gender came about when the all-women British heavy metal band Girlschool blasted onto the scene. They didn’t have it easy. Guitarist Jackie Chambers got used to being asked if she was “tuning the guitar for the guitarist”. Then came the artillery invasion, fronted by the leatherclad Doro Pesch of the German band Warlock, a woman so formidably charismatic that she later successfully renamed Warlock after herself, and is now the lead singer of ‘Doro’.

The world over, symphonic and gothic metal have been the areas where women have shone. It accommodates polished and cultured genres at which women are more than competent: Classical and opera. The Nightwish of the Turunen era popularised it, but subsequent bands fronted by women, like Lacuna Coil (Cristina Scabbia), Within Temptation (Sharon del Adel), After Forever (Floor Jansen) and Epica (Simone Simons) have faithfully carried the flag into battle. But Gossow cautions against a band playing the ‘woman metalhead’ card. “You can be sexy and all that, but at the end of the day, it’s all about how good a musician you are,” she says.

In Bollywood-dominated India, metal is still a niche passion, but the Internet has helped nurture a thriving underground scene. Considering Indian metal is a good 20 years behind the West, the presence of women in metal bands is, not surprisingly, low. Not too many Indian parents would be pleased at the thought of their daughters thrashing about on stage before a thousand men. But metal is an astonishingly accurate chronicler of middleclass mores, and as society becomes more liberal, more women are pulling on the leather. Yasmin Claire from the Bangalore-based thrash metal band Myndsnare is probably India’s most famous female metalhead. Off stage, she rides a Bullet. On stage, she wears shorts, and so impresses with her footwork that her peers are quick to concede that she can “kick any male drummer’s ass”.

Where the presence of women is more strongly felt is rock, the first step to metal. Shillong leads the pack. All four members of hard rock band Afflatus are women, three of whom are part-time teachers at local colleges. In Mumbai, 16-year-old college student Pratika Prabhune plays bass guitar and growls convincingly in a fast-rising experimental death metal band called Chronic Phobia. Like every other woman who plays metal, she names Angela Gossow among her main influences. Today, she doesn’t face the patronising comments her predecessors did. “I have had no acceptance issues at all, everyone is cooperative and supportive,” she says. And don’t her parents gag at her growling? “Nope, my mom’s my biggest fan,” she clarifies.

Other women are not as lucky. Sahil Makhija, who runs Demonstealer Records and is a tireless promoter of extreme metal in India, says there have been women in Indian bands off and on, but these bands quickly fizzle out. He attributes this to a still widely prevalent system of “shaadi time”, which ticks in as soon as a woman reaches her mid-20s. But, adds Makhija, things are looking up. “In Mumbai, the number of girls at metal shows has been gradually increasing,” he says. “That’s the starting point. It’s only a matter of time before they make the transition from crowd to stage.” Gossow agrees. “Times are changing, and it’s no longer mindblowing to see a woman doing extreme stuff,” she says, adding “in a few years you'll see a lot more up there.”

This article first appeared on the Times of India, Crest edition dated March 13, 2010

Future maestros flex classical muscles

A assortment of young stars piece together an opera performance in Panjim

Nigel Britto

The divine but jejune and partially-extended strains of the classic Dona Nobis Pacem served only as starters. Perhaps, its beginning and end were too far apart. As Europe celebrates the life of the legendary Frederic Chopin this week, Goa had a celebration of a different sort as the state's future classical maestros strutted their stuff at a dazzling display of talent at Kala Academy on Tuesday.

The director was vocal instructor Juliana D'Sa, whose mission is to popularize classical music in Goa. In doing so, she dug into the formidable pool of young talent she has shaped over the years and concocted this presentation, which she compared to trying to make up a small bouquet of flowers from a large garden. As a result, the menu was anything but predictable.

The variety on display was evident from the range of songs presented, from Handel's "He shall feed his flock" to "Adele's Laughing Song" from Strauss's "Die Fledermaus" (brilliantly rendered by Chriselle Mendonca) to the classic "Somewhere over the rainbow". Clearly, a lot of work went into song selection. "I chose each song carefully, based on the performers and what they were comfortable with," D'Sa later said, adding that the biggest difficulty was deciding what to leave out. The second-biggest difficulty was fighting the nasty little sore throat virus that made a bee-line for her singers.

The free-for-all show was fully funded by the students' parents. Thankfully, it didn't have a 'chief guest', and as a natural consequence, started on time to the delight of the packed auditorium. It then ran like a well-lubricated machine till finish, a spectacular feat considering a vast majority of the performers were school and college-going students without any significant stage experience prior to the show. The accompaniment was provided by a string quartet, comprising Kala Academy's director of western music Teresa Figueiredo and other senior violinists, and later, two pianists.

While the first half boasted a delectable selection of songs, the intensity of the music and the preparation behind it reached its crescendo in the second half, an enactment of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro (the Marriage of Figaro), which provided the performance its crowing glory. Admittedly, it's a mere shadow to a Broadway presentation, but given the extremely limited human resources here, the play turned out fantastic. The story is that of a countess, her maid Susanna, and the count's man-servant Figaro, who was to marry Susanna, conspiring to get Count Almaviva to forget Susanna and return to loving his countess.

The setting is a garden in the palace of Count Almaviva, with an extravagant Goa-wedding-style backdrop and relevant costumes. The opera's direction is sedulous and its production suave, what with its intrepid eavesdropping, prevarication and Machiavellian scheming among the lead trio; the ballsy and kittenish Susanna (Kim Costa), Figaro (Chernoll Mendonca) and the Countess.

A girl playing a teenage pageboy is a strange twist, but Karla de Sousa pulls of the role of the overly-amorous Cherubino admirably, ably shifting from the jubilant to the cothurnal; and the dramatis personae's masterful delivery and presentation easily obnubilates the play's unusual casting, ostensibly attributable to limited resources. The presentation was enhanced by the string quartet antipodal to the main act, and succeeded in two aspects; the Count regaining his affection for his Countess, and injecting a large dose of steroids into Goa's dormant opera production scene.

D'Sa was elated at the response. "I didn't expect it," she said. And she was even more pleased that her two major requirements of the concert were fulfilled-the popularization of classical music and her students having fun. "I just told them, above everything else, enjoy the music", she said, and that's what the enthusiastic bunch did, because as it ended, she was confronted by her students bitterly complaining that "our show was getting over".

As the curtains dropped and the auditorium lit up again, the question in most minds was "What next". The reticent D'Sa doesn't like to divulge much; but speaking to TOI the following day, she dropped sufficient hints that Tuesday's show was just the beginning, and not merely a flash in the pan.

This article was first published on The Times of India, Goa, in the edition dated February 26, 2010

On a song and a prayer

The Monte festival that starts this weekend promises to be a cultural feast

Nigel Britto

It's that time of the year again when people make their way to a forgotten chapel on a hill for an annual pilgrimage they eagerly look forward to, arriving at one of Goa's most spectacular locations, Our Lady of Monte Chapel in Old Goa (Monte meaning hill in Portuguese).

Built by Portuguese conqueror Afonso de Albuquerque in the 1500s, the chapel is set against a breathtaking view of the Chorao and Divar islands on the Mandovi river. This picturesque place provides the perfect ambience for a three-day series of concerts that begin at dusk. Artists from all over the country come together to celebrate heritage and music in this quaint and rather off-the-touristy-circuit destination. The event marks the forgotten love affair between India and Portugal. Colonial romances are reminisced and shared histories relived.

From Portuguese choirs to Kuchipudi dancers to Indian sopranos, the festival, since its inception in 2002, has had all kinds of performances for the discerning spectator. Artists dressed in formal attires offer a glimpse to the audience about their history and culture.

The Monte Music Festival 2010 kicks off this weekend and is scheduled to run till Sunday. It wouldn't be a bad idea to be there.

Yvonne Rebello, who has coordinated the festival for the past eight years as part of Fundacao Oriente, a Portuguese organisation aimed at promoting cultural and artistic ties between Portugal and Asia, says, "It all started when the government approached us to renovate the chapel in 1999, which was then in a dilapidated condition." Since then, Rebello adds, the event has grown and attracts art aficionados from various parts of the country. A panel at the institute chooses the western music performers , while Anju Timblo, a Goa-based industrialist in whose hotel the performers are housed, selects the Indian performers.

For historical reasons, Fundacao Oriente is located in Goa, housed in an old Indo-Portuguese building in Panaji's most traditional neighbourhood. The building was purchased specifically for the purpose.

Since Fundacao Oriente used its funds to renovate it, Sergio Mascarenhas, the organisation's then-director , suggested having an annual festival there to celebrate heritage and music . Successive directors have ensured the festival has gone from being a mere 'experiment' to a 'global brand' . "There are lots of people who plan their vacations in Goa to coincide with our festival," Rebello says proudly.

Moreover, the bumpy ride to the chapel doesn't deter music lovers from flocking to this much-awaited event. One even has to leave his/her vehicle at the foot of the hill, and take a rickety shuttle up the serpentine roads. But that just makes the whole trip deliciously old-world .

At the venue, a makeshift platform serves as a stage for the performers while the fading Goan sun forms a magnificent backdrop. Acoustically, too, the setting is perfect. "In the past, Indian performers were apprehensive about the backdrop and setting; they were used to auditoriums with perfect sound and light synchronisation. But having performed here once, artists now believe that this experience is unlike any other," says Rebello.

But what's making organisers of the festival happier than anything else is the mix of crowds the event is attracting. There are the raucous college goers with their flashing mobile phone cameras -despite requests not to use them - and middle-aged and elderly quietly looking out for the best seats. In fact, it isn't unusual to see grandfathers and grandmothers being helped up the narrow winding staircase by their doting grandkids.

The focus of the festival is not only on international cultural bonding, but on retaining the local flavour. "We see to it that good Goan musicians get exposure," says Rebello. And this year, London-based mezzo-soprano Viola Da Cunha will join tabla player Amit Bhonsle, sitar exponent Chhote Rahimat Khan, the Goa State Symphony Orchestra and the Sta Cecilia choir of the famed Rachol Seminary to form the Goan contingent at the festival. They will make music with the likes of Portuguese guitarist Manuel Leao, Romanian pianist Delia Varga and Delhi-based Kuchipudi dancer Shallu Jindal , who is MP Naveen Jindal's wife.

Even in a music loving place like Goa, it's rare to see classical forms of music holding such sway and prominence at a public festival. In a world which seems to have left behind classical and folk genres, it serves as a refreshing change to spend three days at the festival in the 'rave capital of India' .

As a bonus, most of Goa's popular beaches—Calangute, Baga, Miramar, Anjuna—are all within half-an-hour's drive from the centrally-located chapel. And the fact that it's off-season means costs are low, the crowds are absent and tranquillity is guaranteed. Rejuvenation of the soul has never been so easy. For one weekend of solitude, scenery and songs, head to Old Goa.

This article was first published on the Times of India's Crest edition dated February 5, 2010

In Stalingrad, Lennon Rules

This long-haired activist gives fascists short shrift

Nigel Britto


His address is as impossible as his mission. To meet Stalin K, you have to tramp through a small jungle and huff up several steep steps to reach his den on an invisible hill, off the beach sprawl of Baga in Goa. From this tranquil coastal redoubt, the man who shall not be surnamed—he shed it twenty years ago because it was a marker of caste — wages a peaceful war for a more equitable society by making documentaries on inconvenient truths like caste and communalism. 

The 41-year-old activist’s long, untidy hair is that of a sadhu but his swagger would do Sir Vivian Richards proud. He may be from Gujarat, but the mere mention of Narendra Modi transforms the sage into a Viking. “He’s a dictator,” he proclaims scathingly. “He stands for the opposite of everything that I believe are democratic values.” It was Stalin’s documentary, A Work in Progress, an unambiguous indictment of Modi’s role in the 2002 Gujarat carnage, that was used by the UNHRC in its investigation into the pogrom.

Stalin’s engagement with the politics of the marginalised has its roots in his childhood. “I found it natural to empathise with the poor because I was one of them,” he says. His father was a playwright who didn’t make too much money and who wasn’t overly bothered about providing for the family. “We were not starving, but not affluent either,” says Stalin. “Everything was rationed in our house.”

This empathy translated into action in 1984, when a killer gas leaked out from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal in one of the worst industrial crimes in history. The 16-year-old Stalin used ‘a sports tournament in Nagpur’ as an excuse to his family to sneak to Bhopal, but once there, he returned home to Ahmedabad in two days flat. “It was chaotic and traumatic,” he says. “I couldn’t handle it.”

Since his Bhopal trip was such a secret, the young boy couldn’t share the horror with his family. All he could do to vent his outrage was paint drops of blood on the black cat on the Eveready battery made by Union Carbide. But it was the rage and confusion that bubbled inside that helped shape the sensibility that has made him such a formidable public warrior today. It was a toxic baptism

indeed.

In any case, his childhood was not an easy one. When he was three, his parents decided to split, and his mother had to slog in a factory until she got a job at ISRO. He says his Soviet name is the only thing his communist father gave him, hence he decided to stick with it. He grew up reading Dostoevsky and Trotsky (subsidized Russian literature was cheaper than Sidney Sheldon) and got quite used to being mistaken for a Christian. Although not a card-carrying comrade, he found the communist ideology ‘interesting’ and often gave up college camping trips to join tribals protesting atrocities against them. “Till today, I’m more comfortable with tribals,” he says, “be it those from the Narmada valley or the Eastern Shoshonis and Northern Arapohes of Wyoming. Their idea that the earth owns you, not vice versa, resonates deeply with me.”

The other tribe that he enjoys spending time with is the young. Whether it is lecturing at some of the top schools in the world such as Harvard, Yale and IIM-A or replying to messages on Facebook, where 800 of his 1,200 friends are students, working with the young and still idealistic reaffirms his belief that like John Lennon, he may be a dreamer, but he’s not the only one.

But since ‘fictional romanticism’ had little appeal, he decided to do something concrete. Soon after college, he founded a non-profit organization called Drishti to use media as a tool to campaign for human rights. “It was in 1991, the year which saw the expansion of media from one TV channel to four,” he says. “Later, I realised that for most of the country, drinking water was more important than four channels.”

Still later, his understanding of disempowerment was to deepen. “When I asked some tribals whether they would rather have water or the right and means to say ‘I don’t have water’, most of them chose the latter.” He chose, therefore, to give them that voice by using his camera. His documentaries explore the entrenched systems of injustice and prejudice that have societal sanction and question the powerfully pervasive presence of an elite that would prefer the poor to speak no evil.

From Camp Goa, he and Jessica Mayberry run Video Volunteers, an organisation that took shape after he met the American researcher in Ahmedabad. “We’re not married by religion or state,” he clarifies. “Our relationship is sanctified by something more powerful— mutual love and respect.” A grassroots initiative that wants to build a media network for the poorest people of the country, VV is founded on the principle that people have the right to speak rather than to be spoken for. One of the projects, CVU (community video unit), is about providing equipment and training to local groups — slum dwellers in Mumbai, advasis in the isolated East Godavari district — to enable them to make films on issues relevant to them.

Caste is the latest nettle that Stalin has grasped. His two award-winning films, India Untouched and Lesser Humans, both of which explore the unspeakable crime of untouchability, have swiveled the spotlight back on the lives of millions of Dalits who still suffer it every day. India Untouched is widely accepted as “the most comprehensive look at untouchability ever undertaken on film”. Instead of hammering the viewer with rhetoric, he allows the people to tell the story. In Rajasthan, Rajputs proudly proclaim that the police have to seek their permission before pursuing cases about Dalit atrocities. Leading Hindu scholars from Varanasi have no compuctions about saying that Dalits have no right to education. And then there is the tragicomic scene of a primary-level classroom in North India. The camera focuses on Dalits who say they are forced to sit at the back of the class while upper caste students sit in front. Then the camera swings to the upper caste students, who proudly confirm it. The teacher walks in and promptly says the students are lying. But now all the students, Brahmin and Dalit, gang up and say that it is the teacher who is lying. This is confirmed by parents standing around.

After seeing an ancient ugliness flourish in the midst of modernity, cynicism comes easy to Stalin. “India should rather be at peace with itself,” he says, quoting the historian Ramachandra Guha. “A strong people make for a strong nation. Only insecurity can spur violence, and anyway, no country can be a superpower with two-thirds of its population struggling to survive.” It’s a miracle, he says, that despite its grinding poverty, India hasn’t had a civil war. “As compared to our neighbours, constantly subject to military takeovers and endless violence, we should consider ourselves very, very happy with only sporadic violence.”

To the widely held middle-class belief that education is the only thing that can raise India’s status and profile, this bio-chemist’s riposte is, “George Bush went to Yale.” And to the even smugger assertion that caste is a thing of the past, he shoots back, “The Times of India’s matrimonial page will teach you a lesson or two about that.”

This article was first published on The Times of India’s Crest edition dated January 16, 2010.

Shillong's Soulmate shares the blues with Goa

Shillong's legendary rock band Soulmate performs in Goa 


Nigel Britto

What are the odds that a band from far-away Meghalaya would spark nostalgia about Hendrix, Jimmy Page, and BB King, all at the same time? Not much? Wrong, if the band in question is Soulmate, the ‘pride of the north-east’, widely regarded as one of the best blues-rock bands in this part of the world.

An important feature of Soulmate is that it is one of the few Indian bands that consistently employ a largely original set at their concerts. In Goa, it was a 70% original list. And their stage-show here was no different. With a largely interactive presentation, the audience were on their feet throughout. Off the stage, Wallang and Kharbangar are affable and docile. On it, they transform into hungry lions; with a powerful and provocative display of musical skill. Songs like “Blues is my soulmate”, an original, set the crowd afire. Kharbangar sang into a mikestand dotted with magnetic butterflies made of X-ray sheets. If not butterflies, there are magnetic orchids sticking to the mikestand. She says her uncle, an artist, makes them for her. “I’m a huge nature lover”, she smiles.

And she supplements the aesthetics with a huge and expressive voice that would make Christina Aguilera fans squirm. She obviously enjoys her music, and shows it with a vivacious display of energy, dance and emotion. Wallang is no less, creating his tone from only a miniscule ‘Bad monkey’ processor. Just before landing in Goa, he lost some of his guitar gear. Some of it was flicked, some left behind in a taxi. How did he let us know about it? Through a song, of course. “If you ever see a taxi driver playing the blues, think of me”, he said. Indeed, Soulmate is a band that expresses its emotions through its music.

The band was formed by Rudy Wallang and Tipriti Kharbangar in 2002. Seven years and two studio albums later, it's been the same duo who form the soul of Soulmate, adding session musicians whenever they're on the road. In Goa on Friday night, drummer Shaun Nonghulo and bassist Ferdy Dhkar joined the duo. Wallang and Kharbangar did not choose the blues. Instead, “the blues chose us”, they say. Soulmate have performed at hundreds of gigs in India and abroad. In 2007, they became the first Indian band to play at the International Blues Challenge at Memphis, thus cementing their place in the big league. Soon after, their music video I am became popular on the internet, spiralling their popularity among their Indian fans.

And when Soulmate played in Chicalim on Friday evening, this popularity was in ample display, evident from the fact that the band garnered a full-house despite little or no publicity about the gig. “It was totally unexpected, the crowd was fantastic”, said Wallang, who, besides singing and playing the guitar, is responsible for most of the band's lyrical content.

And for Goa’s blues fans, the concert provided more than merely evening entertainment. It also inspired many. “I realized today, that live, original music can work out in Goa”, said Krish Gidwani, a drummer. Elliotlouie Afonso, bassist in a thrash metal band, left immediately after the concert and rushed home to practice bass lines. “They’re a total inspiration", he said, adding "Soulmate kicked some serious a** on Friday night”. He has one grouse, though. “Bands like these hardly ever come to Goa”. After Friday night’s gig, that was the overwhelming feeling among the crowd. “Soulmate should come here more often”. If and when they do, to their burgeoning Goan fanbase, nothing else will matter.

This article was first published in the Sunday Times of India, Goa, on September 20, 2009.

A night at the opera

Soprano Patricia Rozario, tenor Alistair Digges and baritone Dhilan Gnanadurai perform in Goa

Nigel Britto

Donizetti, Rossini, Cimarosa. Sicilian mafia dons? Not quite. In fact, they’re legendary Italian composers whose works featured in the concert "An Operatic experience" on Saturday night at Kala Academy. The performance was the last stop of British soprano Patricia Rozario’s tour of India. And it was phenomenal. 

After having performed similar shows in Delhi, Pune and Mumbai, the much-awaited recital got off to a rousing start with tenor Alistair Digges tackling the aria "Where ‘er you walk", from Handel’s 1744 oratorio Semele. As Jupiter, the 27-year-old defied his rather lean physique to create a perfect intonation that resounded through the DMK auditorium. A thunderous applause then greeted Rozario, Goa's most famous classical music exponent, who walked out on the stage to perform the famous aria "Endless pleasure, endless love", also from Semele. Accompanied by Mark Troop, her interpretation was masterful and hypnotic.

Few classical concerts are complete without Mozart. "The Magic Flute", which was composed to a libretto by Schikaneder, featured baritone Dhilan Gnanadurai playing the role of Papageno, a bird-man flute-player who wondered when he'd catch his bird-woman, Papagena (Rozario). The last aria of the opera was the very humorous duet pa, pa, pa, which brought smiles and a lot of enthusiastic clapping, especially from the children.

The evening also featured the Italian romantic composer Giuseppe Verdi, who's generally regarded one of the greatest opera composers alongside Giacomo Puccini. In Rigoletto, baritone Gnanadurai matched Rozario almost note-for-note in a duet, displaying tremendous power and technical ability in doing so. The award-winning Sri Lankan musician, who holds diplomas in three different disciplines (voice, piano, violin), was a crowd favourite. Popular aria Caro nome, which came next, brought out Rozario's full range and virtuosistic breath-control, which left the audience begging for more.

The second half was an Italian invasion. In Cimarosa's Matrimonio Segreto, Digges and Rozario played two lovers (Paolino and Carolina) whose clandestine meetings got interrupted when people unexpectedly turned up at them. Predictably, the unusual story brought smiles. It was followed by five consecutive works of Gaetano Donizetti, including his most famous and recognizable work, Una furtive lagrima.

Though Rozario was undoubtedly the centre of attraction, it was the supporting artistes who impressed many. Digges and Gnanadurai, both of whom are in their 20s, appeared well up to their challenging task and took on their formidable roles with panache. Digges, especially, who idolizes Pavarotti, displayed tremendous maturity in the varying roles he played, from torn lover (Handel's Semele) to a hero who desires an abducted slave-girl (Ambroise Thomas' Elle ne croyait pas, from his opera comique Mignon).

The last piece was Gioachino Rossini's La Danza, which featured all the three singers at the heights of their vocal power. The song expectedly ended with a long standing ovation that forced all the performers back for an encore. This time, it was a song from the popular musical West Side Story.

August was a month of classical concerts in Goa. And many believed the best was saved for last. Musicians and others alike were left "dumbfounded". "It was Fantastic!", said Savio Martires, a prominent jazz musician, adding "this is probably the first time Goa has seen something of this calibre". Builder Philip Braganza agreed. "I've never heard anyone sing this well, ever", he said. Many shared their views.

But as much as the concert was described as "phenomenal" by a majority of those who attended it, all was not rosy. The persistent and unpredictable rains partially affected attendance. And despite strict instructions to the contrary, mobile phones rang and cameras clicked.

Also, several people in the fraternity were peeved by the "only 3/4ths full" hall, while others saw it as a sign of hope. Luis Dias, a doctor and violinist, is one of the hopeful ones. "It would be great to see a packed auditorium to watch a daughter of the soil who is an internationally acclaimed opera star", he said. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen on Saturday. May be next time. Until then, as they say in Italian, arrivederci.

This review was first published in the Sunday Times of India, Goa, on the edition dated August 30, 2009.

Sanya Cotta's musical fairytale

Goa's Germany-based prodigy violinist Sanya Cotta enthralls her home crowd

Nigel Britto

If Finnish composer Jean Silbelius was at Kala Academy on Wednesday evening, he would have been a happy man. Sanya Myla Cotta saw to that, and showed exactly why he's so rarely heard. The reason? Not everybody can pull his music off. The eagerly-awaited concert by Cotta and Romanian pianist Delia Varga left the full-house, as one young fan put it, "reluctant to go back home". Obviously, they did not disappoint.

The much-awaited performance, which started with Mozart and Bach, got progressively more electrifying as the Goan prodigy went on to tackle rarer names like Kreisler and Sibelius, whose compositions ranged from gypsy to bohemian and staccato, accentuated by extremely technical passages. Her renditions of Violin concerto in D minor and Allegro moderato by Sibelius strengthened her already close rapport with her audience, and firmly propelled her into a league few Indian musicians of her age have reached. A testimony of both agility and stamina, a young Goan violin student later likened her performance of those pieces to that of "a hungry cheetah on steroids".

If Sibelius proved her mastery of technique, Ziguener-Capriccio by Kreisler displayed her prowess as a performer. The sudden transformation of the melody, which was sometimes quick in spasms and sometimes loaded with mystique, was handled impressively with obvious ease and a composed lyricism.

At the end of it all, a thousand appreciative fans demanded an encore.

She obliged, adding the mando "Adues Korcho Vello" to her formidable repertoire, for which she teamed up with younger brother Dane, an 18-year-old piano diploma-holder. "It felt great", the violinist exclaimed later. The 23-year-old is a Fellow of London’s Trinity College of Music and has recently joined the prestigious German Youth Orchestra. Pianist Delia Varga is from Romania, in India as a teacher at Mumbai’s Mehli Mehta foundation.

Sanya’s father and mentor Schubert Cotta, a prominent classical guitarist and teacher, organized the concert as part of his newly-launched Opus Gala project, which believes that "music is the heartbeat of Goa". He was thrilled at the response the concert attracted. "We’re here to raise the bar", he says. "And the fact that we had a full house speaks a lot". Sanya Cotta, too, agreed. "There is an obvious increase in interest in western classical music and it's very good to know", she said.

In fact, Goa has had an unusually high number of classical concerts in August, which have won the genre a lot of new fans. The Goa State Symphonic Orchestra under the baton of Pheroze Mistry played to full houses in four locations earlier this month. And yesterday’s recital was not the end of it. Come Saturday, and Goa-born British soprano Patricia Rozario will conclude her India tour with a recital at Kala Academy.

This review was published in the Times of India, Goa, on its edition dated August 27, 2009.

Coming To A Screen Near You: Diary Of A Nobody

Meenakshi Kumar and Nigel Britto

Zulekha Sayyed is no celebrity. But at a recently concluded workshop on citizen journalism in Goa, the 22-year-old Mumbai slumdweller was feted like a star. Small wonder because Sayyed is one of the most recognizable faces of the community video revolution that is changing lives of ordinary people across the country. Rickshawpullers, farm labourers and diamond polishers are among the 100, almost-trained video producers who were part of the five-day workshop.

The extraordinary experiment is a sociological revolution of sorts. By capturing the myriad problems of their humble lives on camera, these largely unlettered people are almost writing a diary. And the diary of a nobody arguably promotes self-awareness , the first stage of self-development . The basic idea is that people have the right to speak, rather than be spoken for.

It is the Indian manifestation of a timeworn trend. In 1892, The Diary of a Nobody was published in England. A lower middle-class clerk was the main protagonist and he defended his right to write a diary.

Similarly, the 100 or so Indian video producers are telling their stories, through the camera today. Video Vounteers (VV), the non-governmental organization involved in their training, says the batch has been doing this since 2006. The experiment is the brainchild of New Yorker Jessica Mayberry, a former television journalist, who divides her time between the US and India. But the idea has been taken forward by VV in concert with Gujarat-based human rights NGO, Drishti. From six community video units (CVUs) three years ago to 13 today, 50 producers originally to more than a 100 across Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh , Maharashtra and Rajasthan, VV has changed many lives. Mayberry says, “It’s amazing to see the change. When I started training some of them, they were shy, inhibited . Today, they are confident young men and women, who can challenge the corrupt system.”

VV is not the only community media group in the country. In Bihar’s remote Ramlila Gachi village , women with handycams on bicycles have become a common sight. Aapaan Samachar, an allwomen community news network launched in 2007, uses women power to focus on local issues, such as lack of electricity and water . The women shoot, edit and even anchor the films, which are broadcast on local television.

A similar story has been playing out for nearly a decade in the hinterland of Andhra Pradesh. A group of poor Dalit women has been trained by a grassroots NGO, the Deccan Development Society (DDS), to make films on subjects close to their hearts — water scarcity , food problems, lack of roads etc. They’ve made films such as Why Are Warangal Farmers Angry with Bt Cotton; Water, Life and Livelihoods and Ten Women and a Camera. Two years ago, their films made history of a sort when they were included in the retrospective section of Mumbai’s International Film Festival.

This raises a pertinent question : Do these CVUs really make a difference and act as an agent of change? Yes, says P V Satheesh, a founder-member of DDS, who was responsible for training the women filmmakers. “The mainstream media will be truly democratic once the marginalized are able to contribute to discussion of various issues. That’s when the real social changes will be noticeable, somewhat like the RTI.”

Mayberry says these videos play a significant role in grassroots development. “It’s important to get people to communicate and CVUs help in that. They encourage community based communication , which is important for development and social change,” she says.

And then there is the blossoming of the individual. Rajeshwari, a 22-year-old tribal from a remote Andhra Pradesh hamlet, is part of the CVU, Manyam Prajya. Today, she is a well-known known face in 34 villages. “Not too long ago, nobody knew me,” she says. “Today, people from higher castes tell their daughters, ‘You should become like Laxmi’s daughter’ .” For Jitendra Makhwan, 26, a Dalit who spent his childhood polishing gems in Bhavnagar, the camera has helped to break age-old caste barriers. For the first time, he was allowed inside a temple, thanks to his camera.

It’s stories like these that convince Mayberry and others like her that they are on the right track.

This article was first published in The Sunday Times of India on its edition dated August 16, 2009.

Adeus, Michael. Deu borem korum*

In a world filled with hate, we must still dare to hope. In a world filled with anger, we must still dare to comfort. In a world filled with despair, we must still dare to dream. And in a world filled with distrust, we must still dare to believe. -Michael Jackson (1959-2009)

Nigel Britto

In the end, he was denied that final curtain call. When I received a message this morning saying that the 'King of Pop' took his final bow in a Los Angeles hospital, I couldn't believe it; I cursed at the 'irresponsible' person spreading 'malicious rumours'. Even after logging on, there was widespread confusion about who exactly it was that stated the absurd. Everyone waited, with utter disbelief, for a 'credible source' to state it, to state what they did not want to hear, to see what they did not wish to believe. Then CNN broke it, and left the world numb for a while. Truth is, he was larger than life, and such was the image the most famous man on the planet came to represent.

Everyone acknowledged that this was indeed the end of an era. His death sparked off a trail of tributes of a magnitude unmatched by the late Pope, Pavarotti and Freddie Mercury combined. One newspaper called him 'The Lead Story of popular music'. Convention was thrown to the wind as news websites relegated everything else to distant corners. Facebook reported that in the hour following his death, status traffic was thrice the average. Twitter apologized for its server malfunctioning due to massive demand. AOL topped it, "Today was a seminal moment in Internet history. We’ve never seen anything like it in terms of scope or depth." In fact, so many people wanted to verify the initial reports of his death that Google's computers branded the surge as an automated attack! Personally, never have I seen almost everybody's internet statuses relating to the same event. Only old Jacko could pull this off.

The tributes came in from far and wide, and deservedly so. At his peak, Michael Jackson was the world's greatest superstar. 750 million albums' sales, 13 Grammies and around a billion fans would vouch for that. Known as much for his bizarre fashion sense and his moonwalk as for his music, he inspired a generation. The entire music world ground to a halt, as did the internet, to remember their departed colleague. Paul McCartney said, "He was a massively talented boy man with a gentle soul. His music will be remembered forever and my memories of our time together will be happy ones." Madonna says she's so said, she can't stop crying. But it isn't just his Hollywood buddies who feel the loss. His global influence is an integral part of the rich legacy he leaves behind. In India, too, MJ will be missed. "He was an artist who inspired entire generations, made pop music what it is. I remember falling in love with music because of him. A big, big, big loss and an unsurmountable universal tragedy". The ultimate tribute from Parikrama frontman Nitin Malik.

Of course, many tributes also come from shady sources. I don't think either you or I care what David Miliband or Fall Out Boy think about the departed soul. Hugo Chavez, by the way, thinks this is 'lamentable news'. Several British politicians too expressed their condolences. The Guardian hopes they won't claim a wreath on expenses!

Like Jimi Hendrix or John Lennon, it will be impossible to decipher the full impact of Michael Jackson's contribution to modern culture. He made pop a global phenomenon. He reinvented music videos. He revolutionized music marketing. A former head of Sony Music said, "he was the cornerstone to the entire music business". A radio channel I was listening to this afternoon called him 'the greatest performer of the millenium'. Probably so. There has never been, and there is likely never to be an individual as mesmerizing as Jackson. He wasn't just a singer, but an entire entertainment package compressed into one human being. Songs like Thriller and Billy Jean will continue to remain anthems no matter who attempts to fill his void. And songs like Heal the world too are unlikely to be forgotten till the world is healed, and that doesn't seem to be happening.

His life was a circus, yet during his long journey from boy wonder to superstar to alleged paedophile to humanist, he wasn't alone; his fans (and the paparazzi, might I add) stood steadfastly by him, and he lived most of his life in the public eye he so dearly loved. Somehow he's managed to take that preference into death too. Michael Jackson would have been happy to see these images. They are the undelible mark of a genius of the highest calibre. So long, Minguel, and thank you for the music. Adeus.

*Deu borem korem is a Konkani phrase which literally means 'May God bless you' but it used as 'Thank you' in the absence of any other relevant phrase in the language.

Anne Frank: The Girl Who Made A Difference

Many consider Anne Frank's diary girly. Not me. I believe it's beneficial to all of humanity. 

Nigel Britto

Looking back at the Holocaust three-quarters of a century later, we realize just two names out of the scores involved will remain forever in our collective consciousness. One is the predatory Adolf Hitler; archetypal tyrant, symbol of intolerance, embodiment of evil, and eventually, epitome of cowardice. The second is Anne Frank. Innocent and angelic; the daughter of a Jew, thus a victim of her circumstance.

Had she not been killed in a concentration camp, she would have turned 80 today. Generations of her family would have come together to celebrate the birthday of the girl who, in life, epitomized courage and maturity; and in death, inspired, motivated and moved to tears millions of those who read her memoirs, a literary classic, a humane narrative, and the ultimate documentation of the horrors of the Holocaust.Yet, so many years later, we still think of Anne Frank as a young girl who thought, dreamed and hoped, like any other ambitious teenager, of ‘the day when she’d be able to realize her ideals’. That was not to be. A year after she wrote that, she died of Typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany.

Anne Frank was born in 1929 to Otto Frank and Edith Hollander in Frankfurt. She had an elder sister, Margot. In 1933 Otto Frank took his family moved to Amsterdam after the Nazis took over Germany. In 1940, Hitler invaded Holland, and the saga began. Anti-Semitic laws were put into effect; Jews had to be segregated, and sheltering Jews attracted the death penalty.In 1942, Otto Frank and his family hid in a secret annex of a house, Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam, a house which has since been immortalized. They were provided food and other necessities by Otto’s most trusted confidantes. They lived there with another family until 1944, when Nazi forces stomped their way into the house, and deported all its inhabitants to concentration camps.Till date, no one knows who betrayed the Franks. In 1945, the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was liberated, and the world war ended. But it was too late. Anne had already left this world by then.

She got the diary on her 13th birthday, three weeks before her family went into hiding. The book was soon to become her best friend. For ‘comfort and support’, she addressed it as ‘Dear Kitty’. Anne chronicled her life in the secret annex, wrote about her family, and expressed her hopes, fears, dreams and curiosities. The diary was published in 1947 in Dutch. In 1952 it was translated to English. Since then, it has been translated into 67 languages, and sold over 31 million copies. It has sometimes been described as ‘the most widely-read book after the Bible’.

What, I believe, makes the Diary of Anne Frank so compelling is that it resonates with everyone who reads it. She didn’t only write about persecution and prejudice. She also wrote about sexuality, relationships, and her hopes for world peace. Instead of brooding over the sound of gunfire and bombs, she chose to find hope in nature. “I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too”, she wrote. “I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more”. Her readers like to quote the diary’s most famous line. “Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart", she wrote. "I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death”.

When the world was still trying to figure out the Holocaust, along came this book. She was an extraordinary writer, for any age. The lessons are timeless. She launched her entire personality into her little project, and a personality, unlike an era, can be related to. She portrayed, with spellbinding eloquence, a reality that once existed, and draws us into it. She showed us what it’s like to be a prisoner of war, to escape death everyday. She described her existence in excruciating detail. She showed us the consequences of prejudice, well prevalent even today, and how far astray it can lead us. She taught us that ‘whoever is happy will make others happy too’. She put a face to genocide, she put a face to hope.

She aspired to be a writer. Toward the end of her life, she wrote, “If God lets me live, I will work for humankind. I want to do good in this world, and I want to write… Will I ever be able to write something great, will I ever become a journalist or a writer?” Sixty-five years after her death, she lives, and millions will testify that her dreams as a writer have been fulfilled beyond her wildest imagination. Happy Birthday, Anne Frank.

New Year celebrations superficial: Centanarian

In a tiny little village in north Goa, Lourdes Conceicao Lobo is celebrating her 100th New Year. My dear grandmother takes a walk down memory lane, and tells me how the world has changed.

Nigel Britto

The walls at her home hint at a remarkable journey. Although freshly painted, the monotony of the bright yellow takes a break with various pictures and portraits from different decades of the previous century, many of which were put up by the lady herself. Among the many tapestries is a papal blessing, a parchment sealed and autographed by the late Pope John Paul II.

While liberated Goa celebrates its 48th New Year on Thursday, Lourdes Conceicao Lobo of Camurlim, Bardez, celebrates her 100th. Talking to the centenarian in her living room, she doesn't appear hundred; her voice, quivering with age, is soft as she switches between English, Konkani and Portuguese when the English word fails to capture her thought.

For the hundredth time, she will celebrate the occasion with her family. Just as she has done since 1908. Looking up from her newspaper in response to a question, she takes the opportunity to stress the importance of family get-togethers. "Christmas and Easter, especially, are family feasts, to be celebrated by the family," says the feisty woman, who was born decades before Mario Puzo raised the status of blood-ties to an iconic level with his series of novels set in the Italian hinterland.

Back to the newspaper. She loves them, according to the two daughters she lives with, and can't survive without them. "Since I have free time, I first go through the obituaries, so I can pray for the dead," she says, matter-of-factly. (Her patron saint, incidentally, is St Joseph, patron of a happy death.)

There's one major difference though, according to her, which distinguishes life in the early 1900s with that today. "It's rotten today. Human beings are rotten!" she emphasizes acerbically. "There is no love, no unity. Read the papers, they're full of murder, rape, suicide and other crimes," says Lobo, who has seen the inside a hospital only at the birth of her four children.

She reminisces, "Look at how we built our houses in the past," she says, gesturing at the Indo-Portuguese styled house she has lived in since 1963. "There were no robberies the way there are now. We could live our lives in peace, without fear. These days, people are driven by fear hence they build grilled prisons for themselves," she says, referring to modern urban architecture.

The centenarian also rues the decline of the family as a unit. "There isn't any unity now! We see around us broken families, broken homes. Parents don't look after children and correspondingly, kids don't look after their parents. These kind of things were an extreme rarity last century," says this grandmother of six who has lived through both world wars.

Another missing aspect is the respect for your fellowmen. "Youth no longer have any respect for elders. When I was young, we used to respect and seek blessings from older people. Now, that respect is reserved only for money," she declares scathingly, before continuing in the same vein, "People don't even have time for the Rosary (family or community prayer). They only have time to gossip!"

At hundred, this St Joseph devotee is one of the oldest living people in Goa. "No secret to a long life," she says. "Just the Will of God." And she believes that she has the perfect solution to the present mess our society is in. It's the same philosophy Jesus preached two millennia ago. "Love God, and love thy neighbour," she says, with a twinkle in her eye.

This article was first published on The Times of India, Goa edition, on its edition dated January 1, 2009. 

Step aside Bushisms, Obamaisms are here

Will we miss George W Bush? Not if Obama maintains his 'malapropistic' traditions.  

Nigel Britto

It's hardly been two weeks since Barack Obama's election as the 44th president of the United States, but the transition is already apparent. From George W Bush's malapropisms, which have famously come to be referred to as 'Bushisms', it's now Obama's turn to face the music by acerbic netizens. Obama-related humour is being updated online on an almost hourly basis as the term 'Obamaism' gradually gains prominence.

Behind the skinny guy with a funny name and an improbable life story, as he described himself, is a man just as prone to gaffes as his famous predecessor. Even before his official swearing-in ceremony, he's already opened his account in the dictionary of presidential bloopers.

The user-defined dictionary Urbandictionary has words like Obama baby (A child conceived after Obama was proclaimed President by way of celebratory sex), Obamanation (like abomination, the state of the country after he is elected president) and Obamaphile (A person with an incessant preference, sometimes sexual attachment to all people, things, or ideas related to Barack Obama). Of course, obamaphilia normally leads to the obamaphile having an obamagasm. But these are not the only ones. Thanks to a nation full of 'Barackheads' and 'Obamaniacs', the website has clocked hundreds of unique user-created definitions.

An online magazine, Slate, has gone a step further. Earlier this year, it launched Encyclopaedia Baracktannica, which keeps its patrons updated with the latest Obamaisms.

And Barack has done it himself too. Almost 5 months before the presidential election, he introduced his running mate, Joseph Biden, as the 'next President - the next vice-President of the United States of America'. Freudian slip? At a campaign event at Oregon, Obama told the crowd, "I've been in 57 states — I think one left to go". Incidentally, the Organization of the Islamic Conference has 57 member states. He was tired, his fans said, and dismissed the incident.

Even before he rose to international prominence and came to terms with its consequential pressures, he wasn't immune. The Associated Press reports that during a Kansas campaign, he said, "In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died, an entire town destroyed." The tragedy he spoke about was a spate of tornadoes that ripped Kansas in 2007. The actual death toll was 12.

In Amman, Jordan, on July 22 this year during the height of his campaign, he stated with absolute conviction that Israel was a friend of Israel's. "It (Israel) will be a strong friend of Israel's under a McCain..administration. It will be a strong friend of Israel's under an Obama administration."

But while Obamaisms are picking up, his predecessor is in no mood to let go. Commenting on the liquidity in the markets, George Bush said, "This thaw — took a while to thaw, it's going to take a while to unthaw".

"Obama's election is great for our country but bad for comedy", wrote Michael Musto, a columnist in an American daily. Bushisms may be hard to beat, but if the internet is anything to go by, Obamaisms are getting there.