The Indian Band : Is it there yet?

For those of you who are fans of pop/rock/metal/country music (apart from filmy music), can you recollect any Indian music band/artist which/who has taken the nation by storm by virtue of their work(not counting Bollywood music)? Agreed, some good bands do exist like Euphoria and Indian Ocean but they have not succeeded in creating a big and loyal fan base for themselves which western bands/artists and even a few pakistani bands have managed to do so with success.
India is a kaleidoscope of a vast number of cultures and traditions. There is a rich folklore celebrating the various religions, languages, communities, etc. India also boasts of a rich and old tradition of art and music spanning across different communities and regions. Especially on the music front, different regions have their own style of folk music. The Indian Classical music (hindustani and carnatic) is respected across the globe by the knowledgable and other music circles. Then there is a category called the “Filmy Music” (or more specifically Bollywood music since it is the biggest of the lot).
Indian movies have had a very close and dear relationship with music and songs ever since the inception of the indian film industry(talking movies i.e) where actors and actresses would lip-sync the songs sung by the singers. Decades passed by and filmy music evolved(focussing on bollywood) thanks to legendary music composers like R.D Burman who brought innovation as well as western influence into music. Then another living legend AR Rahman revolutionised filmy music in 90s and since then music in movies has taken a different turn and today the music has become more “techno” than ever. Amidst all these developments in 90s, another development took place and that was the spawning of music bands which were primarily into pop genre. The most noticeable among them was the band Euphoria which managed some popularity with its album(s) but they also went into oblivion afterwards. Today we do have fusion bands like Indian Ocean who have given masterpieces undoubtedly but they too are not into mainstream music. On the other hand, a few music bands from even across the border(read Pakistan) like Jal and Strings have been successful in making a good name for themselves in India also.
Apart from the Classical music and Ghazals which have a limited audience, the Indian music primarily revolves around films. Bright and upcoming music composers are told to compromise on their tunes and songs in order to grab maximum eyeballs for the respective movies so that the producers can be cash-happy. The scope for creativity on the musician’s part is reduced in such cases.
Coming back to bands, the only two Indian bands that one can think of are Agnee and Indian Ocean and they two are of two different genres. In India, you won’t find genre-specific bands like country/metal/rock even though increaingly these are being used in movies. The question is : if they can be used in movies (even though crudely), why is that bands focussing on these genres are yet to make it big. The main problem is that the ultimate destination for aspiring musicians and singers becomes bollywood where there is no dearth of glamour and fame and money and where songs are still (barring a few movies nowadays) seen as a trump card to pull the audience to the theatres at least for a few days. That is a significant reason why non-film rock’n roll/pop artists have not made it big through their ventures.
However the picture is slowly changing even though the change is very negligible. There are a few rock/metal bands blossoming since the last few years in the usual musical hubs of India, viz Kolkata and Bangalore and a few elsewhere, but they are still in their nascent stage. The interest and the inclination is evidently there thanks to increasing exposure towards various forms of Music. But the public perception in general about popular music has to change a bit and come out of the bollywood mould and musicians should let their creative juices flow without any inhibitions for creating more beautiful music. Maybe we will soon get Indian Bands which would take the nation by storm very soon. Let’s go musical!!

A Paradoxical "Delight" : India

What comes to our mind immediately when someone(fellow Indian/Foreign National) shoots forward this question: “What do you think of India as a country?” The first thought which inevitably comes to the mind is that we are still (moreso financially) a  poor nation. But then the mind comes to the centrestage and scolds the conscience for making such “outrageous” presumptions about your own country. The conscience fights back saying that it’s not a good thing to ignore the truth and live in a fairytale world and so the argument goes on.
Let us take the assistance of statistics, a tool which economists and mathematicians are ever so fond of. After 65 years of Independence, we are an ever-growing uncontrolled mass of people (standing “tall” at 1.25 billion right now) which is seriously making claims to dethrone China in this respect. Is that a thing to be proud of? I don’t know for others, but i guess it is the source of evergrowing (and never-ending) problems plaguing the Indian Democracy. Experts argue that the large population can be utilised as a better workforce which can be more beneficial to the country’s economy and prosperity. I am no expert but how can a strong workspace be created when there is a serious lack of availability of basic resources?
Now, after liberalisation and globalisation (and to some extent, capitalisation) struggled their way into India in the ’90s, quite a few areas did improve like education, services,FDI, growth and increased participation of private sector in different fields; and more prominently the  media(especially electronic) grew by leaps and bounds during the last two decades. A boom resulted in a wider range of commodities and products and companies got spawned more frequently and competition became more fierce. Marketing and glamour became as crucial as the product itself. Indians always have had the reputation of having one of the brightest minds on earth. Quite a few Indians were already members of the world’s best institutions and organizations, but now the encouraging thing was that Indian companies started becoming MNCs and at the same time,thronging foreign shores. The world started viewing India as a potential power (not ‘super’) finally and also as a brand; this we came to know through the media. A thing to be proud of, I could say now? We started having more and more multimillionaires and bilionare CEOs from the country. Indian IT companies went offshore and foreign firms landed up in India looking  to recruit  “fresh and bright talents”. Jobs in the private sector blossomed.
 Today, in the second decade of this millenium, we are supposedly an “Investment-friendly Nation” (though land acquisition is again a serious and a persistent issue plaguing companies; and for Governments, politically). We have booming movie and television industries with larger-than-life movie stars and a cash-rich Cricket board which regularly flexes its financial muscles to dominate the game financially. We have always been “star-struck” but media exaggeration and fanaticism have defined newer parameters for this  behaviour.
Cities are growing, more “world-class” malls are springing up everyday. Leaders tell us that the cities would resemble a London very soon. We become optimistic and happy on hearing this. After all, who wouldn’t ? But then the reality dawns;as far as cities are concerned, slums are increasing everyday as more and more people are coming to the urban areas in search of work. Lack of proper infrastructure is an omnipresent issue and is becoming even more serious a challenge with increasing population and rising unemploment rates. More and more people have to slog it out for a very few opportunities that come our way.  Corruption is rampant in almost every sphere. The number of poor people is still very high in the country. Crimes are not a rare phenomena even now.
We constitute a  secular state but regularly indulge in bloodshed over religion and petty politics. We get influenced easily by what the leaders of a multiparty political system tell us. Elections come and go, promises and declarations get repeated with jibes directed at the rival political party(ies) a regular feature. The news bulletines and headlines are, in general, filled up with news about poverty, corruption, crimes, etc.
We seem to have got accustomed to the daily phenomena and see nothing new in it. But when a Danny Boyle makes a movie centered around one of the largest slums in India and the movie goes on to win the most prestigious awards, a lot of eyebrows are raised for projecting India in such a poor light (mine too got raised). Why only portray the darkest side of our cities to the world,  we would argue vehemently, for cinema is undoubtedly a powerful medium and has had on many a previous occasion made powerful impressions on people’s mindset about a few things shown in the movies. So, India was projected as a third world country, a few of us cried.
So what can we do? We can’t stop other people to document and project our poverty and the negative sides. So, what can be ensured is that we provide others fewer chances to highlight our shortcomings and for this, we all shall have to make amends and take steps to change ourselves and our society for the better.
This is what could be done, meaning all hypothetical. The reality is a bit grim though. The glaring paradox can be spotted very easily  as just beside a world-class speciality(like a mall),  you will come across beggars; you could even come across slums besides a world-class airport; or a more prominent example is coexistence of old and newer parts of the same city. While the new city will boast of having state-of-art amenities, the old city would still be suffering from the usual infrastructure problems like power and water shortage, traffic congestion, drainage problems, etc.
So, after all these arguments and counterarguments, whenever the query is raised as to what I feel about India, I go for the same diplomatic reply: we are(still) a developing country and I am proud of it irrespective of all the cons.