Give a break to the King of Crass-Yo-yo Honey Singh

 The other day, I happened to read an article by one of those annoying parents who kept ranting on and on about how Yo-Yo Honey Singh had degraded our culture with his crass.  The tone of the letter is dripping with sarcasm. He was lamenting about how his 5-year old kid was being ‘exposed’ to the side effects of Vodka.  He goes on to thank Mr Singh for his contribution to music by providing us with soulful lyrics and lilting melodies. Ill leave it for you to read the entire letter here :

http://www.hindustantimes.com/entertainment/music/thanks-for-the-crassness-an-open-letter-to-honey-singh-from-a-parent/article1-1242802.aspx

Now don’t I just love taking the case of such people. SO that’s exactly what Im going to do. Mr Parent, let me take you back 10-12 years. Please read the lyrics of a song called PIMP by a singer named 50 Cents. This song became an all time hit and in many ways paved the way for more such stuff:

I don't know what you heard about me
But a bitch can't get a dollar out of me
No Cadillac, no perms, you can't see
That I'm a motherfuckin' P I M P

I don't know what you heard about me
But a bitch can't get a dollar out of me
No Cadillac, no perms, you can't see
That I'm a motherfuckin' P I M P

Now shorty, she in the club, she dancin' for dollars
She got a thing for that Gucci, that Fendi, that Prada
That BCBG, Burberry, Dolce and Gabana
She feed them foolish fantasies, they pay her 'cause they wanna

I spit a little G man, and my game got her
A hour later, have that ass up in the Ramada
Them trick niggas in her ear sayin' they think about her
I got the bitch by the bar, tryin' to get a drink up out her

Got that?OKAYYY GREATTT.. Now lets go 20 years ago . The lyrics below are from Emimem, no doubt a cult singer with exceptionally meaningful lyrics (and I mean it when I say that) but look at the incredibly floral vocabulary:

Hi, my name is, my name is
(What? Who?)
My name is Slim Shady…
Hi, my name is, my name is
(Huh? What?)
My name is Slim Shady

Ahem, excuse me
Can I have the attention of the class
For one second?

Hi kids, do you like violence?
(Yeah, yeah, yeah)
Wanna see me stick Nine Inch Nails
Through each one of my eyelids?
(Uh, huh)

Wanna copy me and do exactly like I did?
(Yeah, yeah)
Try 'cid and get fucked up worse that my life is?
(Huh?)

My brain's dead weight, I'm tryin' to get my head straight
But I can't figure out which Spice Girl I want to impregnate
(Umm)
And Dr. Dre said, "Slim Shady you a basehead"
Uh, uhh, So why's your face red? Man you wasted…..

And so on and so forth. Do you remember any of this stuff, I’ll bet you do. Aah now you’ll tell me those were different? Really, were they? ‘Hi kids do you like violence, wane see me stick nine inch nails through my eye-lids’ is heaven right??? Or better still  'I spit a little G man, and my game got her. A hour later, have that ass up in the Ramada’ THESE ARE GOSPEL, RIGHT?  We grew up to these in case you didn’t notice.

And you really believe that Bollywood and the Indian Music scenario were patron saints before the arrival of Mr Yo-yo??? Let’s take a look,shall we? You thank Mr Singh for making Sarkailo Khatiya and Choli ke peeche sound like a bhajan!!! Excuse meeeeee!!! Those songs were bhajans even at that time. This is what I call selective amnesia. That was a period when Bollywood was churning our more double meaning songs than India was churning out newborns. Not to mention suggestive dance steps.

·         Have you seen Govinda’s dance steps for aa- aah-eeh from Raja Babu???

·         Have you heard a song called Gutur Gutur from the movie Dalaal. Mind you, this one was on the top of Superhit Muqable for a long time??

      Have you seen and heard ANil Kapoor and Juhi Chawla gyrate to 'main maal gaadi tooh dhakka laga'???

·         And pray, have you heard ANY of Dada Kondke’s songs???

 These are just a drop in the ocean of slush and filth that Bollywood has inherited over the decades. Oh and wait, how can I forget the infamous Bhojpuri ‘humari bhaujayee tumhari lugaai’ kind of songs and movies that not just prevail but thrive as much today as they did several years ago.

The problem does not lie with Mr Yo-yo. The problem lies with people like you who want a scapegoat simply because you find it difficult to ‘control’ your children. You feel that your child might get influenced by Yo-yo’s songs but he won’t get influenced when Salman Khan holds Jacqueline Fernandez’s skirt by his teeth? Or when Kareena sways suggestively to ‘Halkat Jawaani’? or when three idiotic actors sing and dance to ‘second jawaani’ from Cocktail?????

Give me a break or better still give yourself one. Objectification of women has been an evil in society for a long time but I’ll leave that debate for another day.  But if you’re going to blame poor Yo-yo Honey Singh for the contaminating today’s music world, then I’m asking you, what is left to contaminate? So no matter how eloquently you express your apparent lack of faith in yo-yo’s songs, and no matter how intense your sarcasm, the fact of the matter is that you cannot kill what's already dead. And one last thing, don’t fret about your elder son not appreciating a Madan Mohan classic. It’s not his fault, it’s yours. Why? Because he had his guard up the moment you tried to wean him away from Yo-yo’s songs so even if he did like it he would never have admitted it. Think you’re smart? Sorry, kids are smarter.

Uncharted Territory

Steven Henderson was one of the few renowned professors that lectured at the Southampton Institute. He was the Professor of Strategy at the Institute and known to be a tough task-master who rarely displayed much emotion.  Many of the alumni, who had managed to extend their visas to remain in the UK using some loophole or the other in the system, had further warned me about him being grumpy and cynical most of the time.

In the field of Strategy, he was known as one of Michael Porter’s most severe critics. Porters Five Forces Theory to understand Market Dynamics was hailed as one of the game-changing theories of its time and many still feel that it’s quite relevant. Henderson, though, felt that the theory was too simplistic and has debated its relevance at several Domestic and International forums on Strategy. Steven was due to impart knowledge to our group of MBA wannabes towards the end of the course.  He was one of the lecturers for our module named Management and Change and focused primarily on how leaders characteristics had a heavy influence on the overall nature and character of the organization.

Steven believed in books that carried myriad theories from various Management Experts but he was more keen on making a visual impact on his students. He started his lectures often by showing us a case study in the form of a movie. And not surprisingly, despite seeing the movie for the umpteenth time, it would still excite him. What excited him more, though, was the individual students interpretation of the various scenarios in the movie. He would always pass snide remarks for those who were almost entirely bookish. For example, if a student said ‘oh, this scene in the movie relates to what Johnson and Scholls said in their book Organizational Behaviour’, he wouldn’t exactly scoff at it, but he would make it quite obvious that he was disinterested in drawing comparisons between scenarios in his movie and the most obvious book that everyone read during their courses. He clearly wanted more. He wanted us to explore as much as we could and gather as much knowledge from the library rather than restricting it to one or two books. And boy, he could tell the difference between a student who has spent good quality time in the Library vis-à-vis a student who has just gone through one or two ‘popular’ books.

As his sessions came to a close, he, like all other lecturers/professors, gave us the standard assignment that the course leader had prepared. It involved a case study that was circulated a week before the assignment was handed over to us. We were to read, re-read and again re-read the case study and answer the questions in the end by correlating it to what we learnt from Steven’s classes. I vividly remember the sheer disinterest on Steven’s face as he went through the motions of giving instructions on what to do with the paper. What he thought was almost up in the form of a bubble, ‘Yeah well, you have your assignment, go ahead and do what you’ve been told, I couldn’t really care less’.

As he left the room, I decided to have a word with him regarding the assignment. His first question was “Is there anything you didn’t understand in my instructions?” I smiled and told him there weren’t any simply because I didn’t want to do the assignment that was given by the course leader. He seemed startled, ‘Well then, what do you want to do?’ I had his attention. I requested if I could do something a little more unconventional. He folded his hand and said “Go on, I’m listening”. I requested if I could scrap the existing assignment and instead create a new one from one of his favourite case study movies and use one of his favourite books called ‘The Neurotic Organization’ by Manfred Du Vries and Danny Miller. I would test the theories in the book against the situations in the movie. A few others warned me not to try and be ‘over-smart’ and ‘toe the line’ but when have I ever listened!!!

He stared at me blankly for a few seconds then let out a subtle smile and said ‘What’s your name again?’ Jaideep Gandhi, I said. “Jaideep, do you know that by doing this you are actually breaking the rules?” I guess I looked slightly flustered I guess but before I could say anything he quickly interjected “and that’s perfectly fine with me. Just so that you know, the movie and the book are amongst my favourites so just make sure you justice to them”. I promised him I would. Two weeks after submitting, we were called on by the course leader to collect the corrected coursework. When my turn came, she sat me down. I was a tad nervous because although I was sure of a decent mark for the assignment, I was not sure how the course leader would interpret my unconventional decision. She gave me back my assignment and said “You attempted something that no one did in your class and few have previously tried. And guess what, it’s paid off. Steven was delighted with the coursework and gave you a 70 and not surprisingly it’s the first time you’ve got a 70 all throughout your course. Well Done, young man”. I was elated. A 70 in a British MBA is equivalent to the 90’s here in India. Unless the coursework is exemplary, a student’s chances of scoring above 60 are few and far between. I looked at the cover page and in the comments section there was a something written in large capital Letter with a smile. It read ‘A VERY GOOD ATTEMPT. KEEP IT UP’.

Something happened that day. The experience changed me from being a person who was happy to be part of convention into a person who would love to venture into uncharted territory. Over the past decade, I have made most of my decisions against vox populi. Not because I'm defiant as a person. I'm not. But because, I felt the overwhelming need to push my limits and one cannot do that by remaining in one's comfort zone all the time. Be it my decision to stay back in India just a couple of hours before the departure of my plane to the UK; Be it my foray into Real Estate ('You're no good with numbers and you are too introverted to manage professional relationships' is what popular opinion was); Be it my move to Pune ('Why leave Chennai which is a much bigger market; besides you are well-established here' was the popular opinion); Be it my move to Legion ('You must be out of your mind to start off on your own and that too in a city which is relatively unknown to you' and 'You have no idea of the perils of going without business for months', were popular opinions. I'm glad I went with what I felt. Not only has it paid off richly, it has helped me take more seemingly ridiculous decisions :D 

Coming back to Steven, I am not in touch with him but I do believe that somewhere amongst the thousands of students he interacts with, he will most certainly remember me J