Zee Saregamapa – Finally Rutuja Lad is appreciated

This week we finally saw Rutuja’s talent being appreciated. I was wondering how she did not directly reach the finals despite getting good marks. Looks like that has a good effect on her and she has bounced back. When all the hyped toppers showed complacency and some made really unforced errors as they say in tennis, Rutuja maintained her progress and sang really well. Not sure if she will win the finals as the competition is tough. But I certainly think she will and should be one of the top 3-4.

Rutuja Lad – Ghei Chhand Makarand

MLA slapped in Maharashtra Assembly

थोडी गंमत-

कळविण्यास अत्यंत आनंद होत आहे की चि. अ. आ. (A. A.) जो आपले श्री. रोख ठोक (R.T)  यांचे तालावर डोलत नव्हता तो आता आजचे तरुण संगीतकार व श्री. ऱोख ठोक यांचे शिष्य श्री. राम कदम यांनी वाजविलेल्या ढोलकीवरील थापेला प्रतिसाद देऊन अ आ इ ई शिकण्यास सुरुवात करणार आहे. (या ढोलकीला गेंड्याची कातडी होती असे अनधिककृत सूत्रांकडून कळले आहे).

परंतु प्रसिद्ध नृत्यांगना टकाटक ताथैया यांनी मात्र कदम यांच्या तालावर नाचण्यास नकार दिला आहे.

A lot of people who everyday want to slap someone who is breaking rules and showing arrogance are happy that finally there is one music director who has courage to slap this political drum.

As long as such drums are beaten up to raise the voice of common sense, people will appreciate the music of Mr. Rokh Thok. If the music director becomes a drum, people will loose hope in listening to good music. Continue reading “MLA slapped in Maharashtra Assembly”

Pause & Shift + Delete

There has been a long pause from my side after the finals of Zee Marathi SRGMP Little Champs final. I am not really in state of shock but nothing really happened to write on. I was planning to write on the new SRGMP show aani आजचा आवाज वगैरे पण …
From the first episode itself, this show did not excited me. Most of my family members reacted that after the Little Champs, it looks like that this today’s voice needs training. Little champs were far better at presenting old songs. I could not agree more. I am wondering will this be the future of little champs as well?
Also what Pt. Hridaynathji said about having a nice mehfil and bringing out a CD etc. seems to be a far fetched idea as of now. There are hardly any new songs and although Pallavi keeps saying what a great performance to everyone, my mind does not agree.
One of the good parts is to hear Pt. Hridaynathji. His comments are really excellent feedback. He is honest and does not favour anyone. Suresh Wadkar… I feel that when you have someone like Panditji sitting next to you, you can only say “मम”.
Life has taken an unexpected turn and after the first episode, I am in US for company work. I will not be watching the show live as earlier. May be I will get to see repeat telecasts, but unless I hear something out of the world, my fingers will not let me blog about this show.
That’s pause for the time being….
You tube once again has shown its magic and our beloved friend ahonkan‘s account seems to have been suspended once again. Should be thank or curse someone for this? Did Zee Marathi complained to You Tube now that they are marketing Little Champs songs and videos? I thinks there is a huge community out of Maharashtra and India who are dying to get this treat for their ears. Zee Marathi will not feel any impact on their sells if they allow these videos to be online. It in fact is adding to their TRP. I am hopeful that they have not taken any such step and ahonkan will be back soon with all his videos intact. Let it be just a Delete and not Shift+Delete… you know what I mean.

Hridaynath Mageshkar’s Mesmerizing Shoora Mee Vandile (शूरा मी वंदिले)

Past two evenings have been really mesmerizing. Thanks to the excellent program by Zee Marathi on their Saregamapa Little Champs special for sixtieth Republic Day of India. Zee TV on this occasion of Republic day took all the little champs to NDA in my home town Pune. They also invited parents and siblings of the Martyrs from Indian armed forces.When the champs started singing, each song was followed by some really touching experiences from these parents and an appeal to all Indian parents to send their children to join the armed forces and to the young generation to join.

I was particularly touched by two incidents about the way our army men are fighting war in Siachen glacier and the mishaps of MIG 21 fighter planes. I am sure these must have brought tears to millions of viewers watching the show. Finally Hridaynath had to wake us up to the reality that the theme of the show is bravery and we should not shed tears but celebrate our freedom and the martyrdom of those who died for our country like they did. From there the program really took a different turn and we were all charged up listening to songs and then stories of Shivaji Raje and Veer Savarkar.

This was followed by second episode of the same theme today. While watching the program I was in the same era of Shivaji, 17th century and the Adilshahi, Mughals and the wisdom of Shivaji, his justice, his vision and what not. But then I made a mistake of switching to the news channel after the program and I was awaken by harsh reality of today.

On one hand we have a media channel, which was telling us about the glorious past and trying to bring spark of nationalism in us and on the other hand we had the news channel reporters shooting the heinous incident of few goons beating up the girls and women in a pub calling them prostitutes. The media it seems knew about the incident but did not inform the police and did not even try to stop those goons from attacking the women. Two exactly opposite characters in the same business.

For most of the time we see the name of Shivaji being used by the political leadership in Maharashtra. No doubt Shivaji was the greatest king in India, but all those stories of winning the wars and all get much too attention than the ruling system Shivaji implemented in Maharashtra. So we know the Shivaji at war with the then Yavani, Mlenchh rulers of Maharastra but we don’t know much about the Shivaji during the peace time. We have war going on at the borders almost on daily basis but what about the war inside? The Marathi leaders are waging war against each other. Hardly few think about the welfare of the state. So how does Shivaji in peace time should affect them? Do let us know if you want those principals to be followed.

Finally, about the quote of Winston Churchill, Hridaynath was siting – Don’t you think that despite all the efforts taken by the revolutionaries and freedom fighters, India has become a land where humans live like animal herds? We get angry at his remarks, but eventually they are becoming true. So we have still not won the war against this British man. Like one of the mother of a martyr pilot said: Not everyone needs to take sword in his hand, but if he does his job well and feels his responsibility towards the country, it is more than enough. Going forward, I would say, we also now need to unite and make others perform their duty. The good human beings do not tolerate injustice.

Zee Marathi – One week of little champs wasted

We all knew that Radhika Nande was definitely not the candidate to be selected in the final 4-5. Last time I wrote about the mockery of call back episode on Zee Marathi Saregamapa Little Champs. It is really proved beyond doubt that earlier decision to move Radhika out of competition was right. In this whole process now we have lost one more week and the telecom companies have gained additional revenue.

What has surprised me even more is the % of SMS messages Avanti Patel has got in last few weeks. She is getting almost 2.5 to 3 times of Mugdha who was supposedly SMS champ. This is mind boggling. This is once again proving that SMS is a fraudulent mechanism to prove merit.

One of the quickest suggestion I can give is to enforce one vote per telephone number. Now someone can say that we want one vote per family member but in today’s time almost every senior family member has a cell phone and 1-1 ratio can be moved up to let’s say 2-1. But there has to be some limit. This will ensure that there is no rigging and the wealthy or unnecessarily passionate people wont be able to chose less talented contestant.

I am also surprised that Arya & Prathamesh, despite singing extremely well and consistently all along are not getting enough share of SMS messages. I am their fan but I wont go overboard and pay the telecom companies. I will generally vote only 2-3 times once in two weeks and I am sure there will be many like me who will talk, write and support these children but will not rig the competition. Hopefully my above suggestion will bring some fairness to the entire system. If that happens I will feel positive about voting every week.

Zee Marathi Saregamapa – Mockery of callback

Did you see yesterday’s callback episode? I was completely frustrated since the beginning. We all were waiting to see the finalists like Ketaki mategaonkar, Shalmali Sukhtankar, Shamika Bhide, Kartiki Gaikwad and not so keen on Sagar Phadake, Radhika Nande and Neha Karmakar. Yesterday itself when Shamika was out of the competition, one more down due to good voting to Rohit Raut who is in parallel improving his singing skills, she was not crying because she was going to appear on the callback next day. But then suddenly we saw only three of the seven and announcement that two of them will go ahead!!! What!!!! I said.

Though Pallavi cleared that the rest 4 did not come due to personal reasons, it was not convincing enough. After all a day before Shamika says she will be there tomorrow and the next day she is not there! Who in the world will lose such an opportunity! Things look suspicious here. However the episode went well with a great contribution from Honorable Yashwant Deo. His comments were really guiding at the same time had perfect balance to tell you who is where. Kartiki’s first song looked like it is copied from some Hindi song but then it was sung by Dnyaneshwar Meshram – another Saregamapa champ. She sang with lot of energy which I felt was unnecessary but for her age she was good. Radhika Nande was a complete surprise. Although she still needs lot of work on pronunciation, her singing has really improved and she was showing that she is not going to go without a tough fight. Shalmali as usual was great but the comments given by Yashwantji were really apt asking her to reduce some of the over expression. I personally feel that with lot of emphasis from Avadhoot & Vaishali on expression, these children are trying to bring that in without really understanding it. Same is happening with Arya Ambekar as well, I feel. With this guidance, they should be able to come back to normal.

But in the finals, the entire result was a great disappointment. It was difficult to send one person back so the start itself was on wrong footing. With great singing from Radhika, the decision was even tougher. Finally when all were declared winners, I said, why bother with the 1.5 hour episode? They could have straight away declared that result in the beginning. I was also surprised that Kartiki went ahead straight and there was a tie between the remaining two. All in all I felt that because of public pressure, zee had already decided that Shalmali and Kartiki need to go ahead. And I guess when they declared that two of the contestants will go ahead, those who did not agree with it or read between the lines simply dropped off calling it waste of time. Zee Marathi needs to come up with lot of explanation. Off course if they feel responsible. Like Deo saheb said, in old times, Radio officers would ask them even if the recordings were short by 1.5 minute. I feel the same commitment should come from Saregamapa Little Champs’ producer/director.

Satish Rajwade’s Director’s Cut – Asambhav takes new turn

Ever since Satish Rajwade has returned back from his so called break/ vacation whatever, Asambhav is now back on track. Characters have become alive, seen doing something rather than just talking something emotional. Earlier the total time of 20+ minutes used to have only 2 minutes of action taking the story forward. Now as Inspector Vikrant Bhosale has spun his net around Sulekha, we are discovering new twists to the story every few days.

What makes Satish separate from other directors is his grip on the content. In one of his interviews quite a long time back, he had said that you will not find a shot which is not required in Asambhav. Well! that did not hold true all the time but once he is back we are seeing it getting realized again and again. I had thought that his return to the serial was unnecessarily made dramatic and glorifying the character just because he is director. But with yesterdays first session of interrogation of Sulekha it seems that I was wrong.

BTW, what an episode was that. Although, I don’t see soaps much, I doubt if there is any episode in history of Indian soaps where only two characters have carried an entire episode on their shoulders. Though Satish had story behind him making him a hero, what a performance from Nilam Shirke. Hats off to her. Outside Asambhav & Zee Marathi, Nilam tries to tell the world that she is not really a natural fit for vamp roles and she can play various characters. She is always projecting herself as lively bubbly character. But then poor lady! her super performance is typecasting her in a villain’s role. She will really need a big serial with real positive character to change her image. But I like her this way as well, why change? The reason could be she is good in comedy too.

What has happened over past few months now is that we have completely forgotten that when Asambhav started, Adinath & Shubhra were the leads of this serial. Today that equation seems to have changed and now it looks as if it is Vikrant and Priya are the leads. All along these two years, Shubhra’s character has been the most dumb one. Despite having powers to get clues to the future, she just does not do anything but make scared faces. Despite all this, Urmila Kanetkar is a big find. The way she changes from Shubhra to Sulekha or Shubhra to Parvati is something that needs great skills. The difference in Shubhra and Parvati’s character is also shown without loud acting. All those hero heroines doing double roles must take few lessons from Urmila. Nilam on the other hand has benefit of having vary contrasting characters and she has done that superbly as well. But I would rank Urmila one point above.

Anyways, this being my first post on Asambhav, its bit too lengthy. Will stop here and go watch today’s episode. 🙂

Shankar Mahadevan – You rocked on Zee Marathi Saregamapa

What an episode man… one after the other the Saregamapa Little Champs went on singing and finally Shankar took the entire episode to its pinnacle. Initially when Shankar started praising everyone and forcing Avadhoot and Vaishali to give ni to everyone, I was saying come on Shankar this is not Hindi Saregamapa. Not everyone gets history here. In fact what I liked the most is Prathamesh Laghate alias PL told Vaishali that he is OK with less marks. That is real Marathi manoos man. We know what we are and where we are. But after the first round, the champs settled down and the effect of the praise they got started showing off. Even Kartiki who is generally not as good sang extremely well. Mugdha was also good. But I liked Arya & for a change Shamika. Arya in my opinion was the best performer of the day. Shamika’s marathi rendering was one of the best I have heard from her till date. How much I missed Shalmali… It would have been a great episode with her. But…

Shankar is one of the performers who says the best words for all who sing in front of him. He cheers them. Gives them standing ovation and everything he can. But when it comes to singing, he is just unbeatable. He sang Hansadhwani with Arya and it felt even sweeter both because if his singing and Arya joining with him. His bumro bumro also helped Avanti. But it was when Rohit Raut sang Mayechya Halavya, Shankar just showed what a great singer he is and how much these little champs need to learn. The number of variations he created in the same line which is recorded were just mind boggling. One after the other it kept coming … All Rohit could do was to sing as per the recording. Just too much for the poor child.

I have heard the song Maa from Taare Zameen Par so many times but the live performance did bring drops of tear to my otherwise dry eyes. Music can be as powerful as to change the entire world. If everyone speaks the same language across the world, it is music. Zee Marathi has shown the way to all other stupid Hindi entertainment channels what quality of content means. Once it is there, you don’t need all those nakharas and well rehearsed and scripted dialogues in reality shows. What Zee Marathi shows is much real than any Hindi channel. Keep it up Zee Marathi.

 

Zee Marathi Saregamapa – Shocking Result. Shalmali Out of race

If Ketaki’s departure was unfortunate, Shalmali’s departure cannot be anything less than shocking. When there is a competition, only the best need to be chosen and yesterday’s results proved why democracy is failing not just in India but world wide. People never choose the best candidate. I am also responsible partially for this shocking result as I did not vote for Shalmali. Who could have imagined that Shalmali will go out of this race?

In the episode aired in Diwali & one after that, Rohit was doing badly. He was not able to sing and as Avadhoot Gupte pointed out yesterday that yesterday for the first time he sang rather than performed. I believe, he got lot of sympathy vote this time causing Shalmali Tipre Sukhtankar’s departure.

The finalist in the Zee Marathi Saregamapa Little Champs are all really good. It is very difficult to take one out. If you ask me the last two at this stage would definitely be Rohit and Kartiki for their lack of versatility. Avanti Patel is not consistent  and one bad performance can throw her out someday or may be she is the second Shalmali in this race. But Shalmali was never anything less than being in Top 3-4. My topper list is Prathamesh, Shalmali, Arya, Mugdha and may be Avanti. Avanti sings all songs with same emotions and smiling face. Hence she is on border. Arya is also inconsistent and her approach to add expressions is bit immature. Prathamesh and Shalmali would have really been top two but…

Mugdha’s SMS contribution seems to have gone down this week. I was fearing that she will win to competition purely on SMS rather than on merit. She is youngest of them all but still way to go. To conclude my thoughts on this whole episode, I would suggest that rather than taking SMS for a particular week, Zee Marathi can consider aggregating all the SMS in a weighted average (e.g. 1 week SMS will have 10% weight, next week 20% etc.) and then use this number to avoid such disappointment. It’s been a real shock for Shalmali and her fans (including me). I am sure being a Mumbai girl, she has tenacity to recover from this and she will rule Marathi music in years to come. Wish you all the best Shalmali.

Prabhu Ramchandra to Raj Thakre –Times have really changed

Well you will ask me what is connection between Prabhu Ramchandra & Raj Thakre. Appearantly there is nothing that you can find quickly. But little bit of reference to history and you will find it quickly. Wasn’t Prabhuji the prince of today’s bhaiyyas? He was the first UPite to come to Maharashtra. Who were residents of Maharashtra & may be Karnataka then? In Dandakaranya, it was land of rishis and munis and the rest was wanarraj. Sugreev was fighting with his brother Wali even in that time. Fortunately the issue of Bhaiyyas was not that hot at that time. Hardly anyone from north used to come down under. So there was no Raj Thakre in that time.

Times have really changed. From the prince of Ayodhya, now you will find the poor common people coming here. The MNS equates them to monkeys. Tries to shoo them away. Ram is now worshiped in Maharashtra as well as all southern states of India. Hanuman from this area is worshiped in North. So much so the monkeys are treated as avatars of Hanuman and they have become a big time menace in Delhi. So the men are being compared to monkeys and monkeys are being compared to God.

Times have not really changed. Brothers in Maharashtra still fight with each other. Earlier it was wanar princes now the human beings. To kill his own brother Sugreev took help of Ram. To win elections in this times, vote banks of North Indians are being created. Kingdom gaya bhadme. Muze meri gaddhi chahiye.

So the Maharashtrians can really claim the authenticity/ originality of there genes and call themselves as locals and sons of this soil as long as they can keep fighting with each other. North Indians do not worry. Raj will never get majority. Our own brothers will ensure that. You are most welcome.

Note: Please take this entire writing on a lighter note. I personally do not intent to offend any of our Gods. They are as much as mine as yours. I do not intent to demean the human beings or any race or people from any region. But just give a different direction to look at our history.