Radio goo goo Radio gaa gaa

It's gone. This post is an Obituary. Somewhere in the begining of this month, my favourite radio channel, mid-day's Go 92.5 passed away. May it's musical soul rest in peace.
May god not forgive the people behind this. But I think they can't be blamed anyway. A radio station survives on advertising. And advertising comes to mass appeal. Sadly in the most cosmopolitan city of the country, Rock and Roll has no mass appeal. Neither does Britney Spears for that matter. Go 92.5 was the only station that played english songs. And they could not do that 100% either. So it was 50 -50. One english song followed by one hindi. I vaguely remember mid-day coming up with a radio channel a few years back and the same thing had happened. Those were different times. This time around there were much more players. And lots of money thrown in.
But they could not last. And they will be missed. It came as a rude shock to me when i first tuned in one night at 10.00 p.m. After 9 it used to be only foreign music. And they had "jhalak dikhlaja" playing. The station name had changed. I picked up a copy of mid-day first thing in the morning. and there it was all splashed over the last page. It had turned 100% Hindi. A friend will be missed.
All those mornings with "good morning mumbai" with jaggu and tarana.
Bearing the evening traffic lights with "Horn, o.k please" by malini.
"Late night " music with glen.
All gone. I have heard that jaggu and tarana speak strictly hindi now. They used to speak a mix of hindi and english which was so mumbai. Their jokes were discussed in the evenings. I dont have the heart to tune in. There are enough 100% Hindi stations. You needed REM and GNR once in a while. Ah heck, even n'sync was good to laugh at. all gone.
I am at a loss for words. Hopefully we will have them back someday. But that seems like wishing himesh reshammiya would disappear from the planet taking with him all the airtime he gets. But the hope still lives. Maybe one day we will have a 100% foreign music channel. Till then, so long ....

Fight Club

Was watching the movie the other day. Brad Pitt looks great, but Ed Norton rocks. The movie has till now acquired cult status along with brad pitt's abs. It's one twisted tale of an office employee and soap salesman building a global organisation to vent male aggression(source - IMDB).The movie was cool, the soundtrack was nice, but I am not writing a review here. For cool quotes visit http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fight_Club
In fight club, there is a scene where brad pitt and ed norton are discussing ideal opponents.They do this a few times in the movie. When asked to choose a historic figure for fight club, ed norton picks gandhi. Brad pitt picks lincoln. Inspired by this, i decided to publish my own list of people I would like to take one on one in fight club. I tried to spread it across various categories, and have geniunely put down the first name that came to mind. Here goes

Fight Club

Personal - Vinod Iyer
History - Veer Savarkar/Gandhi
Politics - George Fernandes
Cricket - Sunil Gavaskar
Football - Gabriel Batistuta
Bollywood - Anil Kapoor
Hollywood - Robert De Niro
Indian Music - Kishore Kumar
Foriegn Music - Bono (U2)
Model - Rahul Dev
Wrestler - Yokozuna

One Last Fight to the finish - ...........?

Rain Rain go away, Little Johny wants to play

Yes. The monsoon is back. The weather changes to pleasant overnight. But that is the only thing that is pleasant in mumbai. Mr Johny joseph, the BMC chief assured us that mumbai is ready for the monsoons. Well, the city just got a glimpse of it today. If it would have rained continously for an hour more, we'd have a day off tomorrow. And that would have been getting away really easy.
I do not have anything against rains. Maybe if i had not spent most of my life in mumbai, i would have appreciated it more. The smell of the first rains is quickly overcome by the stench of the filth. I will not write anything more lest people may miss out on the beauty of rains. But, as it is, mumbai had a terrible monsoon last year. Everybody has their own horror stories of 26/7 2005. That should have been reason enough for the BMC to wake up and smell the coffee.
Well, the city will smell this monsoon, but I am sure it will not be coffee. Agreed, quite a lot of work has been done in the past year and deadlines have been met. But as would be the case, quite a few deadlines have been missed. This should not be unusual as it is most common place for such occurences. But the bafflling part is there seems to be no contingency plan. Roads are still being dug up and "Work in progress" signs being put up one day before the rains. On another note, I remember seeing this sign board on the streets of mumbai for as long as i can remember, and one day if they all dissapeared i would feel lost and believe i was in another part of the world altogether. As it is, I have been travelling from andheri west to saki naka to work for almost 5 years and i want to see how new york traffic could beat that. And now they have potholes all along the road. I remember some radio station had come up with the idea of having a pothole named after you, if you discovered it on a road claimed to be clean. And believe it or not, they still have the same amount of potholes if not more on that patch of road. But johny does not think so. We are ready for the monsoons he says. Maybe he knows something we dont. I have never been to shanghai or new york, the cities they claim to make of this, but if they are half of mumbai when it rains, i sure dont want to be there.
All of the citizens of mumbai are partly responsible for this. Students across the country are raising their voices against new issues that bother them. We wont even say a word for things rotting in front of our eyes for years. But till we do something about it, Little Johnny will have his way.