This is a pretty common thing to dismiss remixes as no-music. The general thinking is that DJs do nothing but take nice old songs and just put dancing beats into them. Maybe one reason for all this is that every Tom-Dick and Harry is coming out with his remix album and the few good ones get lost in somewhere.
I always liked remixed music. Few of my favorites being "Dil kya kare" and "Bahon mein chale aao" by Instant karma. But as with anything untill you actually do it, you never realise how much skill and hard work goes into these things. So I went ahead and made one myself!! ( yeah ,yeah.. I can already hear- here goes another Tom..)
It was not me alone and one of my experienced friends "Kitty"out here at Hopkins helped me out. (help => He did it as I watched!!) First you have to choose two songs which can be remixed. Then you have to figure out exactly which parts of the song can actually be mixed. Chalk out the parts where you think the beats can never match. Then increasing and decreasing of tempo to match the two songs. We used garage band software to do all the DJing. My friend always wanted to remix the "Kissi Disco mein jayein" song and I suggested "In Da Club" to him. After listening to them once we made up our mind - "In Da Club Main Jayein" was to become reality. After some 4 -5 hours of playing, mixing and matching different parts, we had this version. It was so much fun and also I got to appreciate the art of DJing even more.
Friday, April 21, 2006
Monday, April 17, 2006
Does this help anybody?
Recently the HRD ministry in India made known its desire to have 49% reservation for ST and SCs in institutions of higher education (IOHE). It came as a shock to me and I can not understand how can anybody in the world justify this. So I am going ahead and putting down logical arguements against the ones used my the goverment while comming up with such policies.
1) Education is important for everybody and since ST and SCs figure with lowest literacy percentage they should be given reservation.
Education is important for everybody hence make sure there are more schools so that everybody can get free education. IOHEs should intake students solely based on merit.
2) The higher cast are monetarily better off hence have other resources to benifit from while preparing for exams for these insitutions.
Now this is one thing that comes up very regularly. I strongly oppose this statement. First, Its not always that higher cast people are monetarily better off and have better resources. If you want to help the poorer people act at a more basic level i.e. have reservations for economically backward groups (EBG) and not socially backward (SBG) ones.
Infact, I can go ahead and say that if you do have to give reservations then it should be for people coming from villages. This is so because I feel its not money but the resources which affect preparation to enter into these IOHE. And even the the EBGs in cities have access to better resources than rich people in village.
But inspite of all this I feel these people should be helped with resources and money rather than just giving reservation to them. Take all the groups of the scoiety to a level ground and after that it should be competition. The way its being done now, the country gets worser engineers, doctors and researchers and the brighter ones get bogged down. I would say it also affects the brighter students among the reserved castes. I am sure they would not work as hard if they know their chances of getting into these institutions is very high.
** Also I would argue that its a general trend that ST and SCs are always economically more backward. Actually Ithink its funny for a such a statement to arise in a country like India where Ambani's, Premiji's and Tata's exist. Wow!! not one of them happens to be from higher cast.
3) Even after 60 years of reservation ST and SCs are still backward communities hence percentage of reservations should increase.
I will try to argue against this with two points. One, actually if you see there is a class of SCs and STs who have benifitted from these policies more than other. Take the case of the first generation who benifitted from these policies, the family has come up both socially and economicaly but the children still use these policies and are benifitted a great deal.
So within the reserved castes there is skewed competition. Obviously the huge percentage of reserved catogories are still backward because they have to compete with the developed half of their own for the reserved seats and no doubt they lose. So the ones who have benifitted from these policies long back are continuing to exploit it whereas the new ones can do nothing but just watch and ponder why even after so many steps by their lovable government they are still backward.
****I would have no problems with these reservation plicies if there is an added clause that if one or two generations of a family has benifitted from these pollicies then they are no longer eligible for reserved seats and jobs.
Second arguement is - yes, if something has not worked for 50 years dont you think that may be because there is inherently a flaw in the policy or its implementation and we should try to find that out rahter than still conitnuing it.
I dont know about all of you out there but I seriously get very upset with the whole thing beacuase I can not voice my opinions in a valid forum where somebody hears to them and answers me. Please leave comments about this situation, write your own opinions and may be later these can be compiled and sent over to some better forum.
1) Education is important for everybody and since ST and SCs figure with lowest literacy percentage they should be given reservation.
Education is important for everybody hence make sure there are more schools so that everybody can get free education. IOHEs should intake students solely based on merit.
2) The higher cast are monetarily better off hence have other resources to benifit from while preparing for exams for these insitutions.
Now this is one thing that comes up very regularly. I strongly oppose this statement. First, Its not always that higher cast people are monetarily better off and have better resources. If you want to help the poorer people act at a more basic level i.e. have reservations for economically backward groups (EBG) and not socially backward (SBG) ones.
Infact, I can go ahead and say that if you do have to give reservations then it should be for people coming from villages. This is so because I feel its not money but the resources which affect preparation to enter into these IOHE. And even the the EBGs in cities have access to better resources than rich people in village.
But inspite of all this I feel these people should be helped with resources and money rather than just giving reservation to them. Take all the groups of the scoiety to a level ground and after that it should be competition. The way its being done now, the country gets worser engineers, doctors and researchers and the brighter ones get bogged down. I would say it also affects the brighter students among the reserved castes. I am sure they would not work as hard if they know their chances of getting into these institutions is very high.
** Also I would argue that its a general trend that ST and SCs are always economically more backward. Actually Ithink its funny for a such a statement to arise in a country like India where Ambani's, Premiji's and Tata's exist. Wow!! not one of them happens to be from higher cast.
3) Even after 60 years of reservation ST and SCs are still backward communities hence percentage of reservations should increase.
I will try to argue against this with two points. One, actually if you see there is a class of SCs and STs who have benifitted from these policies more than other. Take the case of the first generation who benifitted from these policies, the family has come up both socially and economicaly but the children still use these policies and are benifitted a great deal.
So within the reserved castes there is skewed competition. Obviously the huge percentage of reserved catogories are still backward because they have to compete with the developed half of their own for the reserved seats and no doubt they lose. So the ones who have benifitted from these policies long back are continuing to exploit it whereas the new ones can do nothing but just watch and ponder why even after so many steps by their lovable government they are still backward.
****I would have no problems with these reservation plicies if there is an added clause that if one or two generations of a family has benifitted from these pollicies then they are no longer eligible for reserved seats and jobs.
Second arguement is - yes, if something has not worked for 50 years dont you think that may be because there is inherently a flaw in the policy or its implementation and we should try to find that out rahter than still conitnuing it.
I dont know about all of you out there but I seriously get very upset with the whole thing beacuase I can not voice my opinions in a valid forum where somebody hears to them and answers me. Please leave comments about this situation, write your own opinions and may be later these can be compiled and sent over to some better forum.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
"Hey, nobody died!! "
I am talking about the last test match between India and England at Mumbai. Yes, Dravid chooses to ball first, Tendulkar failed twice, Dhoni played what may be termed as the worst possible shot in that situation, and the famed Indian batting order collapsed in 15 overs after lunch.
The Indian fans and journalists take out Indian cricket team's obitury. Sachin Tendulkar was booed!! And such a hue and cry was raised all for a small game of cricket and that too a not so significant match....
Just to put things in perspective, lets go back to WC 1999. Yes, I am going to talk about the greatest ODI match ever played. The semi-finals between Australia and SA. Lance Klusener who had till then played as if he is GOD took SA to all but one run from victory when Donald was run out going for the winning run. Match was tied and SA was out of the World Cup in which arguably they had been the best team. Forget all that, there was one person who didnt deserve to be on any losing side that world cup - Lance Klusener. And in the post match conferance when journalists were waiting for some philosophical statement from the dejected Lance guess what he says - "Hey, nobody died!!"
I guess the fans also should realise it is after all just a game. Enjoy it while it goes on and then forget about it.
The Indian fans and journalists take out Indian cricket team's obitury. Sachin Tendulkar was booed!! And such a hue and cry was raised all for a small game of cricket and that too a not so significant match....
Just to put things in perspective, lets go back to WC 1999. Yes, I am going to talk about the greatest ODI match ever played. The semi-finals between Australia and SA. Lance Klusener who had till then played as if he is GOD took SA to all but one run from victory when Donald was run out going for the winning run. Match was tied and SA was out of the World Cup in which arguably they had been the best team. Forget all that, there was one person who didnt deserve to be on any losing side that world cup - Lance Klusener. And in the post match conferance when journalists were waiting for some philosophical statement from the dejected Lance guess what he says - "Hey, nobody died!!"
I guess the fans also should realise it is after all just a game. Enjoy it while it goes on and then forget about it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)