3 Idiots
3 Idiots
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Country of Contradictions
India is the land of paradox and contradictions: ostentatious wealth and extreme poverty, deep-rooted tradition and modernity, religion and secular consumerism. Although this isn’t quite related to Bollywood, I wanted to comment on this conflict that I found omnipresent in Mumbai and around the nation. Every time I am impressed by how progressive Mumbai seems to have become, I am reminded just how much this modernity does not permeate the whole of the city and of the nation. It is still very much a country still learning how to straddle its classes and its worlds. It is common for people in Mumbai to have a daily maid who does the cleaning, cooking, washing etc. The standard monthly rate the maids charge is 1500 rupees, roughly $30. It is also common to possess a driver that can navigate the mean streets of Mumbai. He is always on call, and can work late in the night and early in the morning for hours on end. His standard monthly rate is about 7000 rupees, or $155. Then I think of the top restaurants and nightclubs in the city, where a standard drink can cost $20 and entry $60. Lakme Fashion Week draws international designers and the Indian Premier League draws international cricket stars in a nation where baby-throwing festivals still exist in the rural villages. People sleep in the streets outside of Shilpa Shetty’s new club named, unpretentiously, “Royalty,” and Fashion Week spends 10 million rupees on alcohol alone for the Grey Goose Lounge.
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What You Hear Is What You Read
I recently came across an organization called PlanetRead that completely captured my heart, and I am so excited about the work they are doing to improve literacy in India. There are 900 million illiterate people in the world, and 1/3 of those people, 300 million, live in India. According to UNICEF, 66% of India’s population is illiterate. I was acutely aware of India’s literacy problem and its implications for the socioeconomic development of the country, however I was still surprised to hear the explanation of Dr. Larry Brilliant, Executive Director for Google.org, in reference to the undeniable urgency of a literate nation. He explained that if you do a multiple logistic regression analysis and you put all of the variables in trying to explain what is the single most important factor in determining whether a child will live or die past the age of 5, it isn’t water or vaccinations, but the literacy of that child’s mother.
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India is a Melody
You just can’t escape it. It’s in the streets, in the stores, in the taxis, in the blood of the people that call India their home. Music pervades every inch of this city, from the pavement to the palaces, and for many, it’s the lifeblood that propels them towards another day.
I came here to explore the impact of Bollywood, the billion-dollar industry and musical export heard the world over. Five years ago, Bombay possessed only a handful of nightclubs, each pulsating with Hindi film songs and Bollywood dance moves, the Bombay Romeos purring lyrics from their favorite hits. I was surprised however to find a contemporary Bombay quite different from the one I had known. Globalization brought to Bombay German cars and Japanese electronics, Italian food and New York styles. It also brought a completely revolutionized music scene that represents a new generation of Indians. In the Bombay of today, there are dozens of nightclubs spread all throughout the city and a new wave of genres that cater to a new class of Indians. With the explosion of new media and nouveau rich Indians traveling the globe came new styles of music reserved exclusively for an upper class society that separates them from the common folk. I’m discovering that amongst other things, music is a major representation of the vast socioeconomic class divide that pervades the city.
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The Festival of Lights
Christmas came early this year as the lights of the holiday merged with the fireworks of the Fourth of July during my first Diwali in India. I celebrated Diwali in Delhi, where I visited extended family and friends that I haven’t seen in years. Diwali is known as the “festival of lights,” or spiritually, the “awareness of inner light.” Hindus believe that there is something beyond the physical state of being which is eternal and infinite, called the Atman. › Continue reading
Up to four awards will be available to pursue projects around an aspect of international contemporary or popular music as a cultural force for expression. Preference will be given to creative projects that are conveyed in a dynamic fashion and are accompanied by a feasible plan. In addition to presenting unique projects on music as a global force for mutual understanding. Deadline to apply is March 1, 2012.