'Call'-ing Rock Fans...

The television set has conked out. My brother turned it off when he saw me dozing off, while watching it last night and now I can not seem to turn it on at all. If this does not get sorted out through repairs or replacements that are covered by the warranty, which has fortunately not run out as yet, I am going to be back to the pre-television era for an indefinite period (i.e. until I find a source of employment).

While I ruminate on all this and even as a return to the dark ages appears imminent, I reminisce about the sights and sounds that have reached me through what some refer to as the 'idiot box' and what has been my window to the world on long insomnia-filled nights over the past few months.

Even though I have been flipping through a lot of channels to escape the omni-channel-present commercial breaks, I have been watching quite a lot of music videos on MTV India. It is quite a treat to watch these at night as my tastes seem to vary quite a bit from the general public in India, on whose demand more of songs from the latest Hindi movies are aired than anything else, during the day time, on this channel.

Among the new arrivals on the musical scene in the sub-continent, two have been of particular interest to me. One is the Pakistani rock-band that call themselves, well, 'Call', and the other is an Indian artiste called Sidharth.

The Indian artiste's single called 'Panch Tatva' (the five elements) that is often on air has beautiful lyrics that say something to the effect that all human beings are made of the five elements and therefore, there should be no cause for strife amongst them. The video is also rather nice and shows the artiste walking on a beach, while singing the song. I am glad that some among Indian Rock- and Pop-stars still have the confidence to create a music video that does not have any semi-nude female models gyrating in the back-ground.

As for 'Call', they make good rock-music and can even conjure up some passionate songs in the galaa-phaad style (singing as if they aim to cause their throats to be torn apart!), a la Bon Jovi and Aerosmith or perhaps even AC/DC. Out of the three odd music videos from their album Jilawatan that are on air these days, Shayad is the one I like the most. It is a lovely song and has a strong social message as well.

What I do not comprehend though is the reason for choosing the name that the band-members have chosen for the band. I am sure they could have come up with a better one that would be more apt and do more justice to their talent.

They said in an interview that they chose it because 'Call' is the English translation of the Urdu word Pukaar. I would vote for the Urdu version any day!