Rama sethu-aerial shot

History or 'His'-story
So, we got a new historian to teach us 'Ramayana'. Karunanidhi with his thoughtful comments questioning the existence of Lord Rama has added another chapter to his efforts towards national integration. He even asked 'which university did Rama get his civil engineering degree from'. Going by this comment, we can very well guess that all the egyptians, Romans and the guys who built Taj Mahal must have got their engineering degree from Anna university. And as a result of his worthy comments, the saffron army went on rampage and attacked his daughter's house and also torched a Tamilnadu transport corporation bus. After the incident, Karunanidhi commented that these incidents showed the culture of Ram sevaks. Talking about culture and such acts of goondaism, Karunanidhi has proved his mettle in this field too. Not many have forgotten his men's tirade against sun tv, which resulted in the death of some people. Also, DMK men been regularly torching buses and unleashing violence on the streets, from time immemorial.

Am not supporting the attackers in anyway. But Karunanidhi has no right to talk about the attacks. Its his own inflammatory comments that resulted in this backlash. For a long time, he been muscling the central government with his MP strength into doing things in Tamilnadu's own selfish interests. Its no secret that the DMK ministers at the centre been exclusively serving their state. Serving ones own place is understandable, but sometimes this has crossed limits to damaging the interests of neighbouring states. For eg, in the Salem division issue, they took away more than 500 Kms from the Palakkad division and gave back just 59kms, that too from the metre guage portion of madurai division, which will only add to kerala's woes. They were not even ready to give that. Now, they are planning to cripple the Trivandrum division by taking away nagercoil from under its jurisdiction. Another recent issue is the Mullaperiyar dam, where Tamil nadu stood adamant on its stand to raise the height of the dam, even after it was scientifically proved that the move will cause serious damage to the life of lakhs of people in Kerala. Such high handedness and arrogance from ministers at the centre is a violation of the Indian constitution. It also will cause serious damage to India's unity. One should never forget that we are all Indians first, state borders shouldn't be turned into LOCs.

Now back to the Sethusamudhram issue. The Rama setu[or Adam's bridge, as the non Indians call it] may or maynot be man-made. If its man made as the Hindu organisations claim, it is certainly a thing that should be preserved under the archeological laws of India. And if it is not man made[natural], as the 'well-educated' historian Karunanidhi claims, then also it should be preserved as it may be to serve some purpose. Last week, some scientist was claiming that this bridge could've been a factor in reducing the effect of tsunami in the Kerala coast. Am not sure, how much of this is true. But still, destroying the bridge could produce certain negative effects on the ecology like damaging the coral reefs and affecting the small sea creatures. The Sethusamudhram project is aimed at reducing the shipping time by a few hours. Other than this, it serves no purpose. So destroying a historical or natural formation, spending a mammoth amount of tax payer's money is out of the question.

And Karunanidhi would do well to give his tongue some rest. The same goes with arrogant ministers like T.R.Balu...Also Mr.Karu should brush up his history lessons. Making unguarded comments against Rama, whom the whole of India reveres and who is considered as the perfect human being can cause serious backlashes which may even result in Karu's head rolling on the ground. People still worship Rama even thousands of years after he walked or the face of earth[or belived to have walked]. Karunanidhi is in the evening of his life and his name will be forgotten within 10 years from his death. And 'his'-story would die with that. But not real 'history'.

your crusader Praveen

Rage- Making Chennai bang
Yeah..am at it again. Writing another concert review. After I wrote the report on Motherjane concert, someone commented, ''That is the most Amateurish write-up that I have read in my whole life about a concert''. So, here is another amateurish stuff on an awesome band coming your way.

Rage, the band been ruling the kerala metal kingdom for sometime. No one played the way they played their covers. Over the years, they've built up a legion of fans all over the state. And it was just a matter of time before they crossed the boundaries of the state and won fans beyond the borders. And cross they did... with a majestic show at Madras Christian College[MCC]. As we all know, MCC is a place where almost all the top bands in India have performed at some point or the other. And, so Rage getting a call to play at this very same venue is a matter of pride to its loyal fans down here. So, we [me, raja, nikhil, pappu, jk] decided to go with the band to chennai.

We reached there on Saturday morning, the day of the concert. The campus, with its vast greenery blew us away. In the morning itself, Biju chettan and pramod chettan were called upto judge some acoustic competition. The other rage fans like govindan potty arrived in the afternoon. The soundcheck started around 3 30. And tell you one thing, the whole sound system was a piece of shit. The band had a hard time getting a presentable sound out of it. The soundcheck took close to 2 hours to complete. After the soundcheck, the local band Udaan performed. It played some Hindi rock stuff, somewhat like 'jal'. The band got ample support from their home crowd. It was over in less than 30 minutes, and now it was time for the all out attack from our very own RAGE.

The crowd was slowly building up when the band got on stage. Most of them preferred to sit in the gallery at the back. Only a few were standing in the front. And then, rage started the blast with '2 minutes to midnight'. In 2 minutes, the whole scene at the grounds changed. People were rushing to the front and banging their heads in tandem. The crowd was composed mainly of guys from the north east, whom we all affectionately call 'chinkis'. In recent times, the Chennai scene was dominated mostly by funksih bands. And Rage was a whiff of fresh air for them, as one of the students there told me. Biju Chettan was the most active on stage, running around, jumping and displaying all his 'Dickinson inspired' mannerisms. Abi chettan and Pramod chettan competed with each other in coming right to the front and proudly giving a wavy display of their long locks. Nithin Chettan preferred to let his guitar do all the talking, cutting out all the show off. Mithun chettan was all smiles as he attacked the drums with all his might.

The sound system was the one bad element in the whole show and any other band would have wilted under the pressure, but not Rage. The guitar lead parts were getting somewhat drowned because of the improper mixing and the sound system's limitations. The S & M version of 'one' gave keyboardist Biji his own time under the spotlight. It was all going along well until Nithin chettan's cable got separated from the processor towards the end. It happened when he, in a spirited mood, tried to come on to the front seeing the frenzied crowd. And, for a minute Pramod chettan's guitar[the processor was having a bad tone], the keyboard and the drums were the only things audible. But, they somehow pulled it back and ended it. Another untoward incident was the breaking of Nithin chettan's string towards the end of 'Master of puppets' lead. Barring these two incidents, there were not much human errors to speak about. And that is a huge credit to the band, since the whole show happened in trying conditions of sweltering heat and a sound system that could boast of nothing.

They also belted out 'Holy wars', 'aces high', 'back in black', 'gets me through', 'caught somehwhere in time'. The crowd were screaming out the names of all their favorite songs especially from Maiden and Metallica. Maybe, they thought that this would be their only chance to hear such near perfect covers which even the original bands themselves find difficult to perform on stage. Some nu metal fans were obviously in the audience as there were calls for 'killing in the name of', 'toxicity' etc. The crowd had a great time swaying to all the songs. Biju chettan and abi chettan played their part in bringing the crowd to its feet. Biju Chettan even hurled a bottle full of mineral water at the audience, a really thoughtful move considering the crowd who were getting tired with constant screaming, banging and jumping. And, so the show came to an end by 7pm, which was the time limit set by the college authorities. After that, there was the band interview with SS music, which also covered the entire show. Those who missed the live show should try to catch them on SS music sometime soon.

Thus, Rage has made a mark outside the state too. Hope many more big concerts come their way in the near future. Best of luck to the godfathers of metal in Trivandrum...rock on RAGE..\\m//

your crusader Praveen

God's Own countries
Haven't written anything in a while. Been busy with onam, mainly eating, hanging out and visiting relatives. So, I thought I'll post something here today. And here it is, a song that I wrote some weeks back. Our band was having a practice session without our drummer. So we decided to do some funny acoustic stuff. And our bassist Mahadevan came up with this idea of ''God's own countries'', about kerala and guys like us...and thus this song happened. Since we din't record the song properly, the song can't be uploaded here. As an onam special, am posting the lyrics here.

***God's Own countries***
We were born to rule the world
With not a care for the ways of the herd
It may all sound so weird
But we sure will burn you red.

We ride the boats of freedom
Our lips taste the smelly toddy
We search for lips to share the taste
But we end up sharing more.

So you hear our words coz we r writing this
The song of nothing.
The song of nothing

We r the god's own countries

We spit fire..
We ride the storm..
We kill the flies..
We r the god's own countries...
We r the god's own countries...


Once we believed in those grandma tales
where white clad damsels ruled the roost
Now we write our own stories
Ready to end up in history..

We have the world at our feet
Ready to bang to our beat
We never tasted defeat
So this is for you to repeat...

We spit fire..
We ride the storm..
We kill the flies..
We r the god's own countries...
We r the god's own countries...



Thanks for reading that load of crap.....Happy onam to everybody

your crusader Praveen