An Apple to an(other) Apple

My obsession with ‘apple’ continues. Taking from where I had left in the previous edition of Jijnasa, the curious case of ‘apple’ gets even more curious. Few days ago I was driving back home piercing through the heavenly rain drops when something from the music system of my car struck me: “Tu chanda mein chandni, tu taruvar mein shakh re....”from the 1970 movie “Reshma aur Shera”. For a while I allowed myself to keep inhaling in a half-conscious state the rhythms, the words, the music that very succinctly brought out the ingenuity of the trio Lata Mangeshkar, Jaidev and Kavi Balkavi Bairagi. I am sure any music lover would say Lata ji could only have done justice to the beautiful composition by Jaydev and to the imagination penned down by Balkavi Bairagi. The moving frames of a desert landscape where Wahida Rahman in traditional rajasthani attire sneaked out of her house for a waiting Sunil Dutt danced in front of my eyes. Before I could get further into the grip of the song, something else got superimposed on my captivation. And guess what, the next moment I was comparing a seasoned nightingale that Lata ji was with a thirteen-year-old child prodigy on the stage of the mega finale programme of the reality show ‘meri awaaz suno’ in 1996- a certain young Sunidhi Chauhan. The mesmerized looks of Manna Dey, Bhupen Hazarika, Pt. Jashraj and Lata Mangeskar herself in the judges’ seats were just about enough to tell the story. I knew what I was thinking. But I somehow could not help that thought crossing my mind so judgementally. I was imagining an improbable thing and that was, may be a young Sunidhi Chauhan sang that song better than Lata ji did. For goodness sake and with a sense of unknown dismay, I locked up that thought only to myself. I would be declared either a paranoid or an obsessed soul if I had discussed this with anyone who understood music, even in passing. To tell you the truth I have spent hours listening to both renderings one line from Lata ji’s original song and then the same by Sunidhi on Youtube (whatever limited was/is available) and so on. I would end up convincing myself that Sunidhi’s rendering was more convincing. But then, what is the yardstick? Do I have a benchmark or a referral point on the basis of which I would draw a comparison? Well, pat comes the answer. Yes, that has/had to be Lata ji’s original number. However, that is beside the point. The point that I am trying to drive home here is why ‘comparisons’ become so invariably inevitable. We agree, we disagree, we fight, we scream, we argue and we do what-not. Logic goes for a toss. Reasoning is rendered quickly meaningless. We go to any possible extent to defend our views over the others’ sending merit and context to the back burner. Let alone an ‘apple to apple’ comparison. We don’t even let go an apple to orange one. A dear friend of mine received a shock of his life when I very subtly placed before him my thoughts about the song ‘tu chanda mein chandni’ and he without dropping an eyelid declared me crazy and my comparison as something like ‘an apple to a pumpkin’. I had all the reasons in the world to spitefully agree with him.

 Then the restiveness climbed up looking for an apple and yet another apple to pit against it. Frankly saying, I did not have to shed any sweat for that. A single press of the button to the trip down the memory lane took me straight to my college days. I would have shouted my lungs out in frenzied arguments (cannot qualify those to be called discussions) over Md. Rafi vs Kishore Kumar or an even more popular one Sachin Tendulkar vs. Brian Lara. We never cared for the unprecedented amount of respect that these legends command on their own rights. What we essentially used to get into was profoundly pronouncing our own limited knowledge of what they had achieved and pick up an argument and make it uglier than ugly. I would always claim that Md. Rafi sang the song ‘tum bin jaun kahan...’ from the 1969 hindi movie ‘pyar ka mausam’ better than Kishore Kumar. Some of my friends would pull out the audio cassette (those were the days of taped cassettes) and play both the songs. Post that, what would have been a discussion until then would turn into an argument. We would end up looking at the versatility of both the geniuses. My friend would pick Kishore-da’s songs of various genres and I would have my picks from Rafi sa’b’s renderings and a quiet evening would go into a noisy mid-night in no time. By the stroke of midnight we would have moved on to comparing Manna Dey and Pt. Bhimsen Joshi over the song “Ketaki Gulab Juhi...” from the 1956 movie Basant Bahar. And to everyone’s shock, I would have purposefully dragged Rafi sa’b’s classical number ‘madhuban mein radhika naache re...” from Kohinoor. The old monks by then would be in a panic room exploring further. Genre after genre in a free flow we would be in the grip of ghazals discussing Ghulam Ali, Mehdi Hasan, etc. Out of nowhere I would come up with ‘koyee saagar dil ko bahtlata nehin’ from the 1966 film ‘dil diya dard liya’ and then ‘kahin bekhayal ho kar’ from the 1965 movie ‘Teen Deviyan’ and further claim that Rafi was a better ghazal singer too, just to get my head banged by another friend declaring that ‘this guy is impossible... hence no point in discussing any further’.

 In a country like India where we all claim to be a better cricket pundit than any other one on the planet, any discussion on a comparison of Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara has a huge potential to get anywhere, literally anywhere. I reckon the amount of bandwidth that is spent on ‘statsguru’ at cricinfo.com may easily be second to none, not even pornography. Then we start abusing e/o saying- you know nothing about cricket....Lara has a 400 in a test inning and 500 in a first class inning to his name and Sachin does not even have a triple ton. Lara plays better under pressure and has won more matches for his team (very much like an ignorant Ponting did some time back). An ardent Sachin follower would blast back with a barrage of facts and figures. 20 out of 51 Sachin’s test centuries and 37.01% of career test runs have gone into winning cause where Lara has only eight tons and 24.50% of his runs to similar effect. So, who is a better match winner? Now the counter punch comes: well, sachin plays only for his records and is so selfishly holding onto his place in the team and he only cares for making more and more money. Boy, what is that? What about this- Lara played that 400 inning only to get back his record which was snatched away by certain Mat Hayden? There is nothing called giving away your place to anyone else in a professional sport. Other deserving players have to earn their places. That’s his profession and he has earned it through his hard work and talent. Why does someone’s thick wallet pinch me? Any argument on someone’s earning (if through fair means) does not make any sense whatsoever. Ok, let’s dump money here and move ahead with the discussion. Lara played better with tail-enders. Now, give me a break. The numbers tell me a different story altogether. By the way, what was Ponting trying to tell? During his tenure and against his own mighty bowling attack if one has scored 3060 runs in 29 matches at an average of 61.20 with 9 centuries and another scored 1453 runs in 16 matches at an average of 46.87 with 6 tons, who should he be losing more sleep over?

There was this mixed and confused sense of being counted and make things count, choosing which attitude to wear and which to let go, shackles which to be winged and which to be clipped, allowing oneself to go with the undefined flow or get judgmental....... I am sent into the grip of nostalgia. Needless to say those were the best days of life, when apple was just a fruit. Coming back to apples vs apples, our lives also tell a similar kind of tale. Don’t we have this tendency to think that others do less work than us? Don’t we get inclined to reckon that others are happier than us? If I get something, I always deserved that. And if someone contemporary to me gets that before I do, then he must be up to something. My views are always wiser than others. Doesn’t every generation think that it is smarter than the preceding one and more intelligent than the succeeding one? Time to wonder whether we see the apples in our mind’s eyes or do we see them in real !!! When we are a part of any system or order, each of us has a role to play so that the larger system that we are essentially a part of moves on as Durkheim would put it. For that to happen there must be a division (and dignity) of labour. Be it an apple or be it an orange.