A few weeks ago, in a pocket of India remembered only by scuba-diving tourists, Boa Sr spoke her last words. With her passing, the Great Andamanese of India’s far-flung Andaman islands lost more than a member of their tribe. They lost – we lost – the last living speaker of Bo, their native tongue and – what should have been for the rest of us – a national treasure.

Besides a few stray newspaper articles, little was said about this unspeakable loss. Maybe no words remain to describe it. Had it been Sanskrit that died, it would have been felicitated with a mausoleum of eulogies.

There are some that do not mourn the death of languages; instead they choose to celebrate such demises claiming that they serve to unite the world. And there are some who are at seemingly endless war over languages – over the right to speak them and the right to prevent them from being spoken.

India has 26 official languages among a total of 452 listed by The Ethnologue, along with thousands of dialects. Our northern states were not divided on the basis of language but in southern India, language was the factor that drew the tenuous borders between Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, and set Tamil Nadu apart from Kerala, and Orissa from Andhra. While all of these states have a good mix of speakers of all languages and immigrant communities that have lived there and integrated into the society and economy far longer and far deeper than some of the locals, the officialdom associated with language draws a sharp wedge between people. As we read this, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra are bowing to these divisive forces.

In Bangalore, for instance, Tamil-speaking labourers have consistently been targeted while the largest population of non-Kannada speakers – those who speak Telugu – carry on un-maligned. With the recent migration of people from the north Indian states into Karnataka, auto-rickshaw drivers have started to speak Hindi even before they utter a phrase in Kannada. Yet, their resentment of them is unmasked. On the other hand, pro-Kannada groups are pressing demands for reservation and fuelling anti-English agitations.

Our languages, considered by the awestruck outside world as a testimonial to our diversity, are today the fault-lines along which our society is being divided. Who are the real instigators of this divide – the passive people or the hyperactive political mafia?

In the trained tongues of scholars, language becomes a sharp tool for enlightenment and social integration. In the loose tongues of knaves, it degenerates into a blunt weapon.

At the One Small Love concert on February 14, Saswati Chakravarty, former senior editor of The Economic Times and an ardent Bangalorean, examined the question of language as a tool of cultural assimilation.

Saswati arrived 25 years ago in Bangalore from Kolkata (then Calcutta). Though she did not feel like an outsider in the city that “accepted differences”, she learned Kannada and explored theatre, film and music in the native language of her adopted city.

But did her learning Kannada make her an insider? Does knowing to speak Kannada give her a feeling of empowerment? Through this process of assimilation, what happened to the Bengali in her? Can the notions of language and culture be used interchangeably as they often are today?

Where do we draw the line? And who will draw it?

Watch the video for an enlightening perspective from this acclimated Bangalorean.

Discuss the issue of language here.

The post Free Speech is music to our ears – Saswati draws the line appeared first on Thermal and a Quarter (TAAQ).

For some people it was a lonely Valentine’s Day. And this goes out especially to them.

When we played in Pune last year we decided we weren’t going back without cake and cookies from the famous German Bakery. Enjoying them in Bangalore the next day, we didn’t foresee having to reflect on that simple pleasure like this.

Terror could have struck then as it did on the night of February 13, 2010. But we lived to write this. And we shall make the most of the life and joy granted to us.

It is somewhat edifying that we were able to reach out to Pune on February 14. Opus Pune webcast the One Small Love concert live to its patrons.

Thank you for turning up (and turning down your other Valentine’s Day engagements) and for your support and encouragement right through this initiative.

Foremost, our thanks go to the fabulous folks at Trumpit and Opus – Carlton, Shonali, Priyanka, Venkat, Adrian and all the staff whose names fail us but whose smiling faces fill our minds when we recollect that lovely evening. Thank you for event support, your gracious hospitality and for making our artists and guests feel at home at Opus in the Creek, such a tranquil setting with its giant Buddha and tippling fish.

Thank you Konarak Reddy, Gerard Machado, Ravichandra Kulur, Alwyn Fernandes, Gaurav Vaz and Karan Joseph for your soul-stirring performances. A special thanks to Vasu, Varun, Jishnu, Montry, Pavan and Sanjeev, the awesome musicians of Swarathma, for playing a pulse-quickening show. In a market where live performances can hardly pay the bills, these wonderful people unquestioningly played for love.

For making the One Small Love concert a resounding success we thank Niranjan, the man at the soundboard whose admirable patience with the tantrums of rock stars is legend.

Thanks to Saswati Chakravarty, C K Meena, Prakash Belawadi and Harish Bijoor for articulating their special messages to our audience because rock stars (with the notable exception of Gaurav Vaz) are so pathetic at making speeches.

For his time-saving and completely impromptu comic interlude, a whopper of a thank-you goes out to our friendly neighbourhood Bollywood star-in-the-making Rajeev Ravindranathan.

Thanks to Merwyn Rodrigues of JumpMedia, Dubai, who accepted a brief that few designers would, and delivered a poster and profile image for our Facebook page in just a few hours.

We thank Smita and the very talented and even-tempered folks at Kieon for online support and web design.

Thanks to Kartik Iyer, Praveen Das and the beautiful minds at Happy Creative Services for dreaming up the original One Small Love music video. Special thanks also to Ashvin Naidu of Avakkai Films.

Thank you, PG Santhosh and his colleagues at MIPL-GraphicsAllAround, for the One Small Love giveaway stickers and for the big yellow smiley that graced the stage throughout the show.

Thank you, Gaurav Manchanda, for being Ayrton Senna to our guests when the cab guys ditched us at the eleventh hour.

We thank Dean Umesh PN, professors Srijayanth and Ananth and research fellow Bindu of the TAAQ Roadie Institute of Technology (RIT) for running the show like a smoothie, and especially for committing themselves to the odious task of filming people drawing smileys under hot lights.

We are immensely grateful to Facebook and WordPress for their fabulous (and free) online products, which make social messaging and online publishing look ridiculously easy. Ten years ago, we would have struggled to drum up opt-in support for an event like this. This year, we didn’t phone a single journalist.

In the same breath, we thank Facebook evangelists such as Martin D’Souza for spreading the message of One Small Love to their networks. Thanks also to the 1,300+ fans of the One Small Love page for your endorsement of this movement. You have a lot to look forward to.

We have had many managers and we love and respect all of them. But no one merits a bigger ovation than Divya Joseph, who deserves a lifetime royalty from Adidas for living the slogan ‘Impossible is Nothing’. The list of things she deserves to be thanked for cannot be accommodated here, so let just it be said that she was the smile on the face of One Small Love.

Thanks to Velu Shankar, a long-time friend, philosopher and guide of Thermal And A Quarter, for his advice and encouragement.

One Small Love begins at home. Our families deserve our utmost love and gratitude for their support and suffering in the face of our absences, late nights and many missed dinners. Since this suffering, and our solicitations for support, are not about to stop in the near future, we thank you in advance.

The show must go on, no matter what threats loom up to stop us. And we will do everything in our power as musicians and artists to fight violence and hate with messages of love, tolerance and freedom. To paraphrase Harry Belafonte: “You can cage the singer but not the song.”

The concert is only the beginning. In the future that is about to unfold, One Small Love will reach out to the world in many ways and touch many lives.

Let’s draw the line each day.

The post One Big Thankyou appeared first on Thermal and a Quarter (TAAQ).

High up in the blogosphere, a certain journalist has taken exception to two parts of the song title: ‘Shut Up’ and ‘Vote’.

His first blog post, titled ‘On Dumb Editors… and Dumber Rockers’ accused TAAQ’s anthem of being ‘exceedingly stupid’. We popped in to say our bit. Over the last couple of days, the conversation did hot up and today, he has a fresh new post where he snipes at TAAQ again.

Sauvik Chakraverti writes:

TAAQ confessed to having composed their song “Shut Up And Vote” in response to a “brief.” In journalism, we call this a “command performance.” As I said, this song is not from the heart nor from the mind. It is just an ad jingle – and a rude one at that. It cannot work. You cannot compose a jingle that says “Shut Up And Drink Coca-Cola.”

Our response: You can (in a bottle or in a can). And lots of people are doing that. But we won’t. And not just because we like our cola with rum.

A command performance, indeed! You wish!

Let’s get this straight. The Jaago Re One Billion Votes campaign is a citizen initiative spearheaded by the voluntary organization Janaagraha along with Tata Tea. If we were singing this anthem for a particular political party, the blogger’s accusation would hold water (or cola, or whatever). But what’s dumb about speaking out along with like-minded, progressive citizens, and what’s dumb about persuading young people to participate in electing our leaders?

Now, Mr. Chakraverti comes across as a reasonably intelligent, articulate sort of chap but, like many of his kind that we know of, his views are clouded with pessimism and this, in our observation, is nothing new to this creed of non-participants. And that’s what we tried to remind him about.

Go to the coffee shops and watering holes and pot parlours of the world and you will find plenty of them – bottom-feeders that drink deep but taste not the spring of citizenship. What we have exhorted the youth to do through this song is participate in the electoral process, to exercise their  right as citizens. That, Mr. Chakraverti, is a necessary first step. Before crying foul, before finding fault with the system, or even before poking holes where none existed.

Through this song and through this series of concerts, we urge the youth: Do not stand back and submit to pessimism and inertia. Participate as citizens. Idle debate is no good unless you have exercised your right to bring in change. Ok, you know and we know that the system sucks. You know and we know that even this time round, we cannot do away with corruption. You know and we know that the usual suspects may share power again. But all of that said, your inertia is not a fitting response. It will take us nowhere and will only leave us more frustrated at the way things are.

We’ll write another song for the cynic and the pessimist and the non-voting beefburger (haven’t we, already?). When it’s time.

Until then, shut up and vote.

Et tu, Mr. Chakraverti!

The post Shut Up? Vote? Or none of the above? appeared first on Thermal and a Quarter (TAAQ).