Nazia Hassan - An Internalized Tribute

What can you say about a thirty-five-year-old lady who died ? That she was beautiful... And as an untrained singer... brilliant.

She burst unsuspectingly on the sub-continent musical pysche at a tender age of 13. Still a schoolgirl, she sang the famous Aap jaisa koi mere Zindagi mein aaye for Feroz Khan's Qurbani.. This song propelled the movie in the top league..The song stayed on the top of the Binaca Geetmala for 14 consecutive weeks & won Nazia her only Filmfare award.

Next year, she teamed up with her brother Zoheb to cut an Album Disco Dewane. This album zoomed to the top of the charts and became an anthem of teeny boomers. The entire class of ours had a collective crush on her. The LP record of hers was the hottest gift item in the early Eighties.

What is amazing that her records sold entirely on word of mouth or rather snatch of ear. Remember there were no publicity vehicles like Video albums, sms, Internet or PR team backing the album. It was the good ole times of Vivid Bharti (A.I.R).

Slowly Nazia receded from our memory till we heard she is getting married..we wished her well.. Then came a rumour of her being afflicted by cancer which sadly turned out to be true. She passed away in Aug' 2000.

Her parents and brother have created a Nazia Hassan foundation, which strives to provide for destitute children and women while promoting harmony between different cultures, traditions and beliefs.

Business Baazigar

Have watched 2 Episodes of Business Baazigar, touted as India's answer to The Apprentice. Well the similarity ends here...

What could have been an innovative effort at indigenisation is entirely wasted. The participants portray a lost-in-transit look. With hardly a display of Street Smart attitude or Photogenic looks, the first impression is quite bland. This reinforces my belief that as Indians, we indeed have a long way to go in being a serious contender for T.V reality shows..

Offcourse Business Baazigar doesn't exactly qualify as a reality show on the lines of The Survivor but recall the much hyped Indianized version of AXN's Dare to Win , hosted by Mike Whitney and Tania Zaetta. The viewership naturally went kaput as one cringed at having to watch catching runaway chickens, twirling hula hoops or crossing puddles being passed off as hair raising stunts. Recall another much hyped challenge of National Geographic's Mission Everest for the urban dwellers to reach the Base Camp of Mount Everest..

Coming back to Business Baazigar, one is befuddled by the choice of Cyrus Sahukar as an anchor. He is anyday better off playing Piddhu or Simi Girebaal. While The Apprentice has a firm voiceover of Donald Trump narrating the travails of its participants here with Cyrus narrating, the effect is a MTVisque ring to it...

Worst is the choice of Judges... Mr Subhas Chandra completely looks out of place.

While The Apprentice has the taut aura of Board Room tension, the Indian version ends up looking like a bunch of Pre-schoolers being summoned by the Principal. The net effect is akin to Kaun Banega Crorepati Vs Jeeto Chappar Phaad ke ..

Will discuss the choice of 'Ideal Judges' for the anticipated Star TV version of The Apprentice, in a later post.

Am Back !!

After a hiatus, am back...Wanted to get the post worthy latent ideas out of my system but cannot help surrendering to the accumulative pressure ....