Incredible Indian Pop Musical Discovery 12/3/2010

Indian pop Music! I've been reading this Indian indie music blog lately: IndieDecision, which is where I found this gem with a fantastic name: Susheela Raman

Stream "Raise Up" here.

Download the free EP here. You will need to download WinRar here to uncompress.

Malayalam Alternative Rock!

I love Kerala food. But one item I never really developed a taste for is Avial. Now, however, I may change my mind.

Last week I discovered a blog that covers the indie music scene, especially in India. Today's entry mentioned a malayalam Indie band in passing.

Malayalam rock? Really? Intrigued, I looked them up. At the time I'm posting this entry, I've listened only to "Nada Nada", it's a quality track. I've posted a couple more songs below. Enjoy.

NADA NADA:


CHEKELE:


ADU PAMBE:

Speaking of Fast Food--Mad Paratha skills!

Just in case you don't know what a paratha is, click here.

Bollywood meets the Beatles?

I just discovered a new band today called Goldspot, via the excellent Indian, specifically ABCD, blog Sepia Mutiny

I'm really eager to see how they "brought sexy back to the harmonium."

It seems that they are on the verge of stardom: one of their songs was featured on an Apple IPad commercial.

Anyway, here are a couple samples, one from the above linked SM article, and one bonus. Enjoy:

"Friday"


"Call Center Girl"

Diverse Mallus

In this edition of Diverse Mallus, may I present Giju John, a electric engineer by night, and a world class Hindi Salsa performer by day. Or is it the other way around?

From Sepia Mutiny

Fascinated by the salsa dancers at night clubs in downtown San Jose, he started taking classes several nights a week. He was so good that his instructors, members of SalsaMania, a Bay Area dance group, invited him to join their professional team and compete in the US, Europe, and Mexico. This was back in 2001.

Today, John has a successful solo Hindi/salsa career. By way of the San Jose Mercury News:

John loved making microchips tick, but he loved his dancing, too. He remembered the Indian dance steps he learned as a boy. He noodled around, adding them to salsa steps and coming up with his own Hindi/salsa genre. He’s left Salsamania for a solo career. Yes, a Hindi/salsa solo career. Why not? John was in Silicon Valley - a place with a prominent Latino population and tens of thousands of Indians and Indo-Americans. He produced a CD, “Rang Rangeeli Yeh Duniya,” … It is a CD of Hindi language songs set to the pulse of salsa, cha-cha and rap. He shot a music video. He launched a start-up, Beyond Dreamz, to produce his music. And he continued to focus on the reliability of the next generation of Intel chips.

In February, John spent five weeks traveling through India offering Hindi/salsa dance workshops and promoting the genre and himself. But he didn’t take vacation.

“During the day I’d go around and do my salsa workshops,” he says, “at night I’d log onto my network.” He says his bosses are very understanding.

Man, I'm boring.

Where on earth is Matt

By now, I'm sure everyone and their dog has seen this guy and his videos. He's been around for a while now, and I've seen him a lot in the last few years. He's apparently just released a whole slew of new videos of his travels (aside: how great would it be to finance your world travels by dancing a little jig every where you go?).

The reason I'm posting this one is that the music on this one is fantastic. Sepia Mutiny tells me that it's sung in Bengali, and is an Indian poem. The singer is a high school senior from Minneapolis, who has been catapulted to fame because of this. It's the #6 downloaded song on Amazon, surpassing other very notable songs.

Enjoy.

KP Yohannan in trouble?

Edit, February 14, 2014: Thanks to reader Bill Kendrick, no wrongdoing has been found.  See here for details. http://www.believerschurch.com/investigation-report-home-ministry-india-government/

As this is a very old post, I did not know until reading Mr. Kendrick's email. As such, I am deleting my comments and just leaving the original article.

J.


Source

Kerala bishop's trust in legal trouble
10 Jun 2008, 0311 hrs IST,Ananthakrishnan G,TNN

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Bishop K P Yohannan, a popular evangelist in Kerala, is in trouble with the law. A preliminary inquiry by the intelligence department of Kerala police casts doubts on how a trust he runs spent a massive Rs 900 crore of donations from abroad.

The trust, according to reports, received Rs 1044 crore since 1995 from Texas-based Gospel for Asia apparently for charitable purposes but had spent only Rs 144 crore towards this purpose. No satisfactory explanation was given on how the rest of the amount was spent, police said.

The matter is now pending with the state home department which is said to be considering a detailed probe. Any inquiry would necessitate central assistance as it involves money from abroad which falls in the purview of the Reserve Bank of India.

Yohannan is the founder president of the Gospel for Asia and the Believer's Church, both of which enjoy huge assets bases. What has raised eyebrows is that most of the trusts floated by Yohannan has on its board his family members. The trust, sources claimed, had recently purchased 40 acres of paddy fields in Pathanathitta district and filled it up to evade the Land Reforms Act.

Also under the lens is a land transaction worth Rs 130 crore said to have been undertaken by the trust some months back. The Church, however, denied the charges and claimed that its working was transparent.

Jana Gana Mena

Some really cool versions of the Indian National Anthem. More may be posted.