Happy Birthday - Did You Know?

It is said that in 1893, two sisters who taught at a Kindergarten School in Kentucky – Mildred J. Hill and Patty Smith Hill (no connection to the more famous 70s rocker Patty Smith) – composed a melody they called ‘Good Morning to You’, which eventually evolved into the erstwhile ‘Happy Birthday’ song.

Chicago based music publisher Clayton F. Summy Company, working with a third Hill sister, Jessica, published and copyrighted ‘Happy Birthday’ in 1935. Under the laws in effect at the time, the Hills' copyright would have expired after one 28-year term and a renewal of similar length, falling into public domain by 1991. However, the Copyright Act of 1976 extended the term of copyright protection to 75 years from date of publication, and the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 added another 20 years, so under current law the copyright protection of ‘Happy Birthday’ will remain intact until at least 2030. More details here.

I didn’t know Happy Birthday had a Copyright to it. Also I don’t get the point.

Back Home

First conversation of the day :

Myself : "Dada jaaben? Salt Lake kotho?"

Dada (Pre-paid taxi driver) : "Aadhai-sho (Rs.250) taka. Maal neouar jonno extra"

Myself : "Dhaath moshai. Extra maane? Jaan jaabo naa"

Dada : "Arrey arrey daran daran. Aashun Boshun, kotha diye jaaben?"

Somethings in life don't change. Sometimes regular negativity can bring with it the familiar scent of home.

I arrived home a few hours back. After five long years. This time for good.

Today...

is officially the last day of college.

Cheers to everyone who made it, and to those who are yet to.

Project Clapton-Dylan

A few months back I was extremely jealous of a friend who had gone to London to intern, and during the course of her stay, managed to sneak herself into an Eric Clapton concert at Hyde Park. She was gracious enough to mail me about her experience. This had me trapped within extreme feelings of throttling her neck out of jealousy OR making love to her out of admiration. Neither is unflinchingly acceptable in sober human society and thus I refrained from expressing my true feelings; as usual.

Today a friend writes on his blog about meeting 'a man in a white suit' who had told us as far back as 1963 that the answer was blowing in the wind.

Fuck man!
Now I know people who've seen 2 of my biggest heroes. AND I haven't met either.

I've wriiten about Clapton on this space. Maybe someday I'll be able to write about Robert Zimmermann and his most famous incarnate that my bastard friend went to see - Cheers to you man, though I'll attempt to murder you with frantic queries about the performance the next time we meet.

Next major goal in life :
Find enough resources to drag my arse to London & New York to catch Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan live. Before either dies. I probably have 2, at the most 3 years to accomplish such a feat. Wish me luck.

This morning...

while glancing through photocopies of a batchmate's notes on International Humanitarian Law, I came across;

Art. 6 of the ICCPR : Guarantees the rt. to self detioration.

Kingdom of Heaven

I have always loved war movies. Don't get me wrong, I'm no war mongerer, or wisher of ill upon the masses. I just like them war movies. Especially because of the repeated emphatic and often cliched visualisations upholding values such as Strength, Honour and Truth.
War movies are of 2 kinds - I've seen many of both - ones depicting modern warfare, and others that tell of battles fought between armies with swords and spears.

I believe it takes a lot to kill a man(implying human - I guess I'm still a traditionalist in some senses), and the advent of modern warfare using missiles and bullets have only made it easier to commit the worst crime that man could ever commit.

Today I saw Kingdom of Heaven, a film that took me to The Crusades where men stood face to face holding extremely sharp objects that evidently could only be used at close range, and had to do with their bare hands what now can be accomplished by firing objects from a distance.
I believe if there could be right way to kill a man it would be through fair combat without any firearms. If weapons are required then shield, swords and spears must suffice.

Amongst the 2 kinds of war movies I mentioned earlier, it is the latter kind which I prefer, no matter how weak or overdone its story actually is. I would buy a Rs.100 theatre ticket just to watch one overtly passionated and tragically brilliant battle scene. I'm like that. I like these films that show heroes being born and raised not to become successful but to grow to be honourable, even if it might be at the cost of aforementioned success or one's own life.

In KoH, Lord Godfrey (Liam Neeson) tells his son Balian (Orlando Bloom) to "speak the truth even if must mean imminent death".
Much later Balian would go on to refuse becoming the heir to the throne of Jerusalem by decietful means, even though it meant avoiding war between the Christian forces and Saladin's. From where I stand, it is irrelevant whether Balian was right or wrong. What is important is the choice he made.

I'm not one who makes much of morality, nor do I act along the lines of such austere ideals in my daily life. But I still like to believe they exist, or rather existed.

ps: However, KoH seemed to me to be nothing out of the ordinary as a film. In fact, it has given me reason to believe that the makers of the film, know little about an entire community portrayed in the film. Namely the Muslims. For example, in the film every conversation between a Muslim and a Chirstian ended with the Islamic greeting "Assalah-walehkum, Walehkum-assalah". Even the ones between King Baldwin IV (Edward Norton) and Saladin, and also later between Balian and Saladin.
I had thought the same greeting was used at the beginning of a conversation and not at the end. The only defence - if any - that maybe extended to this folly is the fact that it is an American movie, made by Americans, and for Americans.

Of Social Networking

With the coming of the season's finale of college life, my batchmates are flooding each other's Facebook profiles with 'picture tag' notifications. That is, people have been gleefully clicking pictures of one another and putting them up before the entire virtual world to appreciate.

While I bear no reservations against such inane activities, I find myself a tad bemused by the entire concept. Especially in light of the rapid popularity of Web Portals such as Facebook, Orkut and the more recent Twitter - I found out about the last one through an article in The Hindu. Apparently even celebrities have started using these portals for their own publicity.

I find the concept of splurging one's personal memories before an unknown audience a little disturbing sometimes. I often wonder if the popularity of such mediums to broadcast one's daily/special affairs are a consequence of the world having shrunk/come closer or of having grown increasingly lonelier. I'm afraid I don't have an answer. God bless.