Missive from Ravi
I have pleasure in presenting a special new video of the song “We Are”
The music and video was created in Glastonbury by musicians and film makers living in or associated with this beautiful area of Somerset.
Please share far and wide; the message in the song deserves to be heard, particularly in these extraordinary and challenging times.
The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.
While taking my evening meal of Donar Kebap and listening to this music, heart started remembering Music Groups and Heart Dance in Buddha Auditorium.
I really hope their music becomes as famous as of Miten and Premal, the couple who enchanted Ashram music scene and now the whole world with their melodious voice and heartfelt melodies.
Although I’m sort of reluctant to criticise people’s sincere creative efforts, and these two clearly have talent and are enjoying themselves, I’m not really that impressed.
For a start, perhaps whoever wrote this song should have given some thought to the millions of children in an already over-populated world who are born into desperate situations of poverty, malnourishment, famine and so on…
Ravi and Sudha appear too much like starry-eyed, naïve idealists for me, circa 1973 – with delusions of grandeur….
The vehicle for “the message”, the music, is, frankly, somewhat insipid. And as for the accompanying over-portentous “message”:
“Please share far and wide; the message in the song deserves to be heard, particularly in these extraordinary and challenging times.”
Well, attempting to bring in ideals of family generational solidarity is all very well, but it somehow feels like something of an affectation disingenuously transplanted from other, non-western traditions and cultures, eg Asian and (but of course) North American Indians. Just too ‘airy-fairy’, ungrounded.
As a friend of mine, Gino Groppi (formerly, Prem Rajan), has commented, “Who will remember this in a few weeks, let alone months, years, or decades?”
SD,
You are wrong when you say that they are “starry-eyed, naive idealists from circa 1973″.
It`s definitely more like 1970.
It’s Glastonbury after all.
Those guys are glad, stoned and buried in time warp factor nine, man…
Hey, don`t bogart the brown sludge, pass it over to me. I need to shake off my shamanic depression and welcome in that feeling of oneness, man…
Ah, that`s better…you know, only love exists, man, and like, something is happening, I can just feel it, you know, a kind of like, energy thing that’s just everywhere and nowhere, baby, and we`ve got to get it out to the people ‘cos its so beautiful, y`know?
Come on, man, let go of your bum trips, drop your mind, loosen up and get some jungle juice down your neck, you`re way too uptight with that Mr Square thing you`ve got goin’ on.
We are
You are
I am he and you are he as you are me and we are all together…
Peace, we love you man…
etc. etc. etc….
What was Glasto like in the sixties then, Frank?
Arpana,
I can’t remember it, but I`ll never forget it!
A proper Glasto answer that.
Well, I reckon if we all chipped in with a few Totnes pounds which we use as a means of exchanging services for goods and vice versa, then stocked up with a couple of hundred cd’s of Premky and Mitky doing Frank Sinatra’s greatest hits remix to ancient Vedic back beats with perhaps a tinge of Cathar dulcimer, then put down a Kora chorus Fela Kuti style blues, to a house/garage /grunge-infused polyphonic Sing Out massed band of the Scots dragoons pipers…
Then…and only then…
Could I get the sink fixed for a couple of Totnesian vouchers…
Still, it might be easier to just fix the sink myself…but then I’d miss out on the networking…
Suggestions, please, to:
The Rambamthankyoumam Arsheram
Cliff Richard House
Oshovision Song Contest
Latvia
Here’s some of us Totnes lads getting ready for another night of networking with our sacred music cd collection, before downing a few non-alcoholic pints and a kebab.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=veMZWnwYnqI
I liked it. Not unlike an early dynamic in plain clothes!
But where are the young women? I liked the old woman with the stick….
I know a pretty Chechen woman. She told me she ran from that place like a dog out of hell, not because of the Russians, but because her relatives wanted to kill her for having been raped by Russian soldiers.
She recently got leave to remain in the UK, but not because she told the truth.
To be completely fair, I wouldn’t really knock hippies and freaks.
Those Chechens and all the rest of the psycho/ macho nutters in the world (at least 90%) could do with a good jar of jungle juice, a tab of acid and get shown the ropes by a big-titted hippy chick.
It worked for me!
Re Parmatha’s comment: ”I liked the old woman with the stick”…
She’s only 23 !!
She’s led a dissolute life of planet-saving chanting using all her tantric know-how.
And the stick – it’s an old Chechen-Apache-Aboriginal thing…a Talking Stick…You try talking to her, and she’ll thump your third eye with it….
Music can perform much healing with its subliminal content…
Here are some of the Vegan freedom Lovers of Osho performing their one hit wonder…You might like it because it goes on and on….
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ocW3fBqPQkU
I wholeheartedly (Madhu and Shantam, please note) agree, Martyn. The uplift experienced is a true wonder – a veritable ‘meditation in itself’…
It’s always a privilege to see fine artists performing, and rare indeed to come across them rehearsing…We could all learn much from such dedication, such commitment…
http://youtu.be/5kYZ056WcJY
Truly he feels the pain of creativity. Though he brings the joy of laughter to millions the world over. This then is the way.
Think not of thineself and thine own misery, but the fun it gives others who cannot bring the joy of self-loathing failure to such multiplied delight. For such is the Sikh-er here amongst us known as the ‘one string-ed bow-player.’
Excellent archive of Osho music here, for those who do not know this site…
http://www.sannyas.org/index.php?title=Sannyas_Music
Thanks, Alok.
I don’t rate the lyrics of this song of Ravi’s. Actually I did not rate the lyrics of many of the ’rounds’ of the old Poona songs.
But the simplistic ’round’ of many of the Poona 1 songs always appealed to me and left me with a good feeling, even elation. The overall effect of the Ravi video I found uplifting.
Ravi should be given marks for making his own way, and ‘creating’ his life as well as his music. I knew him as a sort of vulnerable, quiet type of young chap 30 years ago, a long-term paying visitor to Medina, who seemed to preoccupy himself with making some kind of African instrument in the carpentry workshop and going to bed early, as I recall. Personally, I have nothing against people who choose to live in Glastonbury – though never ‘called’ myself.
Whatever we think of people like Ravi they do make a living doing the thing they love. And that seems to me worthy of respect and imitation; at bottom there is a kind of “I’ll not compromise with the world just to survive” about it, and also not go on benefits. Such an attitude cannot be faulted; how many people spend their lives unhappily cowtowing to a boss, etc. for fear of any alternative?
My own father, when he was not fighting state wars, spent 30 years in a printing factory, so he said, forced to do so to ‘look after’ the family. I felt that a whisper of regret crossed his face when he spoke of it. He read Castaneda in his old age….
I went to the first Glastonbury Festival back in 1970. It was a life-changing experience, which probably had a lot to do with sipping on a bottle loaded with California Sunshine for two weeks. After the curtain came down I headed for the Dover ferry and proceeded to hitch hike to Kathmandu. Those were the days, my friend.
I listened to Ravi’s track and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was not as bad as I expected it to be. Not my musical bag by a long shot. Sounds like New Age twaddle, yet musically harmonious and sweet.
Some might be content to dream along, believing there is something new and wonderful taking place on this planet. Try telling that to a Palestinian living in Gaza. Truth be told, basically nothing ever changes in this world. Except one thing. That is, you can change yourself. Unfortunately for us, this will not happen by taking psychoactive drugs or singing along to some flakey song created by someone who is as fast asleep as everyone else on Planet Plungo, even though I do appreciate Ravi’s creative output.
The real revolution is an individual one and has nothing to do with delusional thinking, which includes the idea that we are entering some golden age of enlightenment. Waking up is very difficult and has nothing to do with the show taking place on the stage of life and everything to do with focused work on oneself over an extended period of time.
Meanwhile, it is just another day on the third stone from the Sun, where war, violence, greed, vanity, selfishness and New Age lullabies are par for the course.
Refreshing bit of realism, Lokesh.
Cool, SD.
“The real revolution is an individual one.”
Ask randomly chosen people or just the family members; most probably, 99.99% will say, “Yes, we are into it.”
Howsoever we the people pretend forward-looking, body and mind shows, how retro!
Once, many, many years ago, when Glasto was still the preserve of those on benefits and made difficult to access, on threat of arrest by the force of law and disorder and persecution, I appeared as part of the expert team for the defence at Bow St. Magistrates Court.
Our raison d’etre that day, as we all piled out of the Bedford van, followed by saxophone and trumpet playing street musicians making a hell of a racket (about 12 in all), to the applause of the nurses and doctors in the Royal College of Nursing opposite, was that one of our street theatre team had been arrested for obstruction on a trumped-up charge some months before.
We, the witnesses for the defence, were variously fully attired as a clown, a Viking, and me as a teacher, complete with black gown and mortar-board.
Arif, who was the defendant, was an acolyte at Beshara, the Bennett-founded institute for all things esoteric. The name of the group we formed was the Demolition Decorators, who were regularly reported in the counter-culture magazine, the International Times, mostly because it was all part of the same street/occupied empty buildings family. Arif was a tall, swarthy, stout chap about 6’3″ (over two metres).
That day it went like this…
So Arif is called from the bench and is asked to swear on the Bible, before proceedings. He replies, standing in bare feet before the judge, that he can’t do that. Whereupon he is asked why, and quick as a flash replies that he’s a Sufi. ”Whats that ?”, asks the judge. ”A sort of Muslim ”, comes the reply, for which the court does not have a copy of the Koran to hand.
So, Arif says, in a New Zealand-tinged accent, that he will have to pray…and whips out a chequered tea-towel and proceeds to lay it in front of himself in the aisle between the benches, wailing a load of Arabic -sounding prayers whilst doing the kneeling prostrations and forehead to the floor business. When that’s over he steps into the witness box, answers some simple yes/no questions then asks to call his main witness. There was no solicitor for the defence.
So up walks Mike, one of the naturally funniest people I have ever met. Mike had the ability to cause severe pain when telling of adventures, simply because the laughter was unstoppable. Mike that day was the Viking defendant witness. He walked up the aisle, surrounded by sitting police officers, including a senior police Commissioner, and the other court officials, dressed from head to foot as a Viking. That morning he had taken the sheepskin rug from in front of the open fireplace and tied it round his chest with the washing line. Next, he had donned the traditional footwear of Vikings by wrapping two tea towels around his ankles and knees, as bindings. His cheeks and lips were bright red with lipsticked circles, enhancing his flame-red mop of natural hair.To top it all , he had put an aluminium spaghetti strainer on his head, with two plastic cow horns stuck to the top. Around his waist he wore a thick belt which had a plastic sword stuffed down the side of his belly.
He looked very happy.
Although I was very young, just turned 18-ish, I was sitting in the cordoned-off publc area, ready to do my bit if asked, dressed as a teacher in full garb.
Mike the Viking continued to take the stand.
“Do you swear to tell the Court the truth (etc. etc.)?” exhorted the Court official’s voice. Mike replied with a curt and giggle-laden, “No.”
“Why not?” asked the judge. “Because my mum said swearing is rude”, came the answer.
Things were going a bit awry by then as before taking an oath, Mike had been told to show respect to the Court by removing his helmet, which he then held under his armpit throughout his testimony.
Next, Mike was asked,like Arif,to put his hand on the Bible, which he refused, whereupon again the fandango of answering the judge’s puzzlement returned. Mike finally responded, with humility, that he would swear on something about the Norse Gods. Valhalaa or Thor or something. But was politely asked if a Civic Law book would do. Which he, of course, politely accepted.
The questions didn’t get any easier though. Mike was asked for his family name, and he of course said he didn’t have a family…”No,no” the court official said, “your father’s surname.” And Mike looked non-plussed…he answered that he didn’t know his father, but lived with his mum…”And what is her name?”
“I just call her…Mum”…”And what’s your name?”…”I’m known as ‘The Viking’…”No, no, your christian name”…”I’m not a christian, but I don’t really know what religion Vikings have…”
Arif called out an answer from the Benches and was reprimanded .
A few simple witness-defence type questions were further asked of Mike, who was warned not to trifle with the court. Soon after though , the judges, (it seemed like there were three of them up on the magistrates’ podium) adjourned the case for discussions.
The outcome went very well…The Police Commisioner was fuming, he had been given a ‘dressing-down’ by the Judge for wasting the Court’s time, for the thousands of pounds it cost in bringing the case to trial. There was no case to answer and the Police had got red faces.
Arif got the rough end of the stick with a Police caution, which was the best the Police could do. Whereupon, he took his case to the streets again – right outside Scotland Yard at St James Park – on a hunger strike in a tent…which the Police completely ignored for the 4 days that it lasted.
And there, dear friends, is a completely true story of the heroes of Glastonbury-type fun and English merry making. There’s a few more episodes of what I did as a teen, but none have such a rich tale of fun done in Public, as that one. Perhaps a tale of the benefits of being unemployable…and happily so, for the benefit of joy herself.
Great story, Martyn, worthy of a crazy cartoon or a Monty Python-type sketch. Somehow can’t imagine such scenes occurring these days, neither can a friend of mine, Gino Groppi (formerly, Prem Rajan), who read your post and says:
“All very amusing! I knew a chap called Arif in the mid 1970′s, he was also tall and a Muslim, very unconventional, into music, lived in an ICH squat in Archway. Covered the walls of his room with egg boxes to make an impromptu recording studio. Was on a diet of raw apples at the time. Died in Australia a few years later, may well be the same chap! Strange times…never to be seen again!”
That’s the man…lived in Davenant Rd., Holloway/ Archway. His lovely gf also died in a car crash in New Zealand. She happily took her clothes off, like all of us, on one of the street-theatre do’s for a Brighton Bike Ride-athon – but that’s another story…
The editor of the then IT became a sannyasin too…
Lovely energies like that stay with ya…
Cheers fer now…ttfn,
M
Good tale, Meester M.
Well, lookie what I found. A huge thank you to all the DD’s out there…
And
this also goes out to all you lovelies out there…you know who you are…Thanks to Loke, SD and PM, the mods and all, for the fun and mayhem…(PS: The guy I refer to as Mike was actually Max – my memory stands corrected).
http://www.maxmoonlight.co.uk/demolition-decorators.php
Thank you, Lokesh -
Madhu
Sweet.
If musician is reading these comments, I would suggest him to take the service of British/Irish/Scottish, not- neo-any-more sannyasins, for the cover jacket.
They can suggest the right sentences and phrases.
For example, “In these extraordinary and challenging times”, needs to be put in a different way. We are not living in 20th century!
“Songs for the Golden Age?”
Does anybody know when this ‘Golden Age’ is actually supposed to begin?
Looking back to the 70′s (world’s pop. has almost doubled since then), global warming was not an issue, there was no AIDS, Al Qaeda (and its spin-offs) did not exist, no Facebook, no security cameras everywhere, fish stocks had not dwindled to near extinction.
Any Golden Age definitely has a hard act to follow. I look forward to it.
Various think-tanks have researched it.
They found that the best time to be alive was 1976.
Don’t it always seem to go
that you don’t know what you got
till it’s gone?
Certainly does, Frank – ’76 was one of the worst years of my life, ‘lowlights’ being rock-bottom accommodation, no money, mediocre health, depression etc. etc. All while continuing to wear the orange ‘n’ mala, of course, having returned from 9-plus months in Pune just 7 months before…What a joke!
Reckon if those think-tanks had researched me they’d have reached another conclusion….
“Does anybody know when this ‘Golden Age’ is actually supposed to begin?”
Your question, Anand Anubodh -
Listen: for this man playing on his Kora and in his song,
like in a KOKON -
the ‘Golden Age’ is present and he is celebrating it with his intimate friends,
and he – unlike others – does not do any harm to anybody, neither in verbal abuse nor in otherwise aggressive notions, nor in preaching ‘The End of the World’ like our aggressively posting ‘Jehovah’s Witness’, who just felt ‘called’ in those hours to preach to us his way of seeing Sannyas ‘realities’.
And I am glad to know, Shantam Prem, that a real musician does not need your recommendations at all: he is just into music – and that´s it.
Some random figures of musical entertainment though could perform a RAP out of our ongoing comments, if they feel inspired to; but I guess, even those have better things to do.
And again -
I am grateful today that Lokesh took the effort of quite a complex response, including the changes we are all going through, the one way or the other and with quite different results.
And YES, Parmartha, quite many of the old Music Group Sannyas songs are in a way lovable that one cannot describe but being part of it, because they share about an unforgettable love affair.
And that love affair was US
AND
the Master – and there are some songs mirroring the whole in a mysterious and miraculous way – and even now that is feelable.
Madhu
P.S.(for all):
Why I am writing…
because not all the ‘history’ was drugs and orgies and stuff like freak theatre manufacturing
and just for a BALANCE -
and some other perspectives too.
Madhu
With the arrival of Google, Golden age has come.
If young people in the West want to enjoy this golden age, they must go to Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale and not some Indian ashram, whether in South or North.
Avoid all kind of books written by bald-headed or long-bearded gentlemen from India. Observe the people who are reading such books for decades. Do they look normal?
Life is too short to waste on anything which does not provide instant gratification.
When nobody creates impulsive response, it means thoughts are provoked and not the buttons.
Many have asked me who SN comic contributor ‘Frank’ is.
I don’t know.
But could this be an answer?
http://frank-film.com/#/videos
Doubt it, as ‘Frank’, alias Chris Sievey, died in 2010! (Wonderful thing, Wikipedia).