Two Obituaries

Despite not following the news I came across these two items.

Steve Jobs

Recently, Steve Jobs passed away. People, my friends who know only too well how much I hate Apple, expected me to have a position on it. I don't have one. Simply stated, I didn't hate Steve Jobs as a person, but I did hate what he stood for. Nothing has changed. He was good for Apple, he was good for the stockholders as he did the company good and made money for the stockholders. I can't deny that and I am not going to try. He was horrible to the users of his devices and perpetuated a shitty device or rather a piece of crap range of devices. I hated that and I hated him for it. Nothing has changed. So, I would say that it's a great loss to his family that he passed away. I refuse to accept that it's any loss to the technology world, in fact, nothing is going to change, for better or for worse.

Jagjit Singh

I came across this item through a friend's Facebook comment. And was shocked. Jagjit Singh, for those who don't know, was an Indian music composer and singer who was an institute in himself. He took the Urdu poems known as Ghazals, composed music for them and sang them. He made this form of poetry popular among the common man. Even before him, there were other composers, other artists who used to sing ghazals. The difference was that they selected ghazals that were in pure and difficult Urdu and they sang them in Indian Classical style. Both these things made it harder for the common man to understand and enjoy this form of poetry/music. But Jagjit Singh started the trend to select ghazals in simple langauge, so close to Hindi that anyone could understand them, and he composed the music for them that was close to the film music but retained its unique Indianness. He introduced Western instruments in his music which made it ever more popular without losing the original charm of the poetry or music.

I myself started enjoying his ghazals while I was very young and that made me a regular listener of ghazals. So much so that I started discovering and enjoying other artists as well and could even enjoy the classical style of ghazals, as sung for example, by Ghulam Ali.

Now Jagjit Singh I consider a real loss to Indian music and to humanity. I feel that artists are real humans, because they are not propelled by the primal need to feed themselves or to make loads of money. They are motivated by the inner spark, the urge to create something beautiful and that something connects them to the high spiritual powers. I just wanted to devote this space to Jagjit Singh and say that we will miss him terribly! May God bless him!