If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.

Yes, that was the bard in Twelfth Night (Act 1, Scene 1).

Having belatedly realized that our 16GB iPhone (which of course includes an iPod) still has a considerable amount of empty space, we told ourselves: What the heck, let’s fill up some of that space.

So, we dived into Apple’s iTunes digital media store and resurfaced with a variety of music.

Here’s some of what we’ve purchased lately for our iPod.

* Dhan Te Nan – Is there any Indian who doesn’t like this hot song from the movie Kaminey (releasing tomorrow). If so, stand up and be counted. We’re listening to this addictive song as we type this post. God, we hope this number is not stolen shit like a lot of other Bollywood stuff.

* Kaadhal Vaibhogame – A classic Tamil song from the old film Suvarillatha Chithirangal. A lovely number from Malaysia Vasudevan and S.Janaki. Music is by Gangai Amaran. We have most likely seen this Bhagyaraj movie but can’t remember a thing.

* The Man with the Harmonica – This one is from Once Upon a Time in the West. And the music is from the peerless Ennio Morricone. Simply lovely. If you haven’t seen Once Upon a Time in the West, fall upon your knees and beg forgiveness from the almighty for your sin.

* The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Theme - Another bewitching piece from the non pareil Ennio Morricone. This time it’s the theme music from Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

* Duniya Ki Sair – Our inordinate love for Rajshri led us to buy this song from the Raj Kapoor-Rajshri movie Around the World in Eight Dollars.

* Nagunagutha Nali Nali – Lovely Kannada song from the old Rajkumar film Bangarada Manushya. Those were the days when P.B.Srinivas used to sing for annavaru.

Michael Jackson leaves behind an extraordinary legacy that’ll be hard to match.

Here are some key facts on Michael Jackson as put out by Sony (Michael’s business partner in the music arena) earlier today:

* Five of Jackson’s solo albums – “Off the Wall,” “Thriller,” “Bad,” “Dangerous” and “HIStory,”  – are among the top-sellers of all time

* Michael sold an estimated 750 million records worldwide

* Michael released 13 No. 1 singles

* Michael became one of a handful of artists to be inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

* Michael was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the Most Successful Entertainer of All Time and “Thriller” as the Biggest Selling Album of All Time

Rock in Peace, Michael.

Like tens of millions the world over, we grew up listening to Billie Jean and Beat it from Michael Jackson’s famous album Thriller.

Michael was not merely a great singer. He was also a wonderful dancer.

Who, having seen it once, can ever forget Michael’s amazing moonwalk dance in Motown 25.

Today, we feel deeply saddened that the Michael Jackson we so loved to watch and listen to passed away in Los Angeles a few hours back.

The cause of death is reported to be cardiac arrest.

Michael was 50.

Click on the image below to listen to Billie Jean, one of the biggest hits in Michael’s career.

When you got a martinet boss bearing down on ya, you gotta keep readin and readin hoping for some new ideas for the next post.

And so we were reading the latest issue of the New Yorker and we discover this ‘Niggas ain’t scared of rope’ comedian Micah Williams a.k.a. Katt Williams.

So we trooped over to YouTube and watched a few episodes of Katt Williams’ standup comedy act.

We don’t think Katt Williams is in the Chris Rock league but he ain’t bad.

If you got the time (bet you do dude, it’s Saturday), why don’t you check out Katt Williams?

Life’s so strange.

Stranger than we all realize. Actions of insignificant people in the distant past sometimes have an extraordinary impact on the course of future events in a big way.

Take the Taj Mahal for instance. Hailed as a great monument to both love and architecture, the Taj Mahal has impressed visitors from around the world for 360 years.

But few realize that but for a mistake in 1526 by a treacherous cook in Babur’s employ, the Taj Mahal most likely would never have been built.

In his memoirs Baburnama, Babur, the founder of the Mughal empire, describes an assassination attempt on him in graphic detail.

The year was 1526 and the date December 21 (about eight months after the Battle of Panipat in which Babur defeated Sultan Ibrahim Lodi).

Not surprisingly, the architect of the assassination plot was Ibrahim’s mother Buwa.  She had some poison brought from Etawah and bribed Babur’s cook to poison his food. However, the nervous cook used only some of the poison and cast the rest into the stove.

As a result, although Babur ate the poisoned meat he only became sick but did not die.

Once the suspicious Babur learned of the assassination plot, he quickly had the plotters arrested and put them to death in the most gruesome manner (You really want to know, OK: the cook was skinned alive, the food taster hacked to pieces, one woman thrown under an elephant’s leg, another woman shot and the architect of the plot Buwa was arrested).

If the cook had succeeded in assassinating Babur, would there have been a Mughal Empire? We doubt it. Remember, these were the early days of the empire, there was disaffection in Babur’s army and the empire had yet to consolidate itself.

So, without the Mughal empire there would have been no Shah Jahan and no Taj Mahal (completed in 1648).

Now you see how ultimately the Taj Mahal owes its existence to Babur’s cook (and his failure to kill the King 122 years earlier).

Built by a Flustered Cook?

Most likely, the course of India too would have been very different if Babur’s cook had succeeded in his assassination attempt.

Folks – Hunger, Ayodhya, Nano, Sanjay Dutt, Varun Gandhi, SoniaJi, Maya Behnji, 8% economic growth, Satyam, Manmohan SinghJi, Ram Sene, Elections et al can wait.

We have a bigger crisis on hand here.

National Humiliation
Today, we are facing a national humiliation on the world stage, the likes of which our glorious Indian civilization has never been confronted with (not even during our colonization by the slimy Brits).

Chickipedia, a Wiki-style database of famous women, today named the Top 100 most searched for women in March on its web site.

And we are so ashamed to tell you that there’s not a single Indian babe on the list. Please pardon us for bringing you this sad tidings.

Grave Tragedy
Depressing, depressing – A nation of 1.2 billion and not one Indian babe on the list.

Now, let’s have two minutes of silence, please, to mourn this ignominious tragedy.

The List
See for yourself. The following are the most searched for women on Chickipedia in March 2009:

1. Megan Fox
2. Kim Kardashian
3. Jessica Alba
4. Pamela Anderson
5. Lucy Pinder
6. Denise Milani
7. Malin Akerman
8. Scarlett Johansson
9. Katy Perry
10. Jenna Jameson
11. Keeley Hazell

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