yaar its to stop disputes... nahi tan loki larhde rehnde asin ohdeyi lokan nu ban karde aa, ess layi asin print kar deyida, tankey loki baad'ch eh na keh sakan "mein tan eh kadey keha ni" aera vagera... mein aas karda ha ke tusi samjh javo ge!

remember your private messages do not appear here! so you're protected!

Say no to drugs, croons Jazzy B

IANS  | Thursday, 03 July , 2008, 18:10
 

After a gap of three years, Punjabi pop singer Jaswinder Singh Bains alias Jazzy-B comes up with a new album titled Rambo and says it throws light on the youth's indulgence in alcohol and drugs. "The title track Rambo talks about how the youth should not do drugs and urges them to hit the gym," said Jazzy B who was in the capital for the promotion of the album.

"The album is for the young generation especially Asian kids, since a lot of them are getting into drugs," he added.

Disappointed with youngsters' fascination for drugs, Jazzy said, "16-year-olds are doing drugs. This album sends out a message to all of them that they should avoid drugs."

So will the album not have Jazzy's usual boy wooing girl antics? "It will, you got to have a song about girls," he quipped.

The singer is widely known for his flamboyant music videos and this time he boasts of an even bigger panache. "My videos will have cars that even rap stars don't use in their videos. We've got cars like Bugattis and the videos have been shot at locations in England and Canada," informed Jazzy.

Asked what took him so long to come up with another album, the singer said, "Actually, I wanted to concentrate more on the lyrics this time so that took time."

eh chandigarh da sarpanch agg layi janda forum nu

Punjabi singer stars in suit
Thu, June 26 2008

By Lucy-Claire Saunders

Five years after successfully suing the famous Punjabi singer, Hans Raj Hans, B.C. resident Jasbir Kaur still has not collected what’s owed to her. She claims Hans has hidden behind Punjab’s politicians and police and has threatened her with prison if she pursues the case in India.

"It makes me feel like I’m not even human," says the retired dental hygienist, who served with the Canadian Armed Forces. "I never thought this could happen."

According to B.C. court records obtained by the South Asian Post, Hans owes Kaur over $130,000 from two loans she gave to him in April and September of 1998.

But because B.C. courts have no jurisdiction outside Canada, Kaur, 58, of Surrey, is left on her own to collect the money.

And it’s a tough fight. Hans is well connected. As the official Punjab State Singer, he has friends in high places, making Kaur’s task a difficult one.

Undaunted by the effort and the time it takes to wade through India’s sticky political system, Kaur is determined to get what she claims is rightfully hers.

Hans did not return repeated e-mails requesting an interview for this article.

With over 15 albums to his name, Hans has millions of fans across the world, who watch his eye-popping videos online, devote whole chat rooms to him and turn his taffeta-like tunes into ring tones.

Over the last decade his name has become synonymous with Punjabi Folk and Sufi music. Even the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, an acclaimed Pakistani musician, was so impressed by Hans’s vocal range that he invited the singing stud to perform a song he composed for the movie Kacche Dhage.

Kaur first met Hans when her son, Ravinder Gill, asked to meet his "idol" in the late 90s during a trip to Punjab.

At the time, Hans’ fame was quickly spreading throughout India.

Coming from a good family, Kaur said she was able to arrange a meeting with the famous singer.

The two quickly became friends and it wasn’t long before Hans asked to borrow over $100,000.

"He said he was having financial trouble and was being audited," says Kaur. "I thought perhaps he was embarrassed to ask someone else so I lent him the money."

According to Kaur, the two struck a deal – Hans would borrow $108,000 with 20 per cent interest that would be paid back over two years.

But when the two years passed, the excuses started.

"I would have someone call him to ask about the money," Kaur said. "At first he would say, ‘I don’t know her.’ Then he would say, ‘Oh yeah, I know them but I never borrowed any money.’ The he would say, ‘Oh yes, I did borrow some money but we’ll get together someday and we’ll come to terms.’"

And so another two years passed.

Fed up, she took her case to B.C. Provincial Court in Vancouver. Hans failed to appear and the judge ruled unequivocally in favour of Kaur, ordering that the Punjabi singer pay the full amount he borrowed, plus interest.

With B.C.’s justice system behind her, Kaur took her case to the Punjab government in an effort to have the court ruling enforced. But it wouldn’t be as simple as that.

"It seemed like it took forever," said Kaur. "It took at least two years for my case to go from one level of government to the next."

When Kaur’s case finally reached the final deciding authority - the senior officer of the Home Department - the true political situation became apparent.

"Mr. Dubey, a senior officer, said, ‘Hans Raj Hans is our man and we are not going to do anything about it. You go ahead and do whatever you want,’" Kaur alleges.

Rebuked, that’s just what she did.

Again, it took years before anything substantial materialized. Passed off from person to person, Kaur finally caught the attention of Deputy Inspector General Norinder Pal Singh, who promised he would help.

Singh started an inquiry, according to Kaur, calling Hans and asking him about the money. But Hans reportedly kept rolling out the excuses, buying time and looking for a way out of a legal mess that had been dogging him for several years.

Stymied by Indian police, Kaur approached Sukhbir Singh Badal, president of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) party and the son of chief minister, Parkash Singh Badal.

If anyone could help her, Kaur reckoned it would be him. He effectively runs the state as his father is close to 70 years old.

But she was wrong. Six weeks after Kaur contacted Badal, the investigation came to a halt. Not one person would take Kaur’s calls.

"Somebody put a stop to it," she said. "Now, I can’t reach anyone. Nobody will even take my calls."

Kaur believes Hans has won over - or bought off - politicians, the police and the media.

About a year ago, Kaur claims she received a threat from Hans Raj Hans passed on through someone who "knows him extremely well."

"‘Don’t bother filing a case in India,’ the person told me. ‘We’ll get you entangled in something you’ll regret.’ That pretty much means they’ll bring false charges against me and throw me in jail if I continue to press charges in India.

"And you know the prisons in India."

Looking back, Kaur says she never would have guessed that her generosity would end up haunting her.

"He’s known all over the world. I thought, ‘Where can he run to?’ I never saw any danger in that investment," she said.
"But I will keep on fighting. I feel sorry for him, yes I do."
 

Fellowship Folly?

 In the late-1990s, Hans Raj Hans claimed he had received a fellowship for Folk Music and Sufiana Gaiki from the University of Washington in Seattle.

Soon after, he began receiving awards from the State of Punjab, including the fourth highest civilian award of India, the Padam Shree Award for Arts.

The awards, the accolades – it was a watershed moment for the folk singer. He is now worth millions.

But according to the University of Washington’s Academic Human Resources, there is no mention of Hans Raj Hans in their records.

yaar eh cheez saukhi copy paste hojandi aa, na kisey nu kuch pata lagda kehnde likhi aaa

haha aho mein ehi kam betha

gill te major thorhe kamjor aa, ohna nu pata main bournvita diya fakkiyan marke bahut takda hojana, tahi menu bhej dinde aa

haha ehde dimaag de kuch'k pech dhille aa, ah hashar album hi sunke dekhlayo ki chann charhayo aa

tere raavan teri zindagi vich naa aavan ge
tere shehro hauke vaangu nikkal jaavan ge
Jass naalo saare rishte toran waliye ni
tere naa naal duniya saanu kyon bulaundi ae,,
takkna chaddeya tainu vekhi bhul vi jaavan ge
jaan nikalldi aakhir thoda chir taan laundi ae


eh kisey gayak ne gaeyo aa, kisey nu pata kehda aa?

Rabbi:The new rocker
28 Jun 2008, 0000 hrs IST, RAJAT GHAI ,TNN



Three years ago, Rabbi Shergill appeared on our homescreens for the first time, wearing the traditional Sikh turban and a pair of spectacles strumming a guitar.

A complete antithesis of the quintessential rocker. But with his new-age rendition of Punjab’s legendary Sufi, Baba Bulleh Shah’s famous kafi, Bulla Ki Jaana, his first album Rabbi stormed the music charts and billboards. His second album, Avengi Ja Nahin, released recently and the musician is all agog. “It is my best work so far. I believe that language and art can always be used as a form of protest. In this album, I have protested against increasing globalisation,” says Rabbi. Bulla was a huge success. Has it been a tough act to follow? “People do expect an encore of Bulla. But, I am not into conjuring formulas of success and revisiting them.”

Rabbi’s lyrics, imagery and videos are an eclectic mix, bordering on themes such as joy, love, contemporary issues, philosophy and mysticism. Explaining his music’s contemporary feel Rabbi says, “I am not an insulated person to remain unaffected by what happens around me. All societies generate pressure. Artistes are like a society’s pressure valves.” Having been termed as a “Sufi rocker”, what explains his mystic side? “Well, most of my music is rock. I have been deeply influenced by rock bands and artistes like Led Zepplin, Jimi Hendrix, U2, Edge and Sting. If you call it Sufi, I wouldn’t mind. The element of mysticism in me is because of being raised in an academically-oriented family. My father was a Sikh preacher. My mother, a Delhi college principal, has been writing Punjabi poetry for as long as I remember. My sister too writes Punjabi poetry,” says Rabbi, an alumnus of Khalsa College, Delhi.

Rabbi (whose real name is Gurpreet Singh Gill) has been termed as ‘Punjabi music’s urban balladeer.’ Does he see a paradox here since Punjabi music is mostly based on the province’s rural and agrarian lifestyle? “The present age is one of urbanisation. Even Punjabi life has not escaped it. Many Punjabis are today concentrated in urban areas of India, Pakistan and other countries. In being an ‘urban balladeer’, I am trying to resolve the various psychological contradictions of my lineage,” says Rabbi, whose ancestral village, Chak Mishri Khan is in Amritsar district.

And no, he doesn’t want to do playback singing for Bollywood just yet. “The stock role of a playback singer does not interest me. If I meet interesting people, collaborations may happen. But I am not hell-bent,” says Rabbi, who has sung for Delhi Heights.
So, what is next? “I would be promoting my new album full-time. Since my team and I have taken a lot of chances in producing it, I would be doing lots of shows in the months ahead.”

MASTER OF PUNJABI POETRY- DR SURJIT PATAR
Dr. Amarjit Tanda | 06-12-2008


              At the Ferozepore road in Ludhiana, there is a Makka of Punjabi poetry on the back side of Aggar Nagar, also known as Maggar Nagar sometimes. You can meet a very light weight man, champion of Punjabi poetry welcoming you with a nikki jehi smile all the time whenever you visit him, even without any information in advance. Now he wears a small pagri too sometimes in the evening, not a patka. During my recent visit to Ludhiana in April,2008, I went to visit my longotia Yaar, another Panjabi Hindi poet Dr Sukhchain (Mistry), who lives on the back of this Punjabi poetry Makka. It looks like the door of this Punjabi poetry Makka opens on both sides of the world of poets, one on the rising sun and another on the lehande passé.

                           I could not meet Dr Sukhchain last time as bhabi told me he is in Bhopal. However during my recent tour, I met  him two three times, once in the PAU Ludhiana and secondly at his literary home, decorated with his paintings with poetic verse of many poets.. One evening, I myself & Dr Sukhchain were enjoying and sharing our college days at his home, but there was no other man to present us wiyh nikke 2 jokes, the environment was serious. So we thought of our Bheesam Pitamma of modern Punjabi Poetry to be with us. Dr Sukhchain said me ,let’s go , and he was leading me to his newly extended house and we entered in without even knocking at. Sukhchain was saying to me aaja aaja ghabra na. I thought people might have changed after growing grey and touring abroad. However, this never happens with literary people. We found a slim, grey black bearded man Dr Surjit Patar who took us into ghutmi te piari jaffi varri 2 while on his mobile phone to Dr Tiwana , keeping his one hand on phone, and talking both ways,kade sade naal te kade kade Dr Tiwana naal. He was very busy during those days because of Sahit Academy elections, being contested like Assembly Elections, with the misunderstanding of a contestant, who had a  big galat fehmi about himself.

              We were talking about, Dr Patar, I met this markoo jeha Pehalwan of Panjabi Poetry in 1973-74 for the first time in his department of Languages and I was completing my BSc.at PAU Ludhiana, the days of naxalite movement.

                  Patar appeared on the Punjabi poetry scene in the 60s, always use to spoke to the audience in an intimate manner about his poetic journey and also the creative process of some of his famous poems. Patar started writing poems in his college days at Kapurthala,may be willing to be a musician. He says such facilities were not in a village. The college had a library and I read voraciously. Poets Bawa Balwant and Harbhajan Singh, influenced me in the early days, he was telling like a story of his past. Shiv Kumar Batalvi was also gaining popularity at that time, it was only later that we could assess the merit of his verses. Sohan Singh Misha with his modern tone appealed more to my youthful heart, he continued.

Last time he visited Sydney, he met me two times not like before because there were many fans who gherahoed him after the show. However we had a long jaffi and shared some light galan of PAU. He visited my home one day and we remained in the way for two and a half hours which was of 10 minutes, as we started enjoying and recoding some of our old jokes & yaddan with red wine in a clear zone of Sydney. My family members were worried about us, as I told them to come back in 10 minutes. Here we met after a gap of 11 years. He shared with me many jokes. He was telling in Punjab people stop on red light if police is there. He also told that these days people dare to ask the officer many questions, why my job has not been done and if the concerned man asks who are you the man says, I am public and you are our a public servant. So you are supposed to do my pending job first.

               Patar said that his verses blossomed in the very creative environment of the 60s at Patiala recalling his poetic journey. I chose to study in Punjabi University because well known writers and intellectuals like DrDalip Kaur Tiwana, Dr Attar Singh and S Balwant Singh were associated with it. Outside the campus I came across the influence of Gurbhagat Singh, Harinder Mehboob, S.S. Noor and Baba Laali, he added.

            Born in 1944, at Patran village, which became his  Takhalash as Patar.  Surjit Patar achieved an M.A.from Punjabi University, Patiala. Later on, he and Dr Kairon, both jointly (jokingly) did another Ph.D in Punjabi on Elements of Folklore in the Poetry of Guru Nanak Dev and again Patar joined the academic profession with Doctor da Khitaab. Actually, his name looks better as it was without a Dr before his name. He has retired as Professor of Punjabi from Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana not from poetry. However these days you can find him working like a politician campaigning for Dr Tiwana. He is one of the most prominent poets of Punjabi, who has kept alive the tradition of lyric along with his verses. He has attracted and charmed the poetry lovers by his ghazals in Taranum and steals the show many times.           

                  Patar said he was once passing through the old courts of Ludhiana,talking of his famous poem, ‘Kujh kiha taan hanera jarega kivein’, he saw the dried up trees in the compound. He felt that these were people who had turned into trees waiting for justice. All this and the justice the Naxalites had sought merged into the making of this poem. Another incident when Hindus were being pulled out of a bus and killed perturbed me much. And I thought with horror that if the much-loved Punjabi poet Shiv Kumar had been among them, this would have been his fate too, referring to another well-known poem written during terrorism-

‘Kal Waris Shah nu wandea si ajj Shiv Kumar di vaari hai
Oh zakham tuhanu bhul vi gaye naveian di hor tiyari hai’

          Hawa Vich Likhe Harf (Words written in the Air), Birkh Arz Kar (Thus speaks the Tree), Hanere Vich Sulghdi Varnmala (Words smouldering in the Dark) and Lafzanh Di Dargah (Shrine of Words) are his works of poetry. The three tragedies of Garcia Lorca, the play Nag Mandala of Girish Karnad, and poems of Bertolt Brecht and Pablo Neruda has been translated into Punjabi by him and worked on Giradoux, Euripides and Racine plays. He has penned down the tele-scripts starting from Punjabi poets Sheikh Farid of the 13th century to Amrita Pritam of the 20th under the name of Suraj Da Sirnama..

                        He was the President, Punjabi Sahit Academy, Ludhiana twice before Dr Tiwana, apni Guru Ton Pehlan ik Vidhyarathi 2 vaar Pardhan reha. He was awarded with Sahitya Academy Award(1993), for his book Hanere vich Sulghdi Varnmala, and Bhartiya Bhasha Parishad Purskar. He has influenced many young poets with his new words  and his style of penning down, like netting a beautiful sweater with excellent design.