The Dewarists - I'm in love

Finally there is some original content on TV to watch. Something beautiful and mesmerizing and breath taking.


What intrigued me first was the word Dewarist as i had never heard of this word. So what did it mean or was it a term used for a certain clan and after seeing the promos i really couldn't connect the word to the content and therefore had to look it up.


Dewars happens to be a Scottish Whiskey brand. The origin of the word comes from the movement Dewarism started by the company and subsequent campaign based on that movement. The meaning of the word Dewarism below - 


DEWARISM: noun (u) A social, political and economic doctrine, based on the writing of Tommy Dewar, expressing the conviction that the journey of life can be enjoyed without giving up on the achieving of success.

Sir Thomas Dewar, a famous whiskey distiller and philosopher, believed success in life could be obtained without arduous work, as described in his concept of Dewarism.

Source: Urban Dictionary

You can read further about Dewarism and Dewars on Wikipedia. 

So Hence from there comes The Dewarists - People who represent this philosophy. The Dewarists was a movement that began in late 2010 as stage performances and collaborations of artists who stood and reflected the philosophy of Dewarism. And finally was culminated into the TV series now on Star World. They have an extremely good lineup - Vishal Shekhar, Imogen Heap, Zeb & Haniya, Shantanu Moitra, Swanand Kirkire, Indian Ocean, Mohit Chauhan, Parikrama, Agnee and many more....

The first episode was shot in Rajasthan and with Vishal and Imogen Heap. To me that episode was all about sounds. Imogen's obsession with experimenting with anything that produces any sound to me was an interesting way of discovering music and if you listen to the song then you would notice the variety of sounds in the song. 

The second episode with Zeb and Haniya and Shantanu Moitra and Swanand Kirkire to me was more about lyrics, the mood and fusion of languages. It was beautiful. 

What i like about this series is that its absolutely original in every sense. original content which one dies for these days on Indian Television and original songs being produced in the short journey of collaboration between these artists. Its part biography part collaborative, the entire episode and therefore is informative as well as entertaining. Also it to me is serving the purpose of a travel show as well as each episode is being shot in a different cities and locations. The show represents the flavour of that city as well shows various moods, people, places of that city. I am completely in love with the way the episodes are shot. The DOP must be mind blowing because it just seems like an hour long display of amazing paintings, its so beautifully shot.  

The Dewarists has an amazing sense of freshness that is immensely appealing. 

If i had to compare other musical programmes to this, then this would definitely stand higher above MTV Coke Studios India and MTV Unplugged India ( Unplugged of course has a few episodes of certain artists which are very good no doubt). Coke Studio India to me was a disaster after being used to Coke Studio Pakistan. I felt that somewhere the commercial mixed with the original there and therefore the collaboration got highly diluted bringing about a sad output. Somewhere the pressure of being Coke Studios probably led to that as the artists were trying to hard to emulate the way it should be done rather than concentrating on being natural. The Dewarists in spite of having their bit of commercial artists in it as well seems to infuse the best in them. 

It is a must watch for all music lovers because its a different and fun journey you would be going on. The songs created on the series are available for download from the Dewarists website and also if you have missed the episodes then you can watch the episodes on the Dewarists Youtube Channel. ENJOY!! 

P.S. - All the referred websites are linked in my post so you can click on them and go check it our directly instead of searching for it.

Image courtesy: Google

History - Salman - How?

Not sure if many of you have seen the new channel History Network 18. It's the latest comedy channel according to me.

The Brand Ambassador is Salman Khan for a channel called History - First disconnect, what does intellect have to do with Salman Khan i think. Wait till you see the promo's running on the channel. It's Bizarre. One of the promo's - A chinese martial arts expert going at it with a sword, cut to Salman khan sits there watches him and goes 'kya hai ye? .. phu pha phi phun. Bore nahi hue ye sab dekh ke. Ab dekho History channel. History Channel. Roz History bante dekho'. I mean what are we talking about? Sounds like a channel started by the Guinness book of World Record guys. The fun doesn't end there. Watch the programming carefully and you will notice the same old Starworld, Zee Studio, FX, Big CBS kind of content. greatest american video kind of stuff. Then there is this programme where in all that the guy does is take a chainsaw and cuts anything and everything, tree trunk to tv to fridge to everything. It's mindless. What does all this have to do anything with knowing or making History and why would you go around making a marketing strategy that has no head or tail to it.

The TV Industry is losing it. Marketeers are doing anything to just launch channels, play the same old content so if it's friends or Rules of engagement or many such programmes, you would see each of these series would be playing on all of these English entertainment channels. There are Gazillion music channels and i am not complaining because more channels, the more chances we have of bumping into something sensible on television. But where does this new History channel stand. It absolutely makes no sense. The Channel strategy, what it stands for, the brand ambassador to the content of that channel, none of it remotely cross each others path anywhere. Is everyone just running the rat race of launching channels and struggling to buy a pie of the already disparate and distributed eye balls. When the market is already so cluttered in the Television industry what on earth would you be even thinking to come up with a channel like History and expect anything? Maybe if they dubbed all of their content and had Salman as their brand ambassador then the Bodyguard Janta might find it interesting as these are not content they tend to watch similar to how Hollywood movies are dubbed and released in India and find considerable viewership as well. But that's about it. Hope they are not possibly  thinking of standing up against a Discovery, Nat Geo or Fox History and Traveler with such a channel and if they are then God save them is all i have to say.

Censorship or Dictatorship on viewership choice

Off late it has becoming increasingly annoying to watch English movies on TV.. Suddenly it seems like Indian television is regressing rather than progressing.. Every second word seems to be beeped and whats even more annoying are the subtitles because i see more asterix marks than words there and sometimes i'm dumbfounded to see words like DUMB ASS being changed in the subtitles to either an asterix or stupid words like fool.. Who are we KIDDING here really? your kid's will learn those words even before you know it. This doesn't mean i support the fact that today's kids seem to be a little too exposed to abuses and many other concepts of life much before their age.. but movies. it changes the essence of the entire story sometimes because of those beeps and edited scenes..

The scarier part is recently i was watching the movie HE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU on one of the channels and it was one of those prime time 9 o'clock slots and the film was edited immensely. The movie has nothing more than few kissing scenes and believe it or not all and i mean all the kissing scenes were deleted from the movie.. after a point you just would not understand what was happening in the movie because it would randomly jump into another scene.. for heaven's sake it's a romantic comedy, what do you expect? people sitting across tables and talking. absolutely nothing vulgar in that movie and still had to go through that fate in the name of censorship.. aren't suddenly a bunch of fools therefore sitting and deciding the choices for each one of us? it scares me because suddenly i feel i am going back in time rather than moving forward..because i was used to watching movies in their proper shape size and language and suddenly there seem to be this moralistic group of people who walk into our lives and decide what we should and should not watch..While i know channels also want viewership and therefore adhere by the censorship rules but give me a break.. please do not decide what i need to watch and how to this extent where TV viewing becomes a painful pastime.. It's completely understood that there are certain things that need to be censored but this is way too much..

Channels should be given the rite to label it above 18 like it used to be in the old times on all the channels and play the movies as is.. and if need be let these movies be late night bands not that it would stop any of the kids in our country from figuring out their knowledge data.. in the world of Internet i don't think any kid today is away from trash exposure and so it's best left on parents to be friends with their kids and explain things to them rather than such petty and small ways of trying to guard them..there are gazillion munni badnaam's and shiela ki jawaani's to which kid's will be made to dance away to glory across the country because parent's are so proud to see their kids dancing then why this bias towards English content.. let's be adults and accept that every place in the world has their own culture and therefore it's best respected rather than questioned..

The censorship board for television needs to realize this and STOP ruling our lives.

Image Source: Google

Reality?? Shucks!!

Well Well this is not one of those self pity or oh my god life is too real to handle kinda sob posts.. Its just the overdose of Reality TV ..

I wouldnt be surprised if i start questioning the unfairness of facing reality after all the tear jerking indian population on television along with tear jerking celebrity anchors..be it bahu smriti irani, or malaika arora.. u name it u got them all teared up..

i have reached the point and beyond of saturation level and i dont think there is any level higher up then that.. where does one go now? Its inane.. the creative leaps being taken on indian television as of these days in creating and discovering and copying new shows is beyond imagination..you surf channels specially during the weekend and u would think the battery of your remote is gone whoop cuz it feels like the channels are not flipping at all.. the same freaking set of people in 10 different reality shows at a time...

concepts ki kami ho gayi to..winners of various musical reality shows now compete against each other on one channel.. then the other channel supercedes and makes a show where the winners of different genres of reality shows from singing to dancing to comedy compete against each other...metro kids against small towni kids..

from copy's of international formats like panchi paas to indian idol, etc.. to desi versions of shows.. u name it u got it.. the entire bollywood seems to be coming down to being reality tv anchors from amitabh to shahrukh to salman to akshay and now even his wife twinkle.. its a new found platform of talent altogether for the entire film, television and modeling industry to showcase their talents in all possible genres like drama, thriller, comedy, et all..

and of course how can i not mention the ever famous judges who pride themselves in becoming celebrities by becoming judges.. yesteryears stars coming back to limelight with reality show judging as their claim to fame platforms in the present day and age.. they bicker , they bitch , they fight with each other, sweet sarcasm.. with due respect mentioned in sugar free dozes.. they all think that have all changed the world and they are the baaps in said fields and there is no other like them.. some famous examples i can think of are javed akhtar.. shekhar suman who is always ever too smart for his own pants these days what with him thinking he is 20 again..ha ha..cant sing to save his life but of course will judge like he is the Tansen of this world.. ha ha..

All these reality shows bring all genres together under one roof.. wat with the drama of the participants,their families, anchors and judges.. the thrill of taking 15 minutes and 3 breaks to announce each paritipants scored marks or elimination.. bucket full of emotions what with all the tear jerking (no wonder there is scarcity of water in various parts of this country :P) and the comedy of all the participants being bitchy and judges making fun of each other along with the participants..

Well Wish Indian channels would stop copying or getting into this whole TRP game where one thing works then everyone does that same shit.. give us variety man.. show us your real creative talents which would stll get u your trp's.. do something.. i am sick and tired now..

P.S. - Mtv Roadies 5.0 , Mtv Teen Divas, Channel V campus star must get special mention here.. Roadies for being the bitchiest show which has the capability of turning the simplest village girl into a swearing spagetti strapped Beep Beep Beep!..Teen Divas yet again even more scary as at least roadies has people who are Adults as defined by Law.. to see 15 yr olds behaving bitchier than ever and behaving 10 yrs older than their age is scarier and u only thank your parents for letting u go out and play gali cricket , chain chain, lock and key, ice spice (like we used to call it.. oh i am getting senti now).... Channel V campus star for being the most boring and uninteresting and non innovative show amongst all the creative leaped reality shows on television.. Channel V VJ's seriously need a reality check... they suck..Anyways until next time..