Sign the Pledge – http://bengalurubleeding.com/petition/
I have been an amateur musician for about 8 years now and a large part of my education as a musician happened playing in the various venues in and around Bangalore. These were either college fests where my band Phenom competed or pub gigs where we played for measly sums of money, some places where we even had to pay and play but play we did! and we loved it and it was well worth it!
In a city where venues to play musc are few and far between, the few places that allowed bands to play were our saving grace! to us, the 20 people who were our audience, most of them friends we had dragged there, were the closest we would ever get to those videos of our favourite bands who would woo stadiums filled with people!
In one swift and stupid move, my city was culturally slaughtered last month! in a very strange twist of events, the Bangalore police banned live music in places that serve alcohol. Bad enough, they had banned dancing in clubs, they had to go do this ..
In many ways, I got out of this situation with my band now playing largely outside Bangalore inspite of being a Bangalorean Band! but its the worst feeling for those kids who put their heart and soul and every penny they can muster into their music. Like Girish Karnad, one of the finest playwrights from Bangalore had to say at the protest last weekend, “How on earth will listening to live music cause anything untoward to happen?” and just because accidents happen on the road, will you ban driving?
This is the 21st Century and we live in a free country but are still subject to such ridiculous restrictions that it makes me question the ability of the people who we have elected into power!
A bunch of us have put up a petition for online signing that we would like to take further once we have enough people supporting the cause. So if you feel what is happening in the city now is unfair, please head to http://bengalurubleeding.com/petition and support us!
August 13th, 2008 - 1:47 pm
Online Petitions are Armchair activism. If you really feel for the cause, get off your ass and do something legal about it. They can’t do this in a democracy … They can only do it in country that is full of decadence and reaction, full of obscurantism, willful ignorance, and self-centered delusions.
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August 13th, 2008 - 2:43 pm
@spoOnman – I’m sorry if it seemed that all we were doing was the online petition, but if you look around, we did something about and are doing something about it. There is a protest rally being held every Sunday till this is reversed and legal action has been initiated.
We are also in talks with the authorities to see how we can figure out what their issues are.
The online petition is because its easiest to get something like this signed and valid to use in a legal scenario.
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August 13th, 2008 - 3:11 pm
@Gaurav… can you give us details of protest. Where do you guys meet and what time.
I want to take part it in too.
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August 13th, 2008 - 3:44 pm
We’re still chalking out what happens next week. I will update that info on the site. Please do come and get as many people as you can!
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August 14th, 2008 - 2:29 am
hey G,
” the people who we have elected into power!”
I guess here there is scope for improvement here.
The youth that is affected by this doesn’t vote, for the most part.
That the previous generation barely does is a different
matter, but the strata of society we are addressing here
has zero voting clout, and this the politicians know.
Some do vote, but overall the apathy is there for everyone to see.
This is good because it wakes up young folks to the reality that
voting matters, and if all the students come together on issues
(not just this one), those in power will have no choice but to notice.
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