Adesh Srivastava, the Hindi film composer and singer, passed away
on 5th September 2015,
a day after he turned 50! May his soul rest in peace!
It is such a coincidence that just a few days ago, I was made to
watch a video in which Adesh Srivastava was present! Why I was made to watch
that video, is quite interesting!
Our development team was preparing for the demonstration of one
the systems to a new group of users. At the end of the preparation, one of the
programmer was requesting me to be present during the system demonstration. He
said it would give them confidence to do a good presentation. I replied that
they have become experts on the system, hence, there was no need for my
presence.
One of the programmers, said “we want you to be there so that you
can give us ‘history’ after the presentation”. I could not quite understand
what he was trying to convey. The other team members stared with puzzled looks
as well. We thought that, he was having difficulty in using the right
terminology, may be getting confused with some other word!
To make us understand what he was talking about, he started
playing a video on YouTube. It was a video of an Omani singer, Asma Mohammed
Rafi, who was one of the participants in one of the seasons of SaReGaMaPa TV
musical show. I remembered that season, it was one of the most entertaining of
seasons, more so because of the Omani singer! But I was quite flabbergasted why
the programmer was showing us that video. What was the connection between a
system presentation and a musical show! He looked at our confused faces and
said, “Wait, wait, it will come”.
At the end of the song, the judges started giving grades for the
song rendition. Adesh Srivastava, one of the judges, was the first to judge and
he gave “History” grade, the highest grade. At that moment it dawned on
me what
the programmer was trying to convey! He wanted me to be present during the
system demonstration and give my assessment of their presentation. I started
laughing at the whole thing!
The
programmer was right in what he was trying to convey but it did not make sense
to me until he showed the video. The word “history” has its many standard
meanings as we know, but in that season of SaReGaMaPa, “History” was one of the
grades for judging the songs, others being “Hit” and “Superhit”.
It just goes to
show, that it is not just the words that are important, but also the context
which is more important! Because, sometimes a word spoken out of context, could
convey entirely a different meaning and could even create utter confusion and
chaos, sometimes even misery!
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