I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: DJ KOZE-“Track ID Anyone?” (2013).

This album was selected as one of NPR’s favorite of 2013 (so far).  I really don’t know what to make of it. It opens with what sounds like a massage going on–there’s talk of things feeling good.  And then the music kicks in, or shambles in.

The main riff is weird and stifled, awkward.  But in a way that’s hard to look away from.  Then after almost 3 minutes of a 5 minute song the vocals come in.  They are quiet and harmonied.

The write up of the album says that it is quirky and compelling.  It’s definitely quirky, I’m not entirely sure ho compelling it is.  I was really intrigued where a song with that opening would go, but I wasn’t really that excited by the route it took to get there,

[READ: June 10, 2013] “We Didn’t Like Him”

This was a fascinating story about the growth of a bully named Manshu.  The narrator (I honestly couldn’t tell the gender of the narrator—I assumed it was a girl until much later when I changed my mind.  Actually I see now that the opening says “boys his own age” so I guess the narrator is a boy, but it was never really explicit) is embarrassed by Manshu.  Manshu is “my father’s sister’s husband’s sister’s son” and as such, he is “family” with the narrator.  But Manshu doesn’t play with boys his own age—he plays with the younger kids (like the narrator) and he always beats them—in whatever.  For example, in cricket he would keep batting all day.

There was some degree of sympathy for Mansu because his father died when Manshu was six and his mother had diabetes, but he was still a pain.  Then Manshu’s mother unexpectedly died.  And Manshu changed.  He lived with the narrator’s aunt’s husband who did not like him.  Manshu became quiet and, if possible, spiritual.

The rest of the story concerns Manshu’s spirituality and the community’s temple.  The narrator’s father was on the committee which oversaw the temple and when their current pandit, Gaurji, was deemed to be doing an insufficient job at the temple, he was kicked out and Manshu took over the position.  Of course, there were cries of nepotism, but Manshu seemed to be very holy now.

Until he started to go seemingly against their Brahmin ways.  Well, first he married a woman out of his caste.  Then he started asking about how to get on TV.  Then he started promising that praying in his temple could cure cancer.

Manshu was tolerated, except by the narrator who found his behavior unseemly.  Especially when the narrator’s own father grew ill and Manshu did not come to visit.  But when the narrator’s father died, the narrator went to Manshu to ask him to pray over the body.

Later when Manshu’s wife died, the narrator was torn about whether or not he should help Manshu in this time of need.  And as he duplicates the steps necessary for releasing a loved ones ashes in the Ganges, he has to reflect on his life and Manshu’s.

This was an interesting story about faith and charity and what one is willing to do for one’s family.