The Council of wha..?

Statutory Warning: All that follows is fictional.

It's scary. This day and age where you have to keep abreast of everything going on around you and you have to have an opinion, or you're stared at with disbelieving stares of mild to heavy admonishment and disgust. Yes, I admit it, I've been at the receiving end of this attitude, and I've decided to change and give in to this near-omniscient state of being, and have an opinion, and expound at length at why it, and no other, is the right opinion. It's the latest rage. So I am going to write, perhaps at length, on the latest musical and quasi-religious news item: the Council of Sa.

That it happened is stated in recently discovered documents of what is being hailed in underground circles as the 'Rosetta stone of the 21st century'. A papyrus scroll of autobigraphical recollections written by Indus-Saraswati drunkard and poet-extraordinaire Malluskun Thyagar in both, the script of the Indus-Saraswati Valley civilization and a proto-dravidian language which, along with Sanskrit, is the suspected progentitor of all modern South Indian languages. They were discovered hidden in earthen pots in a remote cave in the Kutch region, by a group of local village elders who had abducted a lower caste woman to the caves so that they could rape her uninterrupted at their own leisure. They were released on bail and subsequently all charges were dropped against them, in case you were wondering. Fine, so it didn't really happen, but if Dan Brown can pull fiction out of the fact hat, then so can I, damn it! Let's just say that it does exist, has been discovered, but is being covered up by the present Indian givernment, which doesn't want any proof of Hinduism not being native to their beloved Hindustan being made available to the citizens of this fine nation, should the seeds of blasphemous thought (Gods forbid) be planted. A conspiracy theory, yum. People just love to lap those up, don't they? So there, the mood has been set, an untruth has been uttered and made into fact. So on with the Council of Sa, what say?

Much in the spirit of the Council of Nicea, where a bunch of holy men decided to codify their religion, in the Council of Sa, there was a bunch of court musicians and singers, all clamoring to be heard, all trying to prove that the pitch that they sang Sa at, should be the pitch that all others should, as well. According to Thyagar, what finally emerged as the now commonly accepted pitch for Sa was the one proposed by the royal entertainer at the courts of King Mojo-henjo, ruler at Mohenjo-Daro, purpotedly the strongest kingdom of the Indus-Saraswati civilization, you know, the one with the most military might, not unlike present day America. And so you have it. The history of the note Sa.

There's a theory making the rounds that another one of the reasons (apart from the obvious one, that is) that the government wanted to hush up the discovery is that it is shameful to the Hindustani spirit, the thought that the basis of all Indian classical music, the notes Sa to Ni had their origin in anything but Aryan culture.. go figure.

Well, there's another interesting theory making the rounds.. apparently the government decided to increase the OBC quota in order to cover up the furore that would undoubtedly have been raised, has news of the woman's rape gotten out. So what happened to the poor woman who had been abducted? She was given a job as a permanent under-maid servant at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, purpotedly the logic being that it was better to be raped by a bunch of sleazy corrupt politicians, who at least had the common decency to pay her her meagre daily salary afterwards, than a bunch of impoverished village elders who had nothing to bring to the table but a steadfast belief in a hypocritical caste system and the resulting profit-less atrocities that follow as a result. But fret not; apparently, in a recent secret interview of the woman, she claimed that she had, 'never been happier in her life', and now possessed enough money to buy the whole village from the elders and turn it into a urban theme park, with a strict no-upper-caste admission policy.

So, children, what have we learned today? People will do anything for money? Yes, Chintu, was that you who said that in the back? Good, correct.. any other lessons you can think of children? What, Ravi, what did you say back there? Might is right? Is that it, did I catch that correctly? Yes, brilliant! Perfect, yes, that is the other lesson to be lerned from this. I'm so proud of you children! You'll all make such well-rounded adults in time!

Right, well, I've had my say. I've become an over-informed and opinionated member of society... well, that's what you wanted wasn't it? Wha? It wasn't? Oh, so I have to have an opinion about the truth, you say? Right, sorry, my mistake, won't happen again. Hey, I tried, right? What, no, that's not good enough? Damn you all, what do I have to do to please you all? What?