The Rhyme Master

I have always been a rhymer, as long as I remember. When I was a kid I used to like rhymes and used to create my own rhymes. For example with 'twinkle twinkle little star' I used to rhyme 'come little close, why so far?'. My teachers used to get pissed at this so called 'bad habit' of changing 'literature'.

When I was at class four, I got introduced to the literary works of a certain gentleman named 'Edward Lear'. I read through his 'a book of nonsense' in three days and that introduced me to a certain genre of rhyming called 'limericks'. While the limericks strengthened my sense of rhyming, it also taught me how to look at every situation in a funny way. So whoever has experience my sarcastic funny side till now, you know exactly whom to blame. 

Then as I started going to high school, I got introduced to this children's science magazine called 'Kishore Gyan Bigyan'. Other than the scientific features, on the second last page, they used to have a limerick contest. They used to give the first line, and we had to finish the next three lines. And once I started sending my entries, to my surprise, they actually started putting my stuff among the top 5 entries almost regularly, and a couple of time my limerick won the first prize ( I know for a fact that they used to get at least thousand entries every month. 100 entries used to go from my school only).

After sometime because of a world-changing show called 'Superhit Muqabla',  I got introduced to a gentleman named Baba Sehgal ( I heard his albums quite late in my life). This man had a unique way of rhyming and I totally loved that. He always was a fascinating personality for me, and I got used to this new genre of music called RAP. 

I hate hip-hop music, cant stand the voice of a gentleman (not so gentle actually) named Akon and detest the new breed of R&B singers, who has no lyrical value in any of their songs. Wait... I was talking about rhyming and rap. Where did R&B come from? Ahhh... I was going to talk about the one rapper who actually made sense and for the last 14 years, I have followed each and every album of his. Marshall Bruce Mathers aka Eminem. His lyrics, his words, his way of rhyming is nothing less than sheer brilliance.

But my rhyming life actually came to a full circle in 2008. I was working in this Bollywood entertainment channel called 'Imagine Showbiz'. I had to ideate about  some Bollywood vignettes. What came out was a simple rhyme connecting two Bollywood celebrities. Originally I named it 'Khoon ka Rishta', but then as we didnt get many such 'Rishtas', we decided the name to be Cross Connection. And guess whom we approached for the music??? Baba Sehgal, the king of Indian Rap himself. 

Over the next few months, we created 60 such raps. Some written by me, some by my friend Alok. The raps were mindless, but the impact it had on people was terrific and the fun we had while rhyming can never be recreated. And the effect  baba's cross connection had on me, was immense, I rhyme at everything now. For last two years, whatever I've written, somehow or the other I write rhymes in it and I still do. Its a gift, its a curse, who am I? I am the rhyme master.

P.S: I know you guys have already watched it many times, but I couldnt help pasting one Cross Connection link. Have fun...