Isspecial Cutting Chai - May 2007

One of the high points of our post-school discussions (besides cricket and girls) was about which song was lifted from where. That was the era when Anu Malik reigned supreme. Gulshan Kumar was still alive and Nadeem Akhtar Saifi was not an absconder. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was yet to arrive in India and his music 'inspired' 'top-notch' music directors. And Humse Hain Muqabla audio cassette had to advertise itself as the original Muqabla, as the lifted numbers had already become big hits before the dubbed-version of the original could reach the Hindi-listening parts of the country. Shillong being a city deeply rooted in western music, but with a taste for the Indian, made it easier to find the original sources.

ItwoFS brings back those days of heated discussions over cups of cutting chai (and a few puffs of Wills Filter). ItwoFS or Inspirations in Indian Film Songs is an encyclopedia of what the name suggests. Karthik Srinivasan, the man behind the site, does a good job of bringing the plagiarists to book (virtually) with evidences to boot.

He also has a 100-word review blog called Milliblog! where "you get straight-to-the-point opinions!"

For its efforts towards a less inspired and more inspiring Indian film music, the fourteenth Isspecial Cutting Chai (May 2007) is offered to Karthik Srinivasan of ItwoFS.


It is not only Indian films and music which is inspired, our television shows are no better (most aren't any good anyway).

Previous sipper Ang Anino ni Abaniko (April 2007)