DailyOh! When Rahman was unhappy with Humma remix, to why 'rockstar' stumped Ravindra Jadeja

Hey there!

We hope you are staying at home and staying safe, no matter how frustrating the lockdown can be. Because India has crossed the tally of 5,000 coronavirus-positive cases and some reports are saying that it could hit 10,000 by this weekend. We don’t mean to alarm you, but just asking you to stay safe at home.

The government has announced extra precautions in a whole list of places that it has termed as ‘hotspots’. No, we are not talking about WiFi, we are still on the Covid-19 pandemic. And that’s because hotspot is our Word Of The Day. A hotspot can be used to refer to any place that is a high level of a particular activity. That could give you entertainment hotspots, WiFi hotspots or biodiversity hotspots. When it comes to Covid-19 or any other epidemic, a hotspot is an area where a large number of people have been infected.

On to some more coronavirus-realted news, but a little hatke. Did you see the news about Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro thanking India and PM Narendra Modi for the export of pharmaceuticals for the production of hydroxychloroquine? Bolsonaro quoted Ramayana in his letter to PM Modi! Interesting to see the reference. Bolsonaro wrote, "Just as Lord Hanuman brought the holy medicine from the Himalayas to save the life of Lord Rama's brother Lakshmana, and Jesus healed those who were sick and restored the sight to Bartimeu, India and Brazil will overcome this global crisis by joining forces and sharing blessings for the sake of all peoples." 

Brazil uses #Ramayana reference while seeking help from India for supplies of #Hydroxychloroquine.Extract of letter from Brazilian President Bolsanaro to PM.Compares India's efforts to #Hanuman and Sanjeevani booti. #CoronavirusPandemic #coronavirus #COVID19#HanumanJayanti pic.twitter.com/ikgTvGNMTj

— Geeta Mohan گیتا موہن गीता मोहन (@Geeta_Mohan) April 8, 2020

It is interesting why there was a reference to Indian mythology in the Brazilian President's letter to PM Modi. Brazil's envoy to India, Ambassador André Aranha Correa do Lago, said that his President Bolsonaro is a very religious man. Now Bolsonaro came visiting India just this January, and watched the Republic Day parade in New Delhi. This visit to India also made Bolsonaro see 'how religious' PM Modi also is. For Bolsonaro, the reference to Sanjeevani booti is just his way of showing how both Brazil and India are strongly rooted in tradition.

As of now, Brazil is battling over 16,000 corona positive cases, while the count in India has crossed 5,000.

The growing number of cases in India has made the government declare certain 'hotspots' in the country, like we told you in the beginning. Now one of the worst-hit states is Tamil Nadu, which has seen more than 730 cases so far. The state is also trying to fight this pandemic like the rest of India and the world. However, a terrible lapse has left Tamil Nadu red-faced. The Government Hospital in the town of Villupuram ‘accidentally’ discharged four patients from quarantine. Why? Because they were discharged before their results arrived. And when their results arrived, all four said positive. So then a frantic search was launched. Three of the four were brought back to the hospital and put in isolation. The fourth, a migrant worker from Delhi, is yet to be found. We know, it is scary.

Now Tamil Nadu is not the only place dealing with goof-ups of this level. The US, which is now the world leader in Covid-19 infections and deaths, also saw a similar mess. While we misplaced four whole people, a hospital in California sent a woman to a military base in Miramar because of a test-result mix-up.

So what happened? In February this year, this woman was evacuated from Wuhan in China, along with other US nationals, and taken to the Marine Corps Air Station in Miramar in the US. She was quarantined at the military base. The next day, she started showing symptoms. She was taken to UC San Diego Health. At this hospital, she was with three other Americans. Samples were collected from all four and were sent to Atlanta for testing.

Now when the samples reached the testing centre in Atlanta, three out of the four were incorrectly labelled. These samples were not tested. The CDC, as in the testing centre in Atlanta, did not realise that the samples were from the Miramar patients. The next step was worse. Staffers at the Atlanta CDC lab then handed over to UC San Diego Health the results of patients who had tested negative. The Miramar patients were taken back to the military base. It was only when they reached the Marine Corps Air Station that the mistake was discovered. A fresh round of tests were then conducted on these patients. The results of the woman came back positive for the novel coronavirus, and she was then taken to UC San Diego Health. Then, isolation. Whew. That was quite a long trail of mistakes.

All of us make mistakes. That's what makes us human, right? In some cases, these mistakes blow up and result in something else altogether, but well. Such is life. Some mistakes can even be forgiven.

But what our Covidiot Of The Day did, can't be forgiven. A 42-year-old man, our covidiot today, assaulted two women resident doctors of Safdarjung Hospital. Their crime? He thought they were "spreading" Covid-19 in the Gautam Nagar area in Delhi. The incident happened around 9.30 pm yesterday. The two doctors had stepped out of their houses to buy fruits, and our covidiot accused them of spreading the virus. When the doctors tried talking logic with him, they realised he wasn't capable of understanding any. This Covidiot then went a step ahead and twisted their hands and pushed them back. Then, like all cowards, ran away. We wonder which isolation ward he left his brain in (if he had one in the first place) when he touched them, apparently 'coronavirus-positive people', to twist their hands. There are all kinds of people in the world.

A group of people has also angered music director AR Rahman, who has taken a dig at the makers of the remix of the song Masakali, originally from Delhi-6. The new Masakali is called Masakali 2.0 and stars Sidharth Malhotra and Tara Sutaria in a track that... well, we will leave it to you to decide what you think about the track.

Here's the new Masakali:

Now (understandably) this butchered new Masakali did not quite go down well with a) its original creators; and b) fans of the original song (which are many, as Twitter will tell you). The hashtag #SayNoToRemixes has been trending on Twitter since the new Masakali took over our ears.

Here's the original Masakali for you:

Whoever remixed the song should have known that the Mozart From Madras is not a fan of such experiments.

Enjoy the original #Masakali https://t.co/WSKkFZEMB4@RakeyshOmMehra @prasoonjoshi_ @_MohitChauhan pic.twitter.com/9aigZaW2Ac

— A.R.Rahman (@arrahman) April 8, 2020

Rahman had earlier expressed his doubts over a remix of his iconic song Humma Humma. This new song was called The Humma Song and was part of the film OK Jaanu, itself a remake of the Tamil film OK Kanmani. Rahman said that he wasn’t happy with the idea of a remixed Humma Humma initially, and was really hesitant about it. Understandable, given what our remixers (read: Tanishk Bagchi, mostly) do to the originals.

However, director Shaad Ali did not give up. Finally, when Rahman heard the whole song, he was happy with the end result. He also said as long as people are liking the new Humma Song, the song is good.

Well, it all boils down to our janata at the end of the day. The power lies in the people. This time though, the masakali did not quite fly. We are not saying it, the people are. And people choose their rockstars well. In music, if the music appeals to them; in sport, if the player plays well.

But that term, 'rockstar' left a certain cricketer clean bowled once. We are talking of Ravindra Jadeja. We will get to that story but let us first tell you why we are talking of Sir Jadeja.

World No. 1 Test batsman Steve Smith just heaped praise after praise on Jadeja. On a radio programme Down Under, the Australian batsman called Jadeja one of the best spinners in the world at the moment. Jadeja must be over the moon.

But there was this time when Jadeja was praised, and he did not know what the term of praise meant. Yes, he was called 'rockstar' by spin legend Shane Warne. Warne singled Jadeja out during the IPL and called him a ‘rockstar’ in the making. Jadeja let out this snippet in 2017, and said that he did not understand why Warne was calling him a 'rockstar' because rock and star, and music, and Jadeja had nothing to do with music. Jadeja didn't stop at just wondering about the term. He also asked a friend, who told him that it was probably because Jadeja put 'too much zinc on his face'.

That brings a smile to our face. We hope it did yours too.

We sign off for now. Stay safe, stay home.

See you tomorrow.

Also read: DailyOh! When Indira Gandhi choked media's ad revenue, to why Jwala Gutta was called 'half-Corona'