The Second Law of Thermodynamics says it can not exist at non-zero temperatures. What is it? A perfect solid. What exactly is a perfect solid? Well what, first, is a solid? A solid is something that has all its atoms/molecules/ions arranged in a more-or-less ordered pattern repeated over a reasonably large region of space (compared to the size of each ion/molecule/ion) - don't quote me on this, though.

I'm not the first person you should be learning solid state physics from, after all, I have consistently scored C's in the subject in graduate school (one of the reasons I'm glad I like astrophysics!). Such order is called Long Range Order. Now I'm not here (``to win a popularity contest!''... ``I work... the way... I work......... And I get REEE-SULTS!'' - The Bill) to introduce you to physics jargon so you can one day (that also happens to be the day you write your 12th standard exam) claim to have proved Einstein wrong and send a very triumphant and arrogant mail to everyone in the mailing list directory of every university you have ever heard of. If you want jargon, go read shitty popular science books.

Why am I writing this article, then? Well, because sometimes people who don't know very much about something end up observing something about that something that might make sense to other people who do know something about that first something, and so such somethings have to be observed and tabulated and published.

Anyway, so a solid has been defined (loosely) above. A perfect solid can then be (loosely) defined as something which has no imperfections... hehehehe.... now the question arises: what sort of imperfections can there be? Weeellll... in the definition of a solid, we said there has to more-or-less long range order... which means that it doesn't always have to be perfectly ordered, every once in a while we can have something going wrong. What can go wrong? For example, there could be some atoms/molecules/ions out of order - not in line (to which the now ex-principal of my school, V. Venkatachalam, would have retorted: ``Can't stand in line-a?'' - with his mouth hanging open in a very angry Pran-like slitted eye look after finishing the question), or maybe there are some different kind of atoms hiding in between some of the regular atoms (sort of like the Ugly Duckling living with the other ducks, or like Rajnikanth being brought up with Jeetendra and Rishi Kapoor by their mother in Dosti Dushmani), there could be a problem when the sheets of atoms were stacked - they might not be perfectly stacked, and so on and so forth. A lot of things could go wrong.

What does this have to do with Indi Pop music, you ask? Patience, morons! The path to salvation is lengthy and monotonous thanks to me. But if you want to acheive salvation, you have to follow this path.

Indi Pop. The Indian pop music scene was not so hot looking (like its hot now!!) in the late eighties. There were a couple of people like Sharon Prabhakar (who covered Papa Don't Preach from time to time) and Remo Fernandes (who used to play only that ONE song, the title song from Jalwa, well almost only one song, actually, until his smaaaaassssssshhhhh hit O Meri Munni - hahahahahahahaahahaha smash hit my ass! - in the late 90s. Wait! If you are thinking at this moment that you can start calling me ignorant and start abusing me because I didn't mention Bombay Hooray; Everybody Wants To... - which was a good song, by the way; and the shitty Hindi movie trial balls like Humma Humma and Huyya Ho (Hungama), now you know why I didn't mention them!!!!). Then, in the early nineties, something different happened to Indian television. A bunch of things, actually. But that is another story, as the end of every Conan movie told us. Maybe I will talk about it sometime.
Anyway, Indi Pop shot into a real world occupation for some people thanks to certain events in the early nineties, and suddenly every other good-looking (or, quite a few times, maybe not) chick and hunky (but usually the zero watt bulb type) guy was either releasing a pop album (Dhiraj Kumar and Dilip Tahil for example, but these are not the dimwitted type - they are magaaaan!!) or strutting their stuff in the videos. During one such point in the late nineties, we pause the discussion.

1998. I'm in IISc. There is one channel that's overplaying this one song. Who's the new pop artist who has released the title track to her album? Mandakini, who else!! You might remember her (if you remember her at all) as the wet towel-clad girl from RK Banners' Raam Teri Ganga Maili, said wet towel made of the thinnest possible material to pull in the crowds. I guess this album was financed by her  (some say he was/is!) boyfriend, Lord of the Underworld, Dawood Ibrahim (Don Dawood), portrayed as Dawood by Ashish Vidyaarthi in AK47... which you might remember our discussion about Bhasha mein Asha.

Her song was called No Vacancy. Now do you see why I was linking the Second Law to Indi pop? Well, wait till you read the lyrics to the chorus! They went:

Diya na hota jo dil kisik to main tujhi ko deti
Diya na hota jo dil kisik to main tujhi ko deti
I am sorry handsome, there is no vacancy!
Very sorry handsome, there is no vacancy!

Only, for some reason I don't know, Mandakini's accent became her ex-ent - she pronounced the lines to make them sound like this:

Aay em sorry hend-sum, thare is no va-KENSEE!
Vaary sorry hend-sum, thare is no va-KANSEE!

It was a wonder that this one hit wonder stayed so long in the playlist. Maybe we have the Don to thank for that, huh?... maybe the channel, ATN, had some majbooris. Koi behen, koi beti...

Anyway, coming back to the perfect solid: we interviewed Mandakini back in 1998 when this song was still on the playlist, and here is an excerpt from the interview:

Us: What is this song about?
Mandakini: Ekchooally this song is about a perfect solid. The solid is talking to a lot of imperfections, a lot of impurity atoms which want to occupy the vacant sites in its crystal. But since it is a perfect solid, at absolute zero Kelvin, it HAS no va-KENSEEs to speak of, and is telling the impurity atoms about this. At the same time, the solid DOES feel that it is breaking the hearts of the impurity atoms - it looks like it would feel great to have a va-KENSEE occupied by these atoms, so it is also apologizing to the impurities.

Us: That sounds very....
Mandakini: Comforting?

Us: Yes!
Mandakini: It's vaarry comforting. The first time I hummed the tune, I knew this song was going to be a hit.

Us: Do you think people will understand what this song is about?
Mandakini: Well, people interpret songs in different ways. There are many levels to this song. On one level, it tells the tale of a virgin pure crystal that doesn't want itself made impure, but at the same time thinks that it would be better to become impure than this living. On another level, I guess its also about this bombshell who wears a kimono. Men always lust after her, and during this song she is letting these men know that her heart already belongs to another. Although these are two different levels, you can see how much alike they are.

Us: Yes, its true. But, tell me, Mandakiniji, aren't you taking this (im)purity thing too far? I mean you debuted on the silver screen in a movie qp
about Ganga becoming impure...
Mandakini: Yes, but I think that people have a lot to learn about solids. In the movie, Ganga is a river, and that is a body of lee-quid. We all know that since lee-quids don't have long range order, it is easier to talk of impurities and defects in it. So, talking about a solid was a totally different venture for me. It was a challenge.

Us: Do you have anything to say to your fans before we go?
Mandakini: Yes, thank you, my dear fans. It is only because of your love that all my shows are sold out wherever I go - be it Dharmasala, Coimbatore, Nagercoil, Thimpu or even Vilaspur. All my shows are sold out!

Us: (grins) So... I guess you were singing No Vacancy inside while people outside were being told there was No Vacancy!
Mandakini: (laughs out loud) You are so funnyyyy!!!