Mumbai, I still love you !

Oh, but this post is not about Mumbai. It’s about a covert dalliance with another city.

For the first time ever, I had the chance to go for a Durga Puja! The event was held at a children’s high school in a Chicago suburb. I had never seen so many Bengalis under one roof before. There were stalls with Bangla books, and charming Bengali patterned sarees. And I think I actually learnt some Bangla, since everyone insisted on speaking to me in Bengali. The pujo itself was beautiful and it felt quite amazing to be a part of it. It reminded me of all things Calcutta. Speaking of which, I totally heart Calcutta and anything related. It could be because I was born there, and Bada Bazaar still reminds me of well spent summer vacations. ‘Puchka’ still makes my mouth water more than ‘Pani puri’, even if they are the same thing. And ‘jhalmudi’ remains the best railway snack invented, topping even vada pav. I am usually a non sweet loving person, yet the Calcutta rosgollas and kalakand can easily induce a mouth watering effect on me.

Also one of my closest friends is Bengali. And, I would so love to learn Bengali just so that I can read the original text of Rabindranath’s Gitanjali. And really understand without subtitles, the newest Bengali movie, Anuranan, which stars Rahul Bose, on whom I have a gigantic adult version of a ‘crush’. Oh, never mind!

Calcutta is full of fond memories, the most special one was this night when Papa and I went to dinner. I don’t remember the conversation, but I remember feeling like I was part of an amazing era in which the finest and eclectic mix of intellectuals called Calcutta home. Sometimes when I hear Papa talk in Bengali to his Bong friends, it reminds me of that conversation, just like it probably reminds him of the glorious youth he spent in the then very elite and stylish city.

Saturday afternoon was spent in some sort of a mini Calcutta, and I loved it!

in which I sound like a broken record…

Get up, step out, and walk about. Do something, get a change. The most abused word in your vocabulary since the past year – “Change”. Yes, even Grey’s Anatomy caught on and titled its season premiere, ‘A Change is gonna come’.

 Here’s the thing with being comfortably bored in life, you are comfortable even if bored. You see, comfort trumps boredom. So you resist, and continue being bored. You say the same things about how much you need to make a change when you talk to people as you did last year and the year before. You have pretty much the same number of friends as you did before. And you pretty much have not stepped out of your comfort zone. In short, you have become stagnant, and inertia seems to be your best friend. You live vicariously through other people’s lives. You become a spectator and oust yourself from the game, the delectable game of life. 

So, what do you do? You walk. As far as you can. Without direction, without plans, and without those helpful GPS systems. You just walk. Almost like picking a place on the map with a blindfold on. You jump of a cliff and you fly. Yes, actually fly. And if you crash and burn, you rise up again.  Most importantly, you disown inertia.

Presenting- “Hum besure”

That was the name of our band!

Me, Anu and Vivek, the founding members! We took midi’s of cool catchy songs, wrote new lyrics and with great fanfare, albeit without proper recording equipment sang it with gusto and absolute fun!

It all started with Vivs writing a Valentine poem for his girlfriend (now wife), and Anu and me coming up with the brilliant idea that we can make that poem into a lovely song sung by him. So here’s a fact, the name of our band is after Vivs really, coz Anu is a really good singer, and I am passable with my enthusiasm. Vivs though was a hard cookie to crack, Anu and I made him practice till 5.00 am, which was possibly the 20th time he had sang his lyrics on the Bryan Adam’s midi ‘ Here I am’, but we refused to relent. Finally, at 5.00 am, he struck gold ( as well as he could have), and we okayed it!  Vivs very enthusiastically sent this to his girlfriend and we all were very proud of ourselves and waited anxiously for his girl’s reaction.

That night was the formation of Hum besure. The next few nights we came up with some more gems, one of which is presented here, and personally one of my favorites – Calling Dil, after Shery’ Crow’s , ‘Soaking up the Sun’, it has the most corniest lyrics, (especially the Hindi ones, written by moi’), and Me and Anu on the chorus, with Vivs trying his ada on the Hindi shayaris!

Calling Dil was followed by ‘Burning love’ and during my last visit to India, with some new members in our group sitting at Red Box Cafe on New year’s eve, we came up with,’ The Girl in Blue’

Oh, what was Viv’s girl reaction you ask, he got a trashing for something else he screwed up and the ‘Indian Idolish’ singing effort was quite ignored. Girls, really are hard to please !!!  Although they did end up getting married, – ‘to hamare band mein kuch to baat hogi’

PS: oops, no clue how to upload audio here, so email me if you wanna listen to it , heheh!