So(it's finally)Ohh-Ver-Ya!!!

It's been a good six months since my last post. But then, my blog posts are all about experiences that I relate to and, feel strongly about. So irregular though I may be with my postings, I do mean to keep blogging as and whenever I can.

Reading this movie review brought to mind the deciding question put forth to

Question: If you could live forever, would you and why?

Answer: "I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever,"

Watching Saawariya, after all that hype, felt just like that. All much ado about nothing! Phew...

                               sAAHHHwariya - Where madness meets madness

The story goes, Raj is a newcomer to this wonderfully stylized (ripped off from Moulin Rouge) red light district. Actually, for all its worth, there are no red lights there only blue, green and yellow.

Inspired by the popular game, Need For Speed: Underground, SLB decided that all buildings should have neon and for some reason, numbers. Anywho, Raj meets Gulab (who is wearing a ring bigger than her face), and sings. Gulab says hello, sings, Raj introduces himself, sings, then he leaves to find a lodge, sings there, walks out with a football, sees a girl on the bridge, sings, the girl sings in chorus… I'm guessing it was somehow required that everybody sang to convey their most basic of thoughts.

Following this, the opening script was something like:
00:30 - Raj starts singing.
01:00 - Gulab starts singing.
01:15 - Prostitutes (in electric blue saris) sing

01:45 - Lamp post starts singing.

By the first 10 minutes, you will feel your head becoming heavier and experience a choking feeling. Do not worry, for this is your brain trying to strangle you. Brains don't have hands, so it's all good. By the first 15 minutes, you're wondering "Why is everybody singing? Why? Why?". A leaked SMS from Karan Johar sent while he was attending the premiere says - "o dear god y is evrybdy singing o shit y wont it stop sumbdy make it stop aaaaaaaaa" .

Anyshit, Raj befriends this girl, by doing an impersonation of Rocky which is even worse than Sylvester Stallone's impression of Rocky and promises to keep it strictly platonic and in the next 5 seconds falls madly in love with her. Why? Because the script fucking said so, that's why! And the next morning he expresses his new found love in one of the most traditional of ways by flashing a windmill, not once but several times. It could also be that he is urinating outside the window. Either way, the AETW (association for ethical treatment of windmills) is sure going to be pissed. He wears a frickin' towel and dances around all nilly-willy. Then he humps a piano and sleeps on (with) it. Lilipop finds him sleeping on (with) the piano and remarks that her son used to do the same thing. He then submits his "application for luvvv" to his boss asking for a leave, and his boss just so happened to be a good mood, so he denied him. On seeing her the next night they run around some more - all singing and dancing of but ofcourse! :-)

And then after all of that and more, she runs off somewhere. The next day she opens up to him telling him her deep dark secret (surprise...surprise): that's she's really - a Jew (Jesus Christ...gimme a break!!!) and that she fell in love with this another dude called Imaan a year ago, but hasn't heard from him since, and about how he never shows up online. Raj now (as if to duly return the obligation) lies to her too, telling her he's a Jew too, while in reality he's Kurdish and then, voila,they become good friends! Then suddenly from somewhere, a flashback shows her, Salman and a duffel bag. Salman brought the duffel bag to the set and absolutely refused to be parted with it. The stars say the duffel bag smelled very much like dried meat, and had a note stuck on it saying "this does NOT contain the highly endangered Black Buck" and, whenever people came near to it Salman exploded into raptures of "I didn't do it… I didn't... no… stop looking at me… what is wrong with you people…" Then she makes him "scrap" Imaan on Oar-cut, a popular social networking post office. "

The next night they have a whole dancing fiesta where Raj wears this magenta velvet suit, and dances around in 'gay' abandon like a monkey on crack. It is of interest to note that of all the times, he is called "handsome" he is sported wearing that velvetty suit.

However, in this town, handsome could be a codeword of some sort to mean "one who dances like an epileptic chicken". Supposedly, the velvet suit caused much confusion on the set and Salman strongly believed him to be a couch and tried sitting on him several times. Okay, so here's the tricky part – he shimmies and then claims to be in love with her. She shrugs it off with her freaky laugh where you can't make out if she's crying or laughing or dying. That Sonam Kapoor chick is one crazy bitch. And then our man's suddenly like, "Damn, I ain't getting laid tonight, so might as well try somebody else" and so he goes to Gulab, but in the process gets his ass kicked by her bouncers, then returns to Sakina, and on talking and singing some more, she changes her mind, and agrees to rub flowers with him. You see, Bollywood didn't discover sex until 2032, and they thought making out was taking a trip to the country. Sex is usually depicted by the rubbing of two flowers together onscreen, going down, after which there're odd sounds like a baby screaming or whatever the hell it is that is applicatory. Right then, Salman appears with his Bag-o-Beef™ and she is suddenly torn by her choices. Should she go for the under-actor or the over-actor? Meanwhile, to help her make her decision, Raj does a poor imitation of himself, which was already a poor imitation of someone else. Pondering over what seems like an eternity - of a few nano-seconds she ditches him and runs for Salman. They walk away. End of story. And the credits roll while you go "HUH? WHAAAA? WHAT JUST HAPPENED? IT' FREAKIN' OVER? AND I SPENT a 140 bucks on THIS?!?!???

In brief, I will now summarize the movie for you: Guy wants girl. Guy does not get girl. Simple!

Expected ending: Raj elopes with Imaan. This movie is based on a novel, White Nights, by Russian playwright Fyodor Dostoevsky. I will now summarize another famous Russian play, Three Sisters, by Chekov: Three sisters want to go to Moscow. They don't. Simple again! ;-)

See a pattern? Fit twelve (or more) songs into this "extremely complicated" plotline and you have Bride & Prejudice. Or Saawariya. I forget. Anywho, the point is that the climax of this movie happens 10 minutes before the movie actually starts. Or maybe even before you get to the theater. This is possibly the most anti-climatic, anti-conclusive, anti-windmill movie I have ever seen. Rani Mukherji is the only saving grace, but even she can't save this lumbering mass of lengthy pointlessness. This is so pointless that it makes the WWE seem like the human genome project. Never before have I felt such gratitude toward the theater management for cutting scenes from a movie. This movie sucks so bad, it makes a vacuum cleaner look like a moderately powerful suction device. I have a new found respect for Salman Khan, and that's mainly because he doesn't sing. Sanjay Leela Bhansali, you are done for! Done for! If you think that you will gain some remuneration from audio sales, you are wrong! The extremely diligent audio pirates of India are out there right now screwing you. Bit by bit (all manner of puns intended). You will suffer. The circle of life shall be completed! Food will be eaten! Justice shall prevail! so shall...Om Shanti Om!

Saawariya is one of the best movies I've seen this year. Yes, if by best I mean utterly screwed up, and by movie I mean one huge music video, and by seen I mean slept through, then by all means, yes. Saawariya (beloved), derived from the Dravidian word Savirya which means insufferable-piece-of-shit is basically Moulin Rouge meets Rocky meets Dr. Doolittle, give or take a few prostitutes and black people who can talk to animals. The sheer extent of its similarity to Moulin Rouge is so frightening that it's scary. You have lighted windmills ala Moulin Rouge, Victorian era cityscape ala Moulin Rouge, frescoes ala Moulin Rouge…. you get the point. What it doesn't have, however is Nicole Kidman. But to compensate we have the lovely, manic depressive Sonam Kapoor on whom scientists have recently speculated, using her mood swings as a more accurate measure of time over the Cesium atom.

As you all know, this movie is directed by none other than Sanjay 'Leela' Bhansali. With a middle name like that, he was picked on quite a lot at school. And drowning these harrowing memories in marijuana smoke for the past 20 years have finally taken its toll. So, in effect, this movie was inevitable; to those who are still complaining: you had it coming, so stop whining. Anyway, Mr. Leela's ultimate fantasy during this period was to make love to a unicorn. But his penultimate fantasy was to make a movie in which the singing and dancing were only exceeded by more singing and dancing, in a city where it is perennially Christmas. Or the people were just too goddamn lazy to remove the Christmas lights every year after Christmas, so they just left it on all the time. As you know, each director has his/her own trademark – for example: Karan Johar's keeps his actors so well dressed that they are often mistaken for mannequins, Gurinder Chada (a special shout goes out to Gurinder Chada's son: "Yo momma's so fat, when she walked in front of the TV I missed 3 commercials") crushes the actors to death when they refuse to comply, and so on… SLB has a few trademarks too; all women HAVE to wear make-up all the time. Even the really old people, who can be seen decomposing right in front of the camera.

The main characters in Saawariya are:
Ranbir Raj (Ron-beer Ra-jh) : The protagonist of this movie, he is a musician and suffers from epileptic seizures frequently. Songs have cleverly been inserted at points where he has convulsive fits to make it seem like he is dancing. Ranbir is played by Ranbir Kapoor, who is as charming as a weasel in a cardboard shirt.
Sakina (Suck-e-nah): The female lead, is played by Sonam Kapoor whose character is based on a JK flip-flop. She has 2 modes of acting: crying and laughing. And toggle. Nobody really\n knows what she does in toggle mode.

Gulab (Goo-lab): This is a "guest appearance" by Rani Mukherjee, who plays a high class prostitute. Her guest role is explained by the fact that the only time she does NOT appear on screen is the time she "deals" with her "clients". The movie acknowledges special thanks to her at the beginning. This is because, at the end of the shooting SLB went and told her "OK Thanks Bye".

Imaan (Ee-maan): Another guest role, Imaan is played by Salmaan Khan, who plays a Nawab who comes into town, reads the Koran upside down and then leaves. Oh, and in between he and Sakina have a passion filled fling. By fling I mean conversation, and by passion I mean lots of crying. Special thanks were also given to Salman, but unlike Rani he was paid. But due to a certain contractual error, SLB was able to pay off Salman entirely in refined salt.

Lilipop (Lee-lee pop!): The mother figure to Raj, she is one crazy cookie. Zohra\n Sehgal plays this role with elan. She wears lipstick all the time. And can be seen decomposing in real-time. That's just plain creepy. Heather Whitestone, who was selected as Miss America 1995.

Nice Guys Finish Last!

This is a befitting tribute to all us nice guys.

The nice guys that finish last, that never become more than friends, that endure hours of whining and bitching about what assholes guys are, while disproving the very point. This is dedicated to those guys who always provide a shoulder to lean on but restrain themselves to tentative hugs, those guys who hold open doors and give reassuring pats on the back and sit patiently outside the changing room at department stores.

This is in honor of the guys that obligingly reiterate how cute/beautiful/smart/funny/sexy their female friends are at the appropriate moment, because they know most girls need that litany of support. This is in honor of the guys with open minds, with laid-back attitudes, with honest concern. This is in honor of the guys who respect a girl’s every facet, from her privacy to her theology to her clothing style.

This is for the guys who escort their drunk, bewildered female friends back from parties and never take advantage once they’re at her door, for the guys who accompany girls to bars as buffers against the rest of the creepy male population, for the guys who know a girl is fishing for compliments but give them out anyway, for the guys who always play by the rules in a game where the rules favor cheaters, for the guys who are accredited as boyfriend material but somehow don’t end up being boyfriends, for all the nice guys who are overlooked, underestimated, and unappreciated, for all the nice guys who are manipulated, misled, and unjustly abandoned, this is for you.

This is for that time she left 40 urgent messages on your cell phone, and when you called her back, she spent three hours painstakingly dissecting two sentences her boyfriend said to her over dinner. And even though you thought her boyfriend was a chump and a jerk, you assured her that it was all ok and she shouldn’t worry about it.

This is for that time she interrupted the best scoring spree you’d ever orchestrated in a good game of tennis to rant about a rumor that romantically linked her and the guy she thinks is the most repulsive person in the world. And even though you thought it was immature and you had nothing against the guy, you paused the game for two hours and helped her concoct a counter-rumor to spread around the floor. This is also for that time she didn’t have a date, so after numerous vows that there was nothing “serious” between the two of you, she dragged you to a party where you knew nobody, the beer was awful, and she flirted shamelessly with you, justifying each fit of reckless teasing by announcing to everyone: “oh, but we’re just friends!” And even though you were invited purely as a symbolic warm body for her ego, you went anyways. Because you’re nice like that!

I know now for a fact that nice guys don’t often get credit where credit is due. And perhaps more disturbing, is the fact that women are just plain illogical when it comes to nice guys!

Many of them claim they just want to date a nice guy, but when presented with such a specimen, they say irrational, confusing things such as “oh, he’s too nice to date” or “he would be a good boyfriend but he’s not for me” or “he already puts up with so much from me, I couldn’t possibly ask him out!” or the most frustrating of all: “no, it would ruin our friendship.” Yet, they continue to lament the lack of datable men in the world, and they expect their too-nice-to-date male friends to sympathize and apologize for the men that are jerks.

Sorry, guys, girls like that are beyond my ability to fathom. I can’t figure out why the connection breaks down between what they say (I want a nice guy!) and what they do (I’m going to sleep with this complete ass now!). But one thing I can do, is say that the nice-guy-finishes-last phenomenon doesn’t last forever. There are definitely many girls who grow out of that train of thought and realize they should be dating the nice guys, not taking them for granted. The tricky part is finding those girls, and even trickier, finding the ones that are single.

So, until those girls are found, I propose a toast to all us nice guys. You know who you are, and I know you’re sick of hearing yourself described as ubiquitously nice. But the truth of the matter is, the world needs our patience in the department store, our holding open of doors, our party escorting services, our propensity to be a sucker for a pretty smile. For all the crazy, inane, absurd things we tolerate, for all the situations where we are the faceless, nameless hero, my accolades, my acknowledgement, and my gratitude go out to you. Boy, we sure do have credibility in society, and our well deserved vindication is coming. Hum honge kaamyaab - tra la la - hum honge kamyaab...ek din... ;-)

Calcutta: The City of Joy...contd

More on Kolkata...

Preeti sent this across to me, knowing fully well how much of a Calcutta hangover I am still nursing, almost a month since I visited the place. Looks like I'm not the only guy to come away enamoured of the city.

A nice piece this, succulent with the flavours of all things warmly Kolkata. :) and apt sequel to my take on Calcutta in the piece on 'Oh Calcutta!'

Vir Sanghvi on Calcutta...

Most modern Indian cities strive to rise above ethnicity. Tell anybody who lives in Bombay that he lives in a Maharashtrian city and (unless of course, you are speaking to Bal Thackeray) he will take immediate offence. We are cosmopolitan, he will say indigenously. Tell a Delhiwalla that his is a Punjabi city (which, in many ways, it is) and he will respond with much self-righteous nonsense about being the nation's capital, about the international composition of the city's elite etc. And tell a Bangalorean that he lives in a Kannadiga city and you'll get lots of techno-gaff about the internet revolution and about how Bangalore is even more cosmopolitan than Bombay.

But, the only way to understand what Calcutta is about is recognize that the city is essentially Bengali. What's more, no Bengali minds you saying that. Rather, he is proud of the fact. Calcutta's strengths and weaknesses mirror those of the Bengali character. It has the drawbacks: the sudden passions, the cheerful chaos, the utter contempt for mere commerce, the fiery response to the smallest provocation. And it has the strengths (actually, I think of the drawbacks as strengths in their own way). Calcutta embodies the Bengali love of culture; the triumph of intellectualism over greed; the complete transparency of all emotions, the disdain with which hypocrisy and insincerity are treated; the warmth of genuine humanity; and the supremacy of emotion over all other aspects of human existence.

That's why Calcutta is not for everyone. You want your cities clean and green; stick to Delhi. You want your cities, rich and impersonal; go to Bombay. You want them high-tech and full of draught beer; Bangalore's your place. But if you want a city with a soul: come to Calcutta.

When I look back on the years I've spent in Calcutta - and I come back so many times each year that I often feel I've never been away - I don't remember the things that people remember about cities. When I think of London, I think of the vast open spaces of Hyde Park. When I think of New York, I think of the frenzy of Times Square. When I think of Tokyo, I think of the bright lights of Shinjiku. And when I think of Paris, I think of the Champs Elysee. But when I think of Calcutta, I never think of any one place. I don't focus on the greenery of the maidan, the beauty of the Victoria Memorial, the bustle of Burra Bazar or the splendour of the new Howrah 'Bridge'. I think of people. Because, finally, a city is more than bricks and mortars, street lights and tarred roads. A city is the sum of its people. And who can ever forget - or replicate - the people of Calcutta?

When I first came to live here, I was told that the city would grow on me. What nobody told me was that the city would change my life. It was in Calcutta that I learnt about true warmth; about simple human decency; about love and friendship; about emotions and caring; about truth and honesty. I learnt other things too. Coming from Bombay as I did, it was a revelation to live in a city where people judged each other on the things that really mattered; where they recognized that being rich did not make you a better person - in fact, it might have the opposite effect. I learnt also that if life is about more than just money, it is about the things that other cities ignore; about culture, about ideas, about art, and about passion. In Bombay, a man with a relatively low income will salt some of it away for the day when he gets a stock market tip. In Calcutta, a man with exactly the same income will not know the difference between a debenture and a dividend. But he will spend his money on the things that matter. Each morning, he will read at least two newspapers and develop sharply etched views on the state of the world. Each evening, there will be fresh (ideally, fresh-water or river) fish on his table. His children will be encouraged to learn to dance or sing. His family will appreciate the power of poetry. And for him, religion and culture will be in inextricably bound together.

Ah religion! Tell outsiders about the importance of Puja in Calcutta and they'll scoff. Don't be silly, they'll say. Puja is a religious festival. And Bengal has voted for the CPM since 1977. How can godless Bengal be so hung up on a religions festival? I never know how to explain them that to a Bengali, religion consists of much more than shouting Jai Shri Ram or pulling down somebody's mosque. It has little to do with meaningless ritual or sinister political activity.

The essence of Puja is that all the passions of Bengal converge: emotion, culture, the love of life, the warmth of being together, the joy of celebration, the pride in artistic ex-pression and yes, the cult of the goddess. It may be about religion. But is about much more than just worship. In which other part of India would small, not particularly well-off localities, vie with each other to produce the best pandals? Where else could puja pandals go beyond religion to draw inspiration from everything else? In the years I lived in Calcutta, the pandals featured Amitabh Bachchan, Princes Diana and even Saddam Hussain! Where else would children cry with the sheer emotional power of Dashimi, upset that the Goddess had left their homes? Where else would the whole city gooseflesh when the dhakis first begin to beat their drums? Which other Indian festival - in any part of the country - is so much about food, about going from one roadside stall to another, following your nose as it trails the smells of cooking? To understand Puja, you must understand Calcutta. And to understand Calcutta, you must understand the Bengali. It's not easy.

Certainly, you can't do it till you come and live here, till you let Calcutta suffuse your being, invade your bloodstream and steal your soul. But once you have, you'll love Calcutta forever. Wherever you go, a bit of Calcutta will go with you. I know, because it's happened to me. And every Puja, I am overcome by the magic of Bengal. It's a feeling that'll never go away.

Sanghvi is the editor of The Hindustan Times

Bridges of Orkut County...

There’s nothing like an emotional high of re-establishing contact with ole’ pals who you’ve completely lost touch with. More so especially, if these are pals who’ve had considerable influence on your growth as an individual; pals, who in no small measure, have helped you come into your own over your growing years. It’s another matter then, ironic as it were, that as you came into your own, you also chose to go it that way, from then on, gradually having lost touch with your once close friends. It happens with all of us all the time as we battle the dilemma of ‘how much of ourselves and how many of our relationships to leave behind, as we move forward’

Aahhh…the story of life!

And then when- many summers down the line, when fate, guised in the name of Orkut, surreptitiously destined that you ‘network’ across six degrees of separation along each other’s path - you discover that, irrespective of the chasm of time between your last meeting and this one, the bridge of ‘connect’ still holds just as strong, the feeling of bonding becomes all the more intense. Engulfed by a tsunami of sweeping memories coming at large over you, you are surged in the nostalgic sea of time, almost drenched to you weather-beaten bones before you are washed miles ashore into the present – the now. The time to act is now, you realize!

It’s a defining moment in the history of that friendship from then on; almost like a milestone erected in the direction of its forward course. Wiser in retrospect now, you know this time over that you want to do all it takes in your ambit to nurture and nourish these bonds for good, silently expecting nonetheless that your efforts are equally reciprocated.

And with the dawn of that feeling begins a whole new chapter that is freshly inked on the pages of that long-lost forgotten book.

The more I delve into seeking the design behind such happy chance findings, the more I am convinced that life does give us all a second chance - and if not a new beginning, at least a whole new direction - with the people who’ve meant a lot to you - to make good the elapsed passages of lost time; the karmic principle of eternal hope in, and continuity across all creation, if you may!

Like the foggy silver of dawn against the brittle brown of passing time, these friends re-enter your life and complete you in ways you never even thought were possible after you last parted, gathering around you from all corners like a shawl against the winterliness of the incomplete world.

I’d guess it must work the other way too; having you back in their lives must have quite the same impact on them as well!

Like they say, in life, some relationships are simply just meant to be!

Thank you Orkut for making this so much more possible...

Sound of Music

Death they say is a great leveller. Obviously someone forgot to mention music. The ability of music, as a medium, to forge bonds is grossly unexplored.

It’s amazing to see how a diverse set of people resonate to the same wavelength whilst discussing music. Now come to think of it, music has always figured at some decible or the other in my discussions with almost all the people I’ve bonded well with. And interestingly, what consciously begins as an introductory understanding of each other’s tastes, besides of course proving to be an ingenious trick that melts the ice, leads into the sub-conscious realm of mapping datapoints to trace the persona of the other.

And so, if you were an ardent messaiah of say the Dave Mathews band then you can could bet nine on ten times that such a person would lend himself wholly to interests that would include a keen understanding in the genres concerning fusion, jazz/folk rock, poetry and off-beat cinema. Also given his taste in fusion/jazz, it'd lead for a connect to the way he'd chose to dress; unlike the twiddley rapster, hip-hopping to stocatto beats in baggy pants almost falling off his hips, this would be your guy who could best be described as the outcome of a cross between the well heeled dapper and the free-spirited hippie. Not for him are the pleasures of loose and oversized clothing. He'd rather have a pair of courduroys and a contrasting Tee, that sports an environmentally friendly message in synch with his 'activist' image as he goes about proclaiming the perils of non biodegradable plastic. Throw in a pair of sandals and a he's ready to take off to the next book reading meet across the corner someplace; for all you know, it'd be his very own! And so, voila, you'd figure he's well read and informed too. That'd open up a whole new vista for an engaging conversation...and a treasure trove of even more nuggets of singular information to be collected, organised, analysed and interpreted.

Having connected the dots thus, you almost have the person all carved and figured out without even so much as really having begun! Suddenly the both of you are bound by an ensuing crescendo of companionship as you find yourselves connected by the umblical chord of a common interest in music.

Long life heuristics.

Your taste in music most definitely defines 'who' you are. Elementary Watson...but of course!

That apart, I don't really know what it is about music that makes it great company to have especially when you're at the wheel negotiating your way through the endless traffic on your way back from work. Listening to the chattersome RJ play your favourite track/s on the radio is almost like a prayer answered. Humming along with the tune you find yourself smoothly cruising a nostalgic bend as you revisit memories that spawn a springburst of emotions - happy, melancholic, sad or sometimes even sombre. Flashes of
- a friend you've lost touch with,
- the warm satisfactory gaze of mom as she watches you devour that
amazing chicken dish she prepared especially for you, when you visited
home last,
- the comforting feel of a secure relationship
- a touching movie scene,
- a strained relationship now gone sour,
- a faint wallow of self pity for the life you could have, but dont, and
all because of a few wrong choices

all these and so much more come alive across the windscreen of your mind. And as you watch life whizz past you into the incandescence, you are left at the crossroads of an oxymoron. One minute you feel like you've moved a step behind from madding crowd as you take stock of what makes you feel the way you're feeling. And the very next minute, it's like as if you're leaving everything behind into the fading limelight of the evening as you zip through almost detached yet stronger in resolve to reclaim your life for what it's really worth.

And having experienced that million dollar feeling, you realise you've forged another key bond. Only this time it's with yourself!

A Song That ...
(stolen from alaina*marie the super*star)

~ You wish you wrote: No Such Thing- John Mayer
~ Reminds you of your best friend: too many to list here
~ Makes you cry: A Lifetime- Better Than Ezra
~ Makes you laugh: Jerusalem- Dan Bern
~ Reminds you of what you want: Banana Pancakes- Jack Johnson, Sunscreen
~ Has the best lyrics: Soar- Christina Aguilera
~ Sums up your teenage years: The Way We Get By- Spoon
~ You used to hate but now love: Somebody Told Me- The Killers
~ You like to wake up to: California- Phantom Planet
~ You like to fall asleep to: Follow Through- Gavin DeGraw
~ You like out of your parents record collection: any John Mellencamp
~ You sing when you're alone: Almost Perfect- Ingram Hill
~ You love which is from a movie: I Wonder- The Diffuser
~ Makes you think of stars: Somewhere Only We Know- Keane
~ Makes you think of the sun: All I Wanna Do- Sheryl Crow
~ Makes you think of the night: Cause A Scene- The Format
~ Makes you think of sex: Secret- Maroon 5
~ Makes you think of being alone: Mr. Jones- Counting Crows
~ Reminds you of Summer: Pieces Of Me- Ashlee Simpson~Reminds you
of Winter: The Beautiful Letdown- Switchfoot

Ohh Calcutta!

I'm in Kolkata at the moment (been here a week now on work) and boy, I'm in love with this city! It simply just grows on you from the very word 'go'. Now, I know why they call it the 'City of Joy'; everything, simply everything about this place is so 'sweet and happy,' right from the food (yummilicious!!!), the big lovely smiles that stare you in your face right out of every roadside hoarding, the Bengali language, the foot-tapping and ear-catching music scene (even the cabbies have great taste in music here...have you ever heard of a cabbie listen to jazz...!!!; mine does and ohh boy he knew so much!), the amazingly-affordable standard of living and but of-course the beautiful soft-spoken and genteel people or Bhodro-log (colloquial term - for the classes)...man, I'm in love all over again! Only this time, it's with a newly discovered city :-)

Talking of cities, you know what, I have a theory about them...


I have always believed that there is an irresistible magnetic lure about cities with a coastline or by a waterfront. And this makes them addictive.

I believe that such cities and the people therein have a quintessential character to them. And that, I believe has something to do with the element water. Acting like an oxidising agent, water it seems breathes life, energy and a sense of purposeful restlessness into the city it surrounds or is contained in. The flow is almost contagious in that you're instantaneously propelled into it as you pulsate to its beats. And before you can even say 'splash', you're gently bathed by the shower of its all embracing claim over your identity.


Then - and this is where the beautiful assimilation process begins - insidiously yet magically you find yourself woven into the cultural fabric of that city as you become an inseparable part of the breathing mosaic of its life.

...now just you think...Ganesh Chathurthi, the Kala-ghoda cultural fest and the Banaganga music festival in Mumbai, the Kali puja and jazz festival in Kolkata, the kuttcheri season in Chennai, the Karachi music and arts festival...all these are great cities (and the many more, I haven't yet visited) are characterised by a distinct identity and culture; and diverse as they may be, besides being geographically spread out, the one thing in common to them all is their proximity to water.
Some winding flow of thought that, now ain't it... ;-)

Incidentally, this post also goes out to my pal Sutirtha Sen and his lovely family who hosted my stay in Kolkatta and made it so memorable for me. In my week long stay at their home, I've been served rich dollops of the experience that is Kolkatta in myriad portion sizes that came my way in the course of my long animated discussions over breakfast and dinner with his folks about issues that ranged from politics and local culture to football (Mohun Bhagan rules o'er Sao Paulo anyday) and the weather to pretty Bengali women (hmmm, is it the fish they eat?) and finding me a one such for a bride! I for one am not complaining...'cause aamhake Kolkata (and all that it has to offer) khoob bhalo lage.