So many years wandering in this wilderness of life trying to figure out why Whigfield sang 'saturday night and I like the way you move....' (Back where I lived, in the middle east friday was the weekly holiday. Saturday was the first day of the week so I thought she was having a crush on her office mate or something)
When George Micheal crooned "Last christmas I gave you my heart....." the juxtaposition of joy and un-joy was lost on this Confused Desi.
In the Middle East, there are only three seasons - hot, very hot and unbearable. July and August were the worst months of the year - scorching hot! Autumn - never heard of it. In such a place, the following legendary lines made no sense at all.
No warm july
No harvest moon to light one tender august night
No autumn breeze
No falling leaves
Not even time for birds to fly to southern skies
No libra sun
No halloween
The first person whose music resonated with me was Apache Indian. When he rapped "Sweet like Jalebi..." in Arranged Marriage my heart truly sang with him.
Recently, something like that happened again. Every second line I heard I could identify with. I was going yes that is me and I know someone like that and then that too.....
That was this group called the BodhiTree - a band from XLRI, Jamshedpur. First the bad points, they could do a little polishing and their lyrics need to be more focussed. Three songs I liked.
1) Sabka katega! What a great motto for a Ph.D. and is fast becoming a lab anthem. I agree very much with the second line of the second stanza.
2) Too many potatoes. This is about the preponderence of potatoes in the hostel menu. In MEI(My Esteemed Institute), we can replace potatoes with green peas. One intrepid day the MEI cooks managed to serve peas pulao, mixed veg(with green peas) and kheema(also with green peas) at the same time! Methinks, they have something illegal going with a green peas trader.
3) Xl ki kudiyan I cant get the damn song out of my head! Sometimes I find myself replacing Kudiyan with Profs and XL with MEI to make something like this.
MEI ke Profs bade bade smart
Hai meri tauba tauba
Theory bhi mardiyan, Fundae bhi mardiyan,
Theory bhi mardiyan, Fundae bhi mardiyan,
Fundae bhi mardiyan bade bade wrong!
Hai meri tauba tauba
Go listen!
(Link shamelessly stolen from VW! Picture taken from here.)
12 comments:
"Too many potatoes...."
Well, did you try to correlate the fact that some HEI also makes a lot of palak stuff the day the grass is cut ( or sometimes the palak comes the day after ) ? in my HEI, there was a nice correlation.
No not too many potatoes....too many green peas!
About the palak and the grass correlation, I like to believe that there is none for my own sanity. :(
@samudrika
Well, you can be happy by not looking at such correlations. Ignorance is bliss !!!!!
@samudrika
Btw, talking about seasons, at least there are three in Middle East. In the city of my HEI, there were two : "rains" and "no rains"
Utterly boring and disgusting !!!!!
Refer to my blog on that.
Hmm.. sabka katega feels kind of quaint if you're dropping out. Wonderful song! Thanks for the pointer!
hey,samu, thot i shd comment on your ideas on UR blog rather than on someone else's. Sabka Katega is on my mind since yest night. Sahi hai ekdam..my bong roomie and i died laughing..waiting for "Love Story".
hmm.. that "XL ki ladkiyan" song seems to have become a sort of college anthem all over the country.. :D
Too many potatoes is true! I remember the mess at MSUB. Everyday was potatoes and some veg day except Thursday when it was just potatoes!
@musafir
Or maybe there were two seasons - conference time and non-conference time?
@Anon
Truly! I think I know who you are. ;)
@Sweta
Glad to make someone smile. Are you bong too?
@Shubham
Great song isn't it?
@Oook
Dont remind me of the potatoes! The green peas seem more bearable in comparision.
Hi Samu,
Naa re, aami bangaali nai.. but in less than 2 yrs my bong roomie has successfully taught me the technicalities of the language to the extent that I can sing 2 full bengali songs impeccably.
She connected completely with you Hilsa article and expressed similar distress in not getting her hands on it for long now (North Carolina mein Calcutta wala Hilsa nahi milta hai). Using Kray's words, there cant be a substitute for Hilsa, according to her too.
I think I know who you are.
You didn't really mean it, did you? Because if you did, I'm afraid I have to disappoint you. Error 404 :)
I am a big fan of bodhiTree myself. Wrote a post on this song a few days ago.
Its a pity they didn't write more songs.
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