and if you die before i leave
what on earth becomes of me
look around theres noone here
to love me and hold me
take me
dancing
i love music
keep on
singing
we wont loose it
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Roots
Five years back I was introduced to a word , called 'bong'.
'bongs are everywhere', id hear on campus,hostel,mess,...during saraswati puja, duringstats lectures,during the lab.
And God , the omniscient,let me be a sinha.
I wonder how life would have been as a mukherjee, ganguly or worse, a bose.
And the moment anyone would discover that no, im not from bihar or any part of north indian, id be like the friend who passed his md and everyone wants his opinion on all the possible ailments.
Id get educated from the rest on how 'the bongs'were.
From the rude 'tell me,whats with them, do they have a disease or something, they'r always huddled together in groups'
to the cute ' man u and ahana and the other bong girls are always on drugs , so high on life'...i realised my community was obviously a popular conversation piece.
'ohh sweetie, but ur not one...oh u are ??!!!ohh well u dont look like one ...infact u never talk in bengali...ya i know non of us would understand even if u did....well u see ur not one of them'.
I wonder how my dear hindi speaking delhite friends would react in pune, or alhabad or pondicherry or anywherethe national language wasnt spoken , atleast not with the national accent :)
"Well if uv been in amex for 4 months ud learn bengali sooner or later, cos its full of bongs'.
Well dearies,I learnt bits of tamil, and marathi and malyali ..the same way.
No seriously, inspite of hindi being the national language, the rest of non-north india actually still prefers their mother tounge.
So if any of you ever attended maths lectures with me 4 years back,youd have picked up decent marathi from a class full of erudites from pune.Or, Tamil from the 7 tams in my batch at school.
Iv been trying to figure out what the problem is,what causes the great divide.
Do the non bongs feel left out, do they feel their space is being invaded .. what?
At times, during the repetitive lunch discussions about how bongs are I get a lil bugged.Well to hell with u all, lets name two famous gujrati cinematographers, physicists,world renowned authors, nobel laureates and one miss universe(heh heh).
And then id recall the creepy absolute alubhate stereotypes even iv made fun of and avoided all my life.but hey who hasnt seen a flashy punjabi or a miserly baniya.
But then what fun would it be with probashis like me who forget to switch on their radios for mahalaya,or who dont launch of into 'aai kamon achish' every time they see someone from the east.What fun is a jignesh who doeant eat dhokla, a chopra who doesn accent her 'dahi' or a dhakai who doesnt say 'bujhla'.
I guess all im trying to say ..is ...just cos they have left their hometowns, dont expect them to forget their identities,to wipe out their roots.It would be as fake as a two months 'cannedda' return's accent.
Today was bijoya.I generally dislike going for the puja all alone, feel homesick and spaced out.I had come home early and decided tp spend the evening with my dvds.However, my roomie rang me up from the gate and we ran off to the nearby pandal.The aarti was over by then and the dhak beats faded to a whole pile of entertainment...dances, skits, blah blah....and we stood there,one event after another ...and i realised that around 15 years ago , back in bombay , we used to have the exact same setup of the pandal, almost similar itenaries ....there was such an uncanny resemblance to the whole scene.
Every year all the kids would be performing something or other.
Every year there would be atleast one play we all would rehearse for days.
Every year didi and I would kick everyones butt in the drawing competitions :D
Space and time didnt matter, we bongs were all just the same :)
A hearty 'Shubho Bijoya' to the millions of people who dont read my blog and the couple who do .
This was definitely a very 'puja-is-gone-and-i-miss-home' speech.
'bongs are everywhere', id hear on campus,hostel,mess,...during saraswati puja, duringstats lectures,during the lab.
And God , the omniscient,let me be a sinha.
I wonder how life would have been as a mukherjee, ganguly or worse, a bose.
And the moment anyone would discover that no, im not from bihar or any part of north indian, id be like the friend who passed his md and everyone wants his opinion on all the possible ailments.
Id get educated from the rest on how 'the bongs'were.
From the rude 'tell me,whats with them, do they have a disease or something, they'r always huddled together in groups'
to the cute ' man u and ahana and the other bong girls are always on drugs , so high on life'...i realised my community was obviously a popular conversation piece.
'ohh sweetie, but ur not one...oh u are ??!!!ohh well u dont look like one ...infact u never talk in bengali...ya i know non of us would understand even if u did....well u see ur not one of them'.
I wonder how my dear hindi speaking delhite friends would react in pune, or alhabad or pondicherry or anywherethe national language wasnt spoken , atleast not with the national accent :)
"Well if uv been in amex for 4 months ud learn bengali sooner or later, cos its full of bongs'.
Well dearies,I learnt bits of tamil, and marathi and malyali ..the same way.
No seriously, inspite of hindi being the national language, the rest of non-north india actually still prefers their mother tounge.
So if any of you ever attended maths lectures with me 4 years back,youd have picked up decent marathi from a class full of erudites from pune.Or, Tamil from the 7 tams in my batch at school.
Iv been trying to figure out what the problem is,what causes the great divide.
Do the non bongs feel left out, do they feel their space is being invaded .. what?
At times, during the repetitive lunch discussions about how bongs are I get a lil bugged.Well to hell with u all, lets name two famous gujrati cinematographers, physicists,world renowned authors, nobel laureates and one miss universe(heh heh).
And then id recall the creepy absolute alubhate stereotypes even iv made fun of and avoided all my life.but hey who hasnt seen a flashy punjabi or a miserly baniya.
But then what fun would it be with probashis like me who forget to switch on their radios for mahalaya,or who dont launch of into 'aai kamon achish' every time they see someone from the east.What fun is a jignesh who doeant eat dhokla, a chopra who doesn accent her 'dahi' or a dhakai who doesnt say 'bujhla'.
I guess all im trying to say ..is ...just cos they have left their hometowns, dont expect them to forget their identities,to wipe out their roots.It would be as fake as a two months 'cannedda' return's accent.
Today was bijoya.I generally dislike going for the puja all alone, feel homesick and spaced out.I had come home early and decided tp spend the evening with my dvds.However, my roomie rang me up from the gate and we ran off to the nearby pandal.The aarti was over by then and the dhak beats faded to a whole pile of entertainment...dances, skits, blah blah....and we stood there,one event after another ...and i realised that around 15 years ago , back in bombay , we used to have the exact same setup of the pandal, almost similar itenaries ....there was such an uncanny resemblance to the whole scene.
Every year all the kids would be performing something or other.
Every year there would be atleast one play we all would rehearse for days.
Every year didi and I would kick everyones butt in the drawing competitions :D
Space and time didnt matter, we bongs were all just the same :)
A hearty 'Shubho Bijoya' to the millions of people who dont read my blog and the couple who do .
This was definitely a very 'puja-is-gone-and-i-miss-home' speech.
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