Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Hawa Hawa!!!

The other day, I was going in a taxi to South Kolkata. As expected, we got stuck up in a huge jam @ Ruby. The taxi driver, an old Bihari fellow played a very rare but superhit song, Hawa Hawa. Those of you who remember, it was the Pakistani guy, Hasan Jehangir's superhit album of late 80s, having some great foot tapping melodies, where you could just erupt in a typical Pujor Bhashan Dance. Anyways, I was quite amused that the old fella had this tape with him. I asked him how come he had this old collection intact after such a long time.He said that he could not relate to the Music of the present generation. Neither does he follow remixes or the modern tunes, nor is he a fan of the great HimKumar.He wants to listen to Music where he can simply dance, as he used to in late 80s after a long hard day in the cab.
Well, point noted!
Last year, a Hindi song was a Superhit-of the same genre-Dekha Jo Tujhe Yaar, Dil Mein baji Guitar. Otherwise, the music has changed a lot. I would not go into details(I am not technically sound!), but my point is, in late 80s- we had innumerable songs-Hawa Hawa, Oye Oye, Ak Do Teen, which are genuine foot tapping songs till date. Do we have such numbers nowadays?Considering 2008, I do not see anything. Harman Baweja, Hrithik's poor cousin is dancing to a couple of tunes in his sci-fi movie. But will genuine masses be able to relate to that kind of stuff?God Knows.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Where have those days gone?

I was idling away my time one Saturday evening. I went to our nearby park, which was the hub of our soccer-adda during schooldays with
my football. I found a few 13-14 year old guys playing TT in the clubroom. The park was nearly empty otherwise. I told the guys to come and play soccer with me. I was taken aback with their response. None of the guys have ever played soccer in their life, and all of them replied emphatically saying "I do not know how to play football". Well, I said to myself, Welcome to Summer of 2008 in Saltlake, Kolkata!!!
Flash back 20 years, same place. Papun, Gogol, Guddu, Rittik, Bumba.....the place was abuzz with activity, read football. I was the only Mohun Bagan supporter among them. Dada and I used to go to Saltlake Stadium to watch the derby matches. I vividly remember the time when Manikjor-Bikash Panja & Krishanu Dey switched loyalties and joined Mohun Bagan. We went to watch the next match, confident that we will seal a victory. And so it happened, we won 2-1, with a last minute goal from none other than Panja himself. Those days, after every match on weekends, we went to Fulbagan to savour Hinger kochuri and Amriti(Life@ SaltLake had just started!). After the match, we caught a private bus. Not to mention, all Beleghataites are more or less hard core Bangals. So the mood in the bus was glum, with a near pin drop silence. Dada told me not to utter anything loose and keep quiet. The bus was rolling over very slowly. Then the conductor came and asked the guy sitting beside me, a typical parar mastan, for the bhara. The guy replied "Mood Off, aktu pore dicchi". The conductor replied "Mood Off to ki be, herechis akhun ticket kat".All of a sudden, the entire bus turned into a war zone, with the conductor being the sole enemy. Everybody started beating him, mouthing profanties and hurling abuses. Dada and I got down, and walked all the way.
Coming back to Summer 2008, are those days really a thing of past? Such passions, emotions, have they all died in the post modern era of globalisation?Is anybody listening?