The Bong Connection

Before coming to London, I thought I should try and get back in touch with the 'Bong' side of me.

Having been brough up in Delhi, I hardly kept much connection with either the bong side or the konkan side of me! It's not like people living in another city lose connection with their roots. It's just that since your peers are from that area, you tend to find a midde ground!

Just celebrating the same festivals is not really understanding a way of life! festivals and occasions are just a minor section of it! To understand they way people live, you need to 'live' the life they live!!

Just before coming to London, I thought of going and spending time getting reconnected to my bong side. (For those of you who don't know what 'bong' means, it's basically a slang for Bengali)

I wanted to go to Kolkatta to say bye to my relatives before coming to London. It might surprise most people that the way life is in Bengal is different from the way life is in Delhi! However, I was in Cal for only 2 weeks. I was happy that I finally got some time to understand their way of life. What I never thought of, was connecting with the modern Bengali way of life. That too, I did not learn this in India; I learnt this in London!

Many of you might be aware of the traditional culture in Bengal, but how many of you know about their real way of living? Bengali music is for instance always associated to Rabindranath Tagore. Not like that's a bad thing, but that's like associating English literature only with Shakespeare!! While traditional songs are a part of Bengali music's history, it is not the only Bengali music! People hardly know about the upbeat bengali songs! All this, I learnt after coming to London! In fact to be honest, I have never interacted with so many Bengalis in my life (other than my family)

Some Bengali movies, are so much better than Hindi ones I've watched!! But sadly, only Hindi movies seem to portray 'Indian' movies to most of the world (other than film buffs who would know of other films too)! It's true with Marathi movies too, and I suppose with movies of other languages too.

I must say, I'm looking forward to going back and discovering the Konkani side of me next!!