Everybody in West Bengal goes crazy twice a year, once during Christmas , somehow ever bengali transforms themselves into a Christian and how this is the most important time of the year and of course the New Year when all cell phones crash from 11 Pm on 31st December and my inbox gets flooded at 8 AM in the morning on the 1st of January about "Oye its 5 minutes till the new year ,please forward this message to get Rs 5555 as your balance, do it to 20 people, it works, it really does"
Ummm fuck off, it does not. NEVER HAS.
The second time is during the Puja's which is just about bigger than Christmas and New year's in Calcutta. This is that time of the year when everyone goes absolute bonkers, buys a ton of new clothes, travels late into the night "pandal hopping" not hopping like a rabbit but going from one Pandal to another, drinking their ass off and doing general maagibaazi and maagabaazi with the excuse of going to said Pandals.
I don't go for all that Pandal hopping, not because my religion does not allow, which it does not allow but because I am a lazy fat arse who , if he had a chance, would spend the rest of his life working from home and even ordering the weekly shopping online but that is never gonna happen.
Since walking around in the heat of Calcutta for hours and then standing in a crowd to enter a pandal getting elbowed and pushed about and eating street food is off the list the other thing that is done by me during this one massive week away from college, yes 1 whole week, no college, this one week I spend time watching the massive functions that take place in my complex.
Now I don't know what are the days of the Puja called but for 5 days its all shows, shows and shows. Normally we have a Ghazal night, followed by a proper singer this year it was Indian Idol Abhijeet Sawant , then they have a in house talent show, a night of Antakshari and finally the Dandiya night, every day its a pain as the noise levels are actually deafening and its the one time of the year I am excused from not opening the main door as "I really could not hear the bell".
Now I don't really enjoy these functions but I have to show my face at em , its like those lame ass family meetings, you hate em, you wish you could avoid em but you just can't. This whole function on paper should suck lame ass, it really should but it doesn't and here is why:
1: The Puja is always inaugurated by some ex star, Yukta Mukheey[ ok she was not a star], this year its Mahima Chaudhury and all, this means crazy people taking photos like Angelina Jolie just gave birth to a multi colored set of octuplets , laughable as people push and pull to get one measly photo with a star who actually does have better things to do but money talks, always.
2: The singing bit by say Sawant, people again go bonkers trying to pose and get a photo with him, probably did not get so much adulation when he was in Indian Idol. Then there are the requests, people randomly ask the singer to sing some songs which he/she probably cannot and will not do but is forced to improvise as again money talks.
3: The dancing, even though these Puja days are dry days and you can't get alcohol, you do get the uncles absolutely smashed dancing randomly with everyone and everything, even all alone when and if needed, the best moves I have seen?
One had raised up, clockwise rotation of entire body , 2 rotations, other hand up, anti clockwise rotation twice , now repeat for 20 minutes, take a break and then start again.
4: The long long long lines for vegetarian food, which I will never understand. Its fucking grass and weed and people make these huge lines just to get a taste of the said food when I can have a ton of KFC and chicken at home and really bloody enjoy the texture, do not gimme that crap that soya meat has similar taste and texture as chicken. Chicken is like premium gelato while soya meat is like that cheap frozen lolly you get on the street for 5 bucks.
5: Lastly , the music on DJ night, which is the same for all the dandiya nights, the songs are all remixed versions of hindi hits and the DJ is technically a guy who can operate a laptop with fade in and fade out, plus he can pause the music and shout out
"Raise you hands" or "Make some noise" or "Where are the girls?" or "Its time to party"
Yes, that is what we call a DJ in India.
Every year I get served with the same thing and every year I enjoy it, somethings never change.
Showing posts with label Puja. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Puja. Show all posts
Monday, October 3, 2011
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Punked Punked and oh yeah PUNKED!
Us friends have created a sorta ritual,whenever chintoo lee is in town ,we guys have a good old night out,no different this time,we go to park street in the evening,have dinner some where and then go to Someplace Else to catch the band that is playing ,its always Hip Pocket as its Nagu's sir's band and they more or less are always spot on with their music and song list.
This year also we decided to do the same,this time we werent with babla or manko ,it was sumitano,nagu ,chintoo and me,this time we went to park street as usual and we decided to do something different from usual,rather than going to some chinky place ,nagu suggested we go to Mocambo,continental cuisine,we reached music world at 7 and Nagu went and wrote our name down in the register,they told us to come back in around an hour
At 8 we went to Mocambo and the bloke said ,another few minutes,those "few" minutes was like an hour,families were going in one by one but us 4 guys were out just because we werent "family" we had to wait,i can easily say my friends are fucking better family than most relatives i have,although the time did fly by coz all of us had some thing to share which was crazy and funny,i find it odd that non family groups,rather groups without females were made to wait for so long and all,anyways,we entered,got seated and started reading the menu.
Most of us were there to eat the Beef steak,probably the best in town,while chintoo decided to take the lasagna ,nagu wanted some appetizer ,so while i was on the phone and nagu was distracted,chintoo ordered a prawn and crab cocktail,we were hoping that we would have to dip the sea food in some sauce,but a few minutes later we got......
Two bowls with white liquid,now we are confused,what is this,so we dig in and taste it,wtf its mayonnaise ?....we paid 200 bucks for mayonnaise,we dig deeper and we find its with prawns and crab meat,and we gobble it down and then later when we reach the bottom off the bowls we get a nasty after taste,like way bitter,then we realize,we had to mix the bowl well as Vodka was at the base,fucking hell there goes my plan of not having a sip of alcohol for the rest of my life,damn fucking asshole Chintoo just bought me a direct ticket to hell for Betray of Religion,i was going there any way but still,i wanted to go there in my own terms....
Thats the first punked
The 2nd one starts now
We go to Someplace Else where Hip Pocket were to play and we see that they have a new keyboardist and a guitarist as well,a young kid was on the guitar,young compared to the other members of the band,so the gig starts and they start off with some slow easy numbers nothing with The Doors or Pink floyd,the typical Hip Pocket list was not there,boring song list,people getting disinterested and the songs sounded way off,i mean i know i aint a genius in music or that i have heard all the songs before but every song sounded way way wrong ,and after around 5 songs we left in a hurry,really pissed about the music.
Punked twice
Now we decide to have some ice cream so we go to the nearby Swirls outlet and i as usual decide to have a thunderstorm swirls,my 3rd one in 3 days and 4th one in the last 7 days :D,nagu has the new cookie and cream swirls and sumitano and chintoo have some cone dipped in chocolate with vanilla soft ice cream,the damn bastards at the outlet made such pathetic soft creams,bloody it was runny like my nose when i have a bad cold,and fucking hell they even gave very little chocolate chips and nuts in the swirl itself
Thrice.
However one good news did come out from the day about Liverpool FC,and chintoo did get a brand new set of headphones,so alls well that ends well i guess,but man that cocktail shit was pathetic from our side.
This year also we decided to do the same,this time we werent with babla or manko ,it was sumitano,nagu ,chintoo and me,this time we went to park street as usual and we decided to do something different from usual,rather than going to some chinky place ,nagu suggested we go to Mocambo,continental cuisine,we reached music world at 7 and Nagu went and wrote our name down in the register,they told us to come back in around an hour
At 8 we went to Mocambo and the bloke said ,another few minutes,those "few" minutes was like an hour,families were going in one by one but us 4 guys were out just because we werent "family" we had to wait,i can easily say my friends are fucking better family than most relatives i have,although the time did fly by coz all of us had some thing to share which was crazy and funny,i find it odd that non family groups,rather groups without females were made to wait for so long and all,anyways,we entered,got seated and started reading the menu.
Most of us were there to eat the Beef steak,probably the best in town,while chintoo decided to take the lasagna ,nagu wanted some appetizer ,so while i was on the phone and nagu was distracted,chintoo ordered a prawn and crab cocktail,we were hoping that we would have to dip the sea food in some sauce,but a few minutes later we got......
Two bowls with white liquid,now we are confused,what is this,so we dig in and taste it,wtf its mayonnaise ?....we paid 200 bucks for mayonnaise,we dig deeper and we find its with prawns and crab meat,and we gobble it down and then later when we reach the bottom off the bowls we get a nasty after taste,like way bitter,then we realize,we had to mix the bowl well as Vodka was at the base,fucking hell there goes my plan of not having a sip of alcohol for the rest of my life,damn fucking asshole Chintoo just bought me a direct ticket to hell for Betray of Religion,i was going there any way but still,i wanted to go there in my own terms....
Thats the first punked
The 2nd one starts now
We go to Someplace Else where Hip Pocket were to play and we see that they have a new keyboardist and a guitarist as well,a young kid was on the guitar,young compared to the other members of the band,so the gig starts and they start off with some slow easy numbers nothing with The Doors or Pink floyd,the typical Hip Pocket list was not there,boring song list,people getting disinterested and the songs sounded way off,i mean i know i aint a genius in music or that i have heard all the songs before but every song sounded way way wrong ,and after around 5 songs we left in a hurry,really pissed about the music.
Punked twice
Now we decide to have some ice cream so we go to the nearby Swirls outlet and i as usual decide to have a thunderstorm swirls,my 3rd one in 3 days and 4th one in the last 7 days :D,nagu has the new cookie and cream swirls and sumitano and chintoo have some cone dipped in chocolate with vanilla soft ice cream,the damn bastards at the outlet made such pathetic soft creams,bloody it was runny like my nose when i have a bad cold,and fucking hell they even gave very little chocolate chips and nuts in the swirl itself
Thrice.
However one good news did come out from the day about Liverpool FC,and chintoo did get a brand new set of headphones,so alls well that ends well i guess,but man that cocktail shit was pathetic from our side.
Kaju
Normally i dont go pandal hopping during em puja's,i am way too lazy for that,but this year was a completely different story.
My best friend Rohit "chintoo" Sarkar comes to town only once a year as now he studies his ass off in Suratkal and he barely gets holidays ,so every year during the puja's he bunks one week and then we [as in the group] meet up,plus to add to the occasion ,i barely get any holidays from my new B college and this one week in 2010 was the only time i was gonna meet Chintoo.
So off we went for a bit of pandal hopping,ahh the sweaty people all around,the children running and bumping into people,the loud noise,what a perfect advertisement for the city of calcutta,so its around 11 when i meet chintoo,nagu and sumit,who shall now be referred to as sumitano from now on.
We travel to quite a few pandals in kidderpore and of course one of the best themed pandals was in badamtala,but this blog isnt about the pandals,oh no,its more about the "kaju" experience.
So lets get the situation in place,nagu is hungry and before we can have lunch we decide to have a snack so off we go to KC Das ,near South city and we are at the counter but we arent getting any service whatsoever ,we tell nagu to tell the old bloke at the counter about our order but he just refuses to listen to nagu
so i tell him
"Nagu,show him some cleavage"
he didnt and after another 10 minutes of waiting and no service we leave in a huff,still in hunger mode though
so after a few more pandals we go to a roadside sweet shop,where nagu asks for a couple of laddoos,now the laddoos had like a kaju split in half on the top,and nagu gets both the laddoos on one of em paper plates,the ones where they put the water for the puchkas.
So sumit or nagu had one of the half kaju's and chintoo was trying to half the other,me on the other hand wanted the kaju as well so as soon as chintoo tried to lift the kaju from the laddoo i screamed
"KAAAAAAJJJJJJJJJJUUUUUUUUU"
and tried to grab it,but..........
Chintoo didnt expect a scream,up went his hand and one laddoo in the air,now nagu has one laddoo in the plate but he wants to try and save the other laddoo so he tries to save that,when his hand hits mine and now the second laddoo is in the air and the three of us are trying to save the laddoos,rohit almost had it,so did i and nagu was the same slow dim witted freak that he is,but alas both the laddoos were on the ground and the shop owner was bloody angry at us,so we ran away from the place with screams of laughter at the "kaju" problem
Next we went to another place and nagu wants to have em radha balavis and asks the owner,if there were any kajus in em and of course he kept the plate away from me.
My best friend Rohit "chintoo" Sarkar comes to town only once a year as now he studies his ass off in Suratkal and he barely gets holidays ,so every year during the puja's he bunks one week and then we [as in the group] meet up,plus to add to the occasion ,i barely get any holidays from my new B college and this one week in 2010 was the only time i was gonna meet Chintoo.
So off we went for a bit of pandal hopping,ahh the sweaty people all around,the children running and bumping into people,the loud noise,what a perfect advertisement for the city of calcutta,so its around 11 when i meet chintoo,nagu and sumit,who shall now be referred to as sumitano from now on.
We travel to quite a few pandals in kidderpore and of course one of the best themed pandals was in badamtala,but this blog isnt about the pandals,oh no,its more about the "kaju" experience.
So lets get the situation in place,nagu is hungry and before we can have lunch we decide to have a snack so off we go to KC Das ,near South city and we are at the counter but we arent getting any service whatsoever ,we tell nagu to tell the old bloke at the counter about our order but he just refuses to listen to nagu
so i tell him
"Nagu,show him some cleavage"
he didnt and after another 10 minutes of waiting and no service we leave in a huff,still in hunger mode though
so after a few more pandals we go to a roadside sweet shop,where nagu asks for a couple of laddoos,now the laddoos had like a kaju split in half on the top,and nagu gets both the laddoos on one of em paper plates,the ones where they put the water for the puchkas.
So sumit or nagu had one of the half kaju's and chintoo was trying to half the other,me on the other hand wanted the kaju as well so as soon as chintoo tried to lift the kaju from the laddoo i screamed
"KAAAAAAJJJJJJJJJJUUUUUUUUU"
and tried to grab it,but..........
Chintoo didnt expect a scream,up went his hand and one laddoo in the air,now nagu has one laddoo in the plate but he wants to try and save the other laddoo so he tries to save that,when his hand hits mine and now the second laddoo is in the air and the three of us are trying to save the laddoos,rohit almost had it,so did i and nagu was the same slow dim witted freak that he is,but alas both the laddoos were on the ground and the shop owner was bloody angry at us,so we ran away from the place with screams of laughter at the "kaju" problem
Next we went to another place and nagu wants to have em radha balavis and asks the owner,if there were any kajus in em and of course he kept the plate away from me.
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