Rock on Bandra!

Celebrate Bandra! The hoardings all over the Queen of the 'burbs proclaim. Right next to the "Beanbags" and "K2" grafitti all over the place..not to mention the "Jehovah is my Lord" crap all over the Carter Road walls. We know Bandra is relatively affluent by the hoardings for carpet cleaning and dog grooming. We know Bandraites care for the burb by the signs for "Strictly no garbage dumping" and we know they have a sense of humour by the board outside St. Andrew's church which said "If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans".

Now we're being told to celebrate Bandra...to which I say "Huh?". I've been doing that ever since I was born! I shop in Bandra, eat in Bandra, live in Bandra, studied in Bandra..and dammit, even vote for Bandraites! You can't get any more Bandra Boy than me (men). My interview on CNBC Aawaz where I extolled the virtues of Harry Potter in Bandra Aunty Hindi proved to my friends that I am indeed a lost cause (if you seek to convert me into a Lokhandwalla or Hiranandani type..). As I was telling my Catholic-Atheist-but-not-from-Bandra friend Ook last night, my lingo can prove very confusing to a non-native Bandraite and almost totally incomprehensible to a non-Bombayite.

(Sunday morning 6 am at Jude's bakery at Pali Market)
Jude/Alex/Micheal/Andre/Glen/Robert/Peter/Sean/Derek - What you want men?
Me - Give 2 ladi pao, 1 gutli and 3 brun men. And give fast fast.

(and it's not just me..Vikster's Amma at Pali Market Saturday afternoon)
Ramprasad/Ramdulare/RamBahrose/LaxmanPrasad - Kya chahiye Mummy?
Vikster's Amma - 1 kilo batata and give 5 Rs. ka masala aur chillies less mat dena.


Anyway, to get back to the topic, Celebrate Bandra is an attempt to showcase the best of Bandra's talents/arts/food/shopping in one 21 days festival centered (weirdly enough) on the 3 sea front promenades of Reclamation, Carter and Bandstand. Why they don't want to showcase the old houses of Old Bandra and the villages of Pali, Chuim, Chimbai and Shirley-Rajan before they disappear under the builder's maw, I will never know. But hey, one takes what one gets, no? So I toodled off to Bandstand last night to watch the best of Bandra's young rock talent last night with Ook. I had high hopes..after all, the previous show I watched was this AWESOME French blues band at the old Bandra fort.

This is what I learnt last night:
1. There are no Hindus/Muslims/Sikhs/Parsees/others in Bandra's bands (Or among Bandra's famous denizens according to the brochure for the festival). A steady procession of Nicks, Joshuas, Rachels, Wendells, Ians, Joes ensured that the rock concert turned more into an audition for getting into Willingdon Catholic gymkhana....

2. There are a myriad ways to massacre the most awesome songs. To hear Zombie, Take on Me and Higher croaked, squeaked and growled by the lead "vocalists" proved to be a bit too much for me.

3. I hate Creed and its non-offensive Christian rock and I will continue to hate it.

4. Audiences at IIT's Mood Indigo concerts are metal heads, pot smokers and the general unwashed masses. At Celebrate Bandra? Aunties, Uncles and the odd Burkha-clad shadow. And I'm serious about the aunties and uncles. Some of them looked like they'd just stepped out of Bandra Gymkhana or the PJ club after the evening Housie game...

5. The drummers in Bandra are mostly good, the guitarists (if they try not to show off) are good as well. The vocalists on the other hand? Destined to sing "I will always love you" at McRonnell's at Ian's and Shaila's wedding.

6. Since when did Karaoke become de rigeur at a "rock concert"? Cause that's what a lot of the songs ended up being. Including singing off lyric sheets...Sheesh! I wish I had a drink in my hand when I was listening to them "sing". Or a joint as I sat on the rocks right next to the sea and the promenade..

7. The odd Punjabi'ism does creep into Bandra lingo as evidenced by the lead singer asking the assorted bunch of people (Average age: 55) if they were impressed by "his bums". I scuttled away before he could mention "Hallo dear" and "Beta, what work you do?".

After my big musical disappointment, I'm relieved to see that over 200 retailers are giving between 10 and 25 % discounts on everything from salon visits to shoes to Koliwada fish frys. I'm thinking of celebrating this 400 year old suburb by splurging till my credit card loses it's magnetized strip. Or I exhaust my bank balance (I think I still have about 657 Rs. to spare this month).

Till then, I leave you with my favourite quote about my favourite part of Bombay.
"If you throw a stone in Bandra, you hit either a pig, a priest or a Pereira".

Current Music:
Ode to my family -The Cranberries.

I had to find my faith in music again after the horror that was assorted Bandra teens trying to sound like Dolores O'Riordan. She rulez.