A much younger scribble...

Just found this - something I scribbled years ago :)

No offence meant to my friends at the Frog or at any other amphibious animal!

A night at Blue Frog, one of Mumbai's finest nightclubs, never fails to amuse me for one reason or another. Often, for all the wrong reasons too.

It's not the exquisite sound system, the incredibly expensive food or the truly fabulous decor that overwhelms me. Over the years I've become shallow and urban enough to act suitably unaffected by these. As usual, I settle down as obtrusively as possible. I've yet to discover how one blends into the background at these places – the funky neon-ish decor doesn't help.

The band walks on the stage.

They call themselves 'Smokesters', a euphemism I would rather not explore. There's something about watching grown men try and live out their adolescent fantasies.

Carefully worn out clothes, practised 'witty' lines (sample this 'ladies n gentlemen, that's Sunil on the percussion, for your listening pleasure tonite..and any other pleasure you'd care to have him for...') and that universal hallmark of misplaced angst- long hair.

Heroically I try and nod my way through the music.

Yeah, I know music is not supposed to have a language and all that, but it is mildly difficult to relate to 'white picket fences', 'Louisiana blues are me' and 'mama, keep it spinning'....

Maybe this seems particularly surreal to me, since these fine lines are being sung by 'Mridula, Vikas and Atul'. The band launches into a self-titled track and I can't put myself thru more.

Even though they promised that blues have always got the world drunk and laid - I think I did pretty well without it!. Guess I will never quite know why 'Smokestack Lightening' gave them their name.

As I drive out feeling a bit of a philistine, a jubilant bunch of 'dahi-handi' revellers pass me by.

I stop myself short of closing my car windows.

I let 'Govinda aala re aala' blast thru and grin happily.

Fuck Louisiana, for me, Laalbaug rocks!