Nostalgia in Hindi

I went to India 7 years ago, and it was one of the most mind-blowing experiences of my life. Music and vibrant primary colors saturate every pore of your skin.

The songs of a blockbluster movie are released months before the movie is released. These songs are broadcasted over every little tin-pot battery radio receiver held by every grizzled shopkeeper in every roadside stall in every dusty streets in the state of Utter Pradesh.

And so the songs of the hit of 1999, "Taal" has sedimented somewhere in the deep dark recesses of my travelling memories. The movie stars the scrumptuous Aishraya Rai, former Miss World (who only lipsynchs). It was the only film I saw in a cinema, somewhere in Delhi. Although I didn't understand a word of Hindi (namaste), I got the gist of the 3 1/2 hour story, and a kindly doctor explained the story to me a week later. Well i had though those memories lost, that is, until I found on Youtube, a music video of "Ishq Bina", the hit-song from the movie, a gorgeous fusion of Indian lyricism with some western flourishes. Enjoy.:



Note the product placement and displaced sexual metaphor in the last frenzied minute of the film clip.