memorial sunday has been a whirl, and a long drive around town. First stop: Global Mall on Jimmy Carter Blvd. This is a mall of, for and by Indians (the irony of the word 'Global' is a surefire giveaway). The last time I was here, I sampled the great biryani at Curry in a Hurry. This time I tried the North Indian Thaali at the neighbouring Sai Chat {note: the website has nothing on it right now, but forthcoming content has been promised}. Pretty decent and cost-effective (unless you start converting from $$$ to rupaiyaa).

Also visited Bollyvision {note: see note above}. Despite a lot of advertising and offers, the place has no variety to offer: a hotch-potch of DVDs (Hindi, Tamil, Telugu) -- fresh and viewed, CDs (the minimal mix of a few new movies, some classics, karaoke, ghazals -- what is a Shaan album doing there???, et al), and some tapes (see previous bracket for categories). But one (namely, me, the R D fan) lives on chance: found another of those dreaded combo CDs released by HMV (right down to the little semicircle at the bottom right corner of the inlay cover which says "now on CD"): Bullet/Phandebaaz/Mr. Romeo/Dhongee. Bullet is missing the Asha song piine ke baad, a wonderfully psychedelic number that benefits from the warped picturisation treatment that most of the songs in this film received. Ba.De ba.De log from Phande Baaz has some strange cross-speaker sound journeys... irritating. The only complete soundtrack on this crowded compilation is Phande Baaz, and the omissions on the other movies will be sorely missed. Haa_e re haa_e teraa ghu.NgaTaa and the other songs from Dhongee are marred by bad source material: I can almost smell the fungus and see through the cracks in the LP carefully preserved by HMV. Calcutta has been touted as the intellectual hub in India (or at least a font of "intellectuals"). Guess a lot of these dimaagiis are running HMV: no business acumen, no sense of integrity. Wonder what happened to the chulluu of water they should have committed themselves to...