During a promo event for his book

Bongs and Mallus don’t mix, so they says. Bengalis claim the legacy of Rabindranath Tagore and his literary achivement of Nobel prize in literature. With another Nobel coming their way through Amartya Sen, they are on cloud nine.
On the other hand Malayalis have the biggest egos and sledom give ground to the Bongs. That they can’t stand each other is too well-known in the journalist circles.
One of my long-standing friend is a Bengali who grew up in Kanpur. A charmer, Bishwanath Ghosh loves books, music, booze and… generally loves to live a good life.
He has a good collection of books, one of the best I have so far come across, and which I had the fortune to browse through while I stayed with him for four months in his Chennai flat.
I also met quite a few of his friends during my stay, learned a bit of cooking too. Many nights have we spent discussing music and books over a bottle of Old Monk. That was many summers ago. Today he is married and is also known as a writer and blogger of repute.
What always intrigued me is his love for Malayalam songs set to music by Salil Chowdhary. ‘Aa kaiyilo, ee kaiyilo’ being one of his favourites. Salilda has set music to quite a large number of Malayalam songs, many of which find place in BG’s collection.  He also loves to visit Kerala on and off and seen more of the state than I have. And I have not met a more talented writer and editor who improves copies with the turn of a phrase here and an adjective there.  I hope he remains a friend even during the autumn of our lives.

I have lived more than four years in all these cities and have loved each for its very character. I have lived in Delhi the longest after I started my career as a journalist and I love the city still.

For the past six months I have been living in Bangalore, the IT capital of India. And I am already hating the place. I have not developed any lasting ties with this city despite having one or two close friends. I guess it is more to do with the fact that I am more often than not homesick.

Even the work place is not very exciting and it is more of a drab place.

I am often left wondering if it has anything to do with the fact that I am having a mid-life crisis @ 40 years.

I badly want to get out of the city and wander around this vast country with not a worry about my next meal.

I hope that itch for taking off does not become acute in the coming months.

Even my mother is worried about my threats of quitting my present job in the middle of a imminent downturn in the economy.

I am myself not too worried about this aspect.