TURQUOISE CHILL

After much preparation & anticipation, the Friends 91.9 FM Music Festival finally went live at 5 pm this evening. The performances by Suchitra Mitra, Lopamudra, Kartik Das Boul and Dohar had the packed audience enthralled. Add to that a variety of food, music and cold drinks on offer behind the auditorium, day one was a grand opening to what's in store for Kolkata over the next two days.

After months of work, the Friends 91.9 Fm Music Festival is going live in a couple of hours. An all night vigil at the venue seeing to the final arrangements was most fulfilling. Now all the remains is that the 3 day musical extravaganza goes off well.

Last night I finally went back to good old Park Street. Well by that I mean out partying on a Friday Night. After a lengthy debate as to where and what to eat, we ended up going to One Step Up. A bottle of Kingfisher Beer (Rs. 110) and Cheesy Garlic Toast (Rs. 75), we ordered a dish each. A Chicken Cordon Bleu (Chicken Stuffed with Mushroom, cheese and herbs served pan fried with creamy cheese sauce) (Rs. 170) and Chicken Tetrazinni (Chicken and mushrooms with spaghetti cooked in a creamy cheese sauce with herbs and baked) (Rs. 170) is still making my mouth water. Infact we couldn’t have the entire thing and got the Tetrazinni packed and just had it for lunch. After that we headed to Some Place Else. The place is just the same as when I visited it on a Friday night a bout a month ago. Hip Pocket was performing and for a change their play list had changed and was quite refreshing to hear some new stuff from them. We hung around listening to DJ Austin before the next band, Urban R...

Last evening after getting caught in the traffic jam and missing getting tickets for the 8.30 pm show, we finally went for the planned movie "Jodha Akbar" starring Hritik & Aishwarya. The supposed period film is more a commercial weave of love, deciet, valour, honour, belief, family and all the stuff required for making a basic entertaining movie. Did i forget the elaborate song and dance sequences. Well they are there for making it a complete Hindi Movie Experience. The movie is shot in exotic locales of Historic Forts of Rajasthan so its quite a visual treat. I liked the movie and think its worth at least one viewing. But be warned. You need time on you hands. We got tickets for the 9.45 pm show and came out of the hall at 1.30 am. Its like 3.5 hours long. Oh and do go to FAME for the experience. I liked the hall way more than INOX. The seats are bigger and recline further, the screen seems bigger, the hall is definitely bigger and the Pop Corn and Pepsi guys come in...

After spending a week in what was near paradise, last evening I got caught up in a traffic jam created by a procession that held up traffic from Park Street upto the No. 4 Bridge and which had its repercussions all the way to the E.M. Bypass. I sat in my car for a good hour and a half from 7 pm upto 8.30 pm. The Traffic Police could only look on in dismay and cordon off roads and divert traffic in despair.

I left from BANGKOK (Suvarnabhumi International Airport) Departure at 1210 and arrival at KOLKATA (Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport) at 1315 by Air India Express Flight No. IX921