You think you've left it all behind. The smell of rosogolla's. The ladies with their huge red 'bindis'. The talk about adda's & calling each other's name ending with 'da' (for men) and 'di' (for ladies). But no. They're everywhere and you just can't find a place where they don't exist. The Bongs (aka. the Bengali's). My dad once said that in any city or town in the world there are two bengali's, then they will surely get together and celebrate durga puja. I'll take that a step futher. '.....till will surely get together and celebrate ANYTHING!'. Haha...

Anyhow, jokes apart, last saturday was one of these celebrations, which I presume didnt have any special occassion. It was just for fun. It's been really long since I last took part in something that had stage rehersals & things moving according to a itenary. But it was fun. My friends & I teamed up to play a bit of music for the crowd. I wouldn't call it a smashing performance, but then again we didn't get booed of the stage either! But watching other performances were fun. It was fun to see the Indian-Aussie kids randomly switching perfectly crafted bong with perfectly crafted english. Aunty's talking about the usual 'what their son did at school', people scrambling about to find the next guy going up on stage, the spicy chicken biriyani being served for dinner...for a moment there, it felt like home. It felt nice to be part of all that, being in a different country and yet doing this just the way it was back home.

I'm pretty sure I'll see something very familiar during durga puja, which I presume is not too far away. In the meantime, you can check out some pics from that day....(only pics of me!! haha)....Click here