Bombay images

The reason why these new Hindi songs appeal so much to me is, they bring back to me all those images of Bombay that I so dearly cherish. Bombay is now a racy city, quick and nippy on her feet (not that she was anyway different earlier). But this is a new avatar of the city. When I hear ‘Deedar De’ or ‘Nach Baliye’, it takes me to Lokhandwala, with the tall towers and endless shopping complexes. Punjabi women, tall and fair, dressed in lovely salwar kameees, pretty young girls wearing jeans that flare at the bottom, the endless parade of soap-opera stars and starlets, the rare meeting with Sridevi in the local beauty parlour… the all-night joints in 7 Bungalows, the various shops selling greeting cards, soft toys and other goodies. Cell phones in all sizes and colours in the shiniest shades possible, bumper to bumper traffic along the suburban junctions, tall piles of bestsellers in paperback versions, bunches of roses at traffic junctions, Radio Mirchi, hip women in the local trains stepping out at Bandra, above all the blazing sunlight, the pouring rain, the infernal heat – how the city rejoices!