I am told or given to believe that the next best thing since sliced bread is the “hip and happening” ubiquitous lounge bar syndrome. I swear to God they are mushrooming all around here – rubbing their exclusively donned shoulders with a pan-beedi corner shop. Sure enough – I look around me and everywhere where there used to be a McDonald’s or a Papa Pancho’s derivative (you guys, anybody who has not lived in Bandra cannot know what or why Papa Pancho’s is such a huge phenomenon), all such remains of “down-market” places have been wiped out and in their place, stands a lounge bar with a fancy High Street designer name such as Ogan or Shalom. Yeah yeah, we are all climbing the social ladder, and these days, it helps if you are more in touch with the politics of Rwanda or Israel, and can wax eloquent on the economics of a strong euro and and throw around “esoteric” names to boot, such as Ogan or Shalom, as opposed to the good ole wannabe American names such as Bill’s Pizza Parlour. We are all heading towards the “famished road” here (don’t bother if you don’t know why that was enclosed in quotes, I am prepared to go to my grave with nobody but me getting my in-quotes statements and email song headers). Ben Okri anyone?? Naaah, never mind.

That said, I have an evening out at Shalom tonight. Finally, one Friday night in eons that might actually turn out right, thanks to G in B’lore. As always, I don’t believe in restricting my cribbing to just my virtual friends, so as I was talking to G, he suggested that he might have been able to do something about my friend-less state of being in India if it were Bombay or B’lore, hell, yeah. I could have managed pretty well myself in Bombay and/or B’lore – without much “help” – good set of friends in either place. Now, who would have thought that I’d be stuck in tractor-land up north? Nice transition this – straight from farmland cowtown Ohio to yet another tractorland cowtown in India. Great. They say life is all about patterns – in that case, I am setting some wunnerful trends for myself going forward. I like where I am headed.

Anyway, so yesterday, I find my mailbox spammed by the sweet guy (G), who has been pimping me around to his “eclectic” set of friends in this city (where he himself lived until a few months back, after returning from Boston), as this really “cool” girl who has lived all over the place, and has recently come down from the US to live in India and is having a really hard time with this city up in the north, and if they would, could they all write to me and invite me into their world? I swear I survive because of friends like him. “I get by with a little help from my friends…” (yeah yeah I am a Beatles fan too). He took the mantle of my “finding and making” friends upon himself straight on. I could have done without a little bit of the pimping, but, oh well….So his friends did his bidding, in particular, a sweet Aussie girl (let’s call her C) called me over for an evening of hanging loose at Shalom, so that’s where I am headed tonight. To meet her and the rest of her Aussie crowd, down a few martinis and chill. Yeah yeah, “eclectic” all right. I can see you smirking. All of them working for a Commonwealth NGO headquartered here. Should be good. Even if it involves “pretentious” conversation re the Middle East crisis and the Fed interest rate policy and the likes thereof. At least better than doing the routine with loud brash rap-bhangra loving northies, right? Fuck, I am prejudiced. Gimme the southies anyday.

“…what else can I say, what else could I do….” Shalom and thanks for the music.