Vacation at Agartala

My Agartala trip has come to an end. Its been a very enjoyable and eventful trip to my hometown, this time round. Few gigs, parties, high-nights, babe-watching (literally), great food, catching up with old friends, and also being a km away or so from the serial bomb blasts that rocked Agartala on 1st Oct.
I went to Agartala after 2 years or more. Usually I try to plan my vacation around Durga Puja, not just because its the happening time, but also that most friends would be either back home or be on leave around this time. I reached Agartala on Sunday afternoon 29th Sept.
First few days spent meeting family and friends, catching up, finding place to have a drink in the evenings (eventually in a departmental shop after the closing hours, the shop-owner being a friend).
It was really nice to see my nephew and niece Shankha and Megha. Megha is one super naughty kid, and I became her punching bag! they would manipulate me easily to give in to their demands. :) Pogo, Hungama, Cartoon Network, Disney channels play a big part in their lives, and when things got out of control (when I couldn’t keep pace with them), TV did the rescue acts.
On 1st October, me and my brother’s family went shopping to the city. We heard a big blast but thought it to be a typical gas cylinder blast, which usually happens with illegal restaurants mushrooming on vacant spaces during Puja. We were sipping on colas when Django called up from Kolkata enquiring. Five blasts happened in 30 mins span all over Agartala. With the extremists’ problem almost nonexistent, I thought this would be one happy puja. But these 'zihadis' have started targeting the tier 2 cities as well to spread panic, and nothing could be better than such small scale blasts to do so! The targeted spots were the main bazaar area and the bigger bus stands! My hatred towards Bangladeshis and the opportunists vote seekers grew by quite a few folds! I was surprised to find out from my friends that a local Al-Queda leader (Mamoon Mia) was caught from a rented house at Ramnagar 4 area, which is along the road that extends almost opposite to my house. Anyway, I will write about this in detail later.
Oh! The moment I arrived at Agartala, I started gorging, and that didn’t stop till the last day. Pork, chicken, duck, fish, veggies, fries .. you name it! And also quite a few social invitations, I had to attend. I look like a "well-fed-cat" now!
Niloy and his band ‘Dabanol’ requested me to play in couple of their gigs. He dumped me with a guitar and some 40 songs to learn in 3/4 days! They are a pretty decent band, but the lack of practice before the shows reflected I guess. I tried to keep things simple and not experimenting too much. The first gig on Saptami day (7th Oct) at ONGC colony, turned out to be decent although the on stage sound was horrendous. (I didn’t hear the guitar or the keyboard). Oh, the next act on that day was a tribal group, who performed traditional dance and music. What an awesome performance it was, totally outclassed us! (although the crowd likening the regular music) .. Niloy and I noted down their numbers, hoping that we could invite them to play with us the next day.
Next day we played at Indranagar club but the crowd was really sad, and didn’t appreciate most of our music, and demanded us to play and repeat the regular songs. Anyway, the sound system was better that previous days’ but awefully mixed and sounded terrible (so I heard later), but that didn’t seem to matter with the crowd! The middle section of the show was really sad, I would say! Anyway, as remuneration for the 2 shows, Dabanol payed me a 2k! I resisted but Niloy wouldn’t listen!
Didn’t get to see much of Puja pandals, because of the gigs, so had to be contented with the pujas around my home area. On 10th, went to Suprio & Swarnali's house for their son's birthday celebration. Most of friends turned up with their families, it was great! 11th Evening, Niloy picked me up for a band-and-roadies feast at a friend's (David) quarter. David is a good bassist and plays for the local "Borok" band. Had a great time with bahan, jamming and white mischief!

Now I am sitting at Kolkata airport waiting for my flight to bangalore .. never realized how time flew!

(written while waiting at Kolkata airport on 12th October, 2008)