Friday night was an unusual one – I spent it with a girlfriend. Typically it’s a date evening or C and I meet other couples. On this occasion, the friend and I had dinner together and spoke at length about life, politics, and ice cream flavours. I can’t remember the context, but she used ‘ja chudail’ in a joke towards the end of the night, which made me play the Delhi Belly song in the car while we waited for her Uber to arrive.
She left and I let the soundtrack continue on the drive home. I had forgotten how addictive some of the songs were. And I also hadn’t realised it’s been 11 years since the album released.
I woke up the next morning with some lyrics still swirling in my head. So I played DK Bose on my short drive to yoga class at 9am. It made me unusually happy and chirpy, especially for that time of the day. I came back to an empty home, which meant I could continue listening to the album on loop at a loud volume.
And so I bobbed my head to aandhi aayi haiii the rest of the day too.
On Sunday the music and film were still on my mind and I decided I needed to watch it again. I tried hard but couldn’t find it online and gave up. C was in a good mood, tried harder and found me a print saying I rarely ever ask to watch a specific film. So we spent the evening reliving ‘lundry‘ and other classic moments. I have however watched more English films since 2011, so the moment the last scene began I knew it resembled too closely the Guy Ritchie brand of action. But that apart, ja chudail was funny and remained the theme of my peppy weekend.
It also brought back flashes of the old Delhi life. The one vaguely reflected in the movie and the one I lived when the movie released. I used to enjoy being a part of both. I think. Nostalgia is a misleading emotion sometimes. I had one too many chudail-like things in my life then. And saying ja chudail involved me leaving the city.
Fuchsia 