cox's bazar trip, palbasha and the nation!

we three (tuhi, sharmee and i) were trying to keep awake and chatting at our hotel room in cox's bazar on saturday. we reached cox's bazar that morning at around 8.30, came to the hotel directly to find out our room is not available before 12. quite a few arguments later, we were able to secure one room, even better than the one that was booked for us.. :D. happy with the room and the lunch and the shopping, we decided to have some rest. i was changing the tv channels after some futile attempts to start an adda (as sharmee declared she needs two hours sleep) when suddenly i came across close up 1 on ntv. it's an american idol like show, the only reason i sometimes stop to watch this program is the ridiculous comments thrown by a hilarious judge. but this time, it was not him that made me stop. it was a girl, singing 'bhalobashbo bashbore bondhu' by habib. the girl looked familiar, and also her singing reminded me of palbasha siddique, the girl that sang pran in where the hell is matt (2008). and yes, as i found out a couple of minutes later, it was palbasha siddique!

i first came to know of this girl from matts video. the video is one of my most favorites and i can't just have enough of that song. i tried to find everything i could on the net about the singer, and found out she is a bangladeshi girl living in minneapolis, studying music. and then she appeared singing in a bangladeshi television, singing 'bhablobashbo bashbore' in her own way with perfect improvisation. i thought the judges won't like it, but surprisingly, they were all blown away! well, improvising is appreciated in american idol, but i didn't think in bangladesh anybody would appreciate it. here we can't stand remakes, we hate maqsud for ''insulting'' tagore, fuad for ''demeaning'' happy akhand, armeen for being totally ''ignorant'' about the feeling of s.d. barman's song, we bengalis, are an emotional clan. (though somehow we appreciate with some claps when suman translates john denver's songs or when souls shamelessly copies 'jamaica farewell' with totally different lyrics in bangla). anyways, back to palbasha, i came back all excited to dhaka, telling vashkar how i saw palbasha in close up 1, how beautifully she sang, and how sure i am that she's going to win. yes, vashkar had seen her singing too, and he also saw the results where palbasha left because she didn't earn enough votes.

i was heartbroken. i so wanted her to win. she sang so differently, she deserved to stay. i looked for the videos in the net and thanks to youtube, we have all there. i saw her leaving close up 1, getting 42 out of 50 by the judges couldn't keep her in the competition because she got only 10000 votes through sms. while her opponent got 32 by the judges and 30000 votes through sms. well, that's just like this country. my first assumption came true. this country will not understand re-making, improvising or making a difference. all we have is our emotions, so anybody singing all emo, we'll fall for that. to us, artists should be 'starving', intellectuals 'struggling'. it satisfies our soul to see them like that. the more you starve and struggle the greater you become...and when you die starving and struggling, we'll shower your grave with imported flowers, may be prize your sad family with an award or two, then forget all about you after a year or so (after we find another dying, starving, struggling artist). that's how we are.

umm...i don't know what happened to me, i'm not that great a fan of palbasha am i? :S. i think this writing is misleading. well, who cares.