Or since in Bangla the sound of 'p' seems to have gone AWOL, should I say bop? Anyway, by the virtue of having gone to college in Bengal, I suspect I have been somewhat infect by the Bangla chavunistic bug? The musical associations in my mind usually link the landscape of the place to Gurudeb Robi babu's soongeeth, which gave me company many a lovely evening as I sat on the pedestrian over-bridge at Hijli railway station 'jhandaaoing' alone or 'bhaat maaroing" with friend(s). However, my cursory observation is that in general Bengali culture has managed to prevent music drifting off into thin air as it has happened in other parts of India, i.e., it still occupies an important place in Bangla mind.

Need evidence? Just look at the number of rock bands that hatch in Calcutta, or the number of 'Bungaalees' (yes, I am still tripping on "English, August") who can be found in nearly all contemprorary Indian bands such as Indian Ocean etc. That said, today I discovered this lovely melodic music video over at YouTube, by a group from Bangladesh, who simply call themselves "Bangla". They claim to be in the business of keeping old Bangla folk songs from being forgotten. And they have a 'cute' female lead singer.

If they are this good, more power to them. Banglamusic has few more tracks to listen to. Also while searching for this link, I found this amatuer Calcutta band who call themselves "Crows of Calcutta", whose instrumental fusion sounding music is pretty good for an amatuer band. Give them a listen.