Ode to Boroline, or how to make a Bengali’s head explode?

There is a popular internet meme going around these days, a takeaway from that Thatcher-era British slogan, "Keep calm and carry on". The Bengali version of it has the same picture of the crown and beneath it says “I’m Bengali and we don’t keep calm.”

Like a lot of jokes on our people from this part of India, it had made me laugh. We, Bengalis, are, after all, known for our sense of humour, even of the self-deprecatory variety. Which is why perhaps a friend thought it fit to send me a link to this song.

I paused The Black Keys song I was listening to (contrary to other popular internet memes, we don’t all listen to Rabindrasangeet all the time, no matter how hard our chief minister might try) to give it a listen.

Music director Sawan Dutta has made this cheery ditty of sorts in a typical Bengali accent on the Bengalis' love for Boroline. To be fair, it is rather funny.

Especially that bit about how she puts it on her lips, cheek and chin all pronounced in the exaggerated Bengali fashion. Like that joke we’d hear about the Bengali gentleman who went for a walk on the “Howrah breeze to fill the evening bridge”. Eyeroll... obviously it’s a play on a man who went for a walk on the bridge to feel the breeze but couldn’t pronounce the two.

"I much prefer Anuvab Pal’s diction" when he says I’m from Kolkata and no one ever told us that the British left."

Speaking of which, speak to any one of us and you’ll know what really gets our goat is the way the rest of India pronounces "Kolkata". It’s "Kol" as in "coal" and "kata". Not "Kaul-Kata". And as long as we are ranting – not all of us need monkey caps in winter, not all of us need Gelusil or Digene (swallows burp, excuse me), and if you thought Durga Puja was the only religious festival we celebrated, check out the snaking lines for breakfast at Flurys on Christmas Day. Oh, but there’s an internet meme on that too.