Salaam Bombay - L. Subramaniam

Salaam Bombay released in my final year of engineering. Shobha, our pretty and popular junior, who had become a good friend by then, asked me if we could go to watch the movie. Now I had never watched a movie alone with a girl, a pretty one at that, and also one who was in all likelihood seeing my friend Aqueel then, so I was caught in a bit of a dilemma. As I normally do in these circs I told a couple of my friends that I was planning to go to watch the movie and would they want to come. They asked a couple more of their friends and soon some fifteen of us were heading to Santosh theatre at Abids. Of course, Shobha came with me on my scooter and I did honour my promise to her but I suspect that it was perhaps not what she had in mind.

The movie was very hard-hitting, the music haunting and we came away changed a bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkvtPPaxu7E (Salaam Bombay theme - Will haunt you)

A year later when I went to Bombay to write my exams for the management colleges, I found the same depressing mood hanging over Bombay. I don't know if it was because of the movie or the city but there it was.

The music was too haunting to not own so I bought the tape soon as I could. Many a night I heard to L. Subramaniam's haunting violin. When it got too maudlin, I would think of Shobha's reaction. She'd have her revenge later - when we decided to watch 'Dirty Dancing' and I went alone while she came with three of her friends! And the one time we watched a movie together it was 'Gone with the wind' which ended with 'Frankly I don't give a damn my dear.'

But when I hear the music, I realise I can't. It carries a pain, maybe of the movie, of the times, I don't know. I can't listen to it anymore.

Dedicated to Shobha - with an apology.