Across the river

I just remembered a beautiful Bhojpuri  movie made in the eighties, called Nadiya ke Paar (roughly translated as Across the River). It was the rage of the Hindi belt for many years, and I still remember the days when going through a small town in Bihar or UP, you could hear the songs from this movie blaring on  main street.

Imagine, sitting in front of a small samosa shop, in UP or Bihar. These places had the kitchen out front, with a huge chulha (stove) on a mound of bricks, on which the Halwai would sit cross-legged. You would sit nearby on a bench, sipping your tea and taking a bite out of the hot samosa, that would come fresh out of the kadahi (frying pan) and numb your tongue for a few seconds. Then, the hot spices in the samosa would perform a full frontal assault on your taste buds. It was literally a blitzkrieg of sorts. If you needed some solace, while trying to make sense of this pleasant but painful sensation, there would be a sweet and sour chutney to cool things down a bit. And then, you would hear a distant loadspeaker blaring "Kaun disha me leke chala re batohia, kaun disha..." (Where are you taking me, oh driver of the bullock cart...), sung by none other than the famous Lata Mangeshkar.

And, a few trucks would speed by on the dusty roads, blowing up the dirt, and making you wonder where they were headed...