Pass the Mic...

There's some sort of outdoor concert being staged on the roof of one of the smaller buildings next to ours, and it's really quite unfortunate. The band obviously has access to a powerful sound system, and the 'music' - a mix between early 90s angst rock and contemporary Bangla pop - is being amplified even further by bouncing off the cluster of taller, poured-concrete buildings that characterize this neighbourhood. If you can imagine a typical North American garage band lead by someone with a poor command of the English language singing a combination of Bangla and English lyrics, you have begun to understand what I'm listening to at the moment. But you'll have to take it even further than that.

Throw in a drummer that can't keep the beat- let alone cue up a change in tempo, two lead vocalists (a man and a woman) who shouldn't even be let this close to a microphone in a crowded, Tokyo karaoke bar, and a number of classic rock guitar riffs punctuating the series of painful tunes at arbitrary intervals. Now place it all on the fourth story, concrete roof of a building situated next door to a mosque in densely packed, downtown Dhaka. And throw in some feedback.

There...now you've got it.

***

Speaking of people who shouldn't be given a microphone...we've been asked to appear in a Bengali music video that will be aired on an entertainment program (possibly this one) that apparently reaches most of South and Southeast Asia. Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse for people in this region, Per and Marc are encouraged to sing (or lyp-sinch) and possibly dance on TV to Bengali pop while dressed in traditional Bangladeshi attire. We've found ourselves in this situation thanks to two close colleagues of ours who are involved in the local theatre and entertainment community. They're good friends with the host of this program who was looking for "foreigners who understand Bengali culture" to appear in this video. "Wait a minute, we know two foreigners..." And so it began.

The details are still a little bit fuzzy, but our meeting with the aggressive but friendly host yesterday yielded the phonetic translation of the main chorus, which we'll be singing four times over the course of the song, and a tentative commitment to 'shoot' the video on Saturday at their studios located only a few blocks down the street. As for the singing component, I hope they have some high-tech mixing equipment. And the dancing...well, anyone who has seen me in action will understand my reluctance.

Either way, I don't think I'll have too many opportunities to appear in a Bengali music video in the future, so I'd might as well give it a shot. The worst that can happen is that I'll be the subject of ridicule by the unknown number of viewers that will have the good fortune of watching the video, and in the best case scenario I'll have a unique - but strange - digital souvenir to bring back home on CD.