The Bong Connection

No, no, don8217;t call me Bong, says a died-in-the-wool Bong gentleman in Anjan Dutt8217;s film; I am the last of the Scots, he announces fruitily, as he props up the bar in, presumably, some upper class club in Kolkata. Or words to that effect.

He says this to Neel Shayan, a guitar-toting Yank-accented musician who8217;s come to Kolkata from America to find 8216;his own8217; music. In his quest, Neel does the Shantiniketan thing, tries connecting with Baul singers in the countryside, and boy-bands in town. Over in Texas, the Fresh Off The Boat Apu Parambrata attempts to find his feet while wading through America8217;s enticements: the staggering numbers of greenbacks, the big houses and cars and free sex.

The Bong Connection reflects the confusion in the new age Bengali8217;s mind, about roots and identity and growing up and coming home. It is a legitimate whirligig which swirls through many of our heads when we make passages to, and from the places of our birth, and in that sense The Bong Connection could be any of our stories, and Apu and Neel any of us.

But the director has a problem with the pacing; everything is stretched out too long, and some characters, like the Bangladeshi cabbie who8217;s the Illegal Immigrant and his series of multicultural girl-friends, are excessive both in the way they are sketched out, and in the time they take up.

There8217;s also a problem of wanting to say too much and underline it too much: Apu8217;s homophobic boss Victor Bannerjee, in a two-scene cameo talks direly about Blacks and gay people, Apu8217;s liberal heart bleeds for his gay co-worker who is fired, so he turns his back on the American Dream, leaving his boss to shake his head admiringly and say Apu, Aparajito the Unvanquished. We get the Ray analogy, we do, we do.

And Neel is the quintessential I-want-to-find-who-I-am second generation American Indian, who is contemptuous of his uncle wanting to sell the dilapidated ancestral home and move into a flat. And who can8217;t find his groove in India. The two girls, Raima and Piya, are also more representative than individual: the first lives in Kolkata and doesn8217;t want to go to America, the other, a cargo-wearing cutie who inhabits Apu8217;s corner of Texas, finally sees the sense of wearing a salwaar kameez and being 8216;A Good Bengali Girl.8217;

You are left wanting more person than type. But there are a string of nice moments you can enjoy, while you are it. And some lovely lilting music.