BACKSTREET’S BACK. ERM,ALRIGHT

By the time they’d brought out their second and most popular album Backstreet’s Back in 1998,I was a goner. For those of you who don’t know,the opening track of the album had a music video featuring mummies,vampires and werewolves long before Stephenie Meyer and True Blood made them fashionable. The boys were demanding you to “throw your hands up in the air and wave ‘em around like you just don’t care”. After throwing you into a frenzy,the rest of the album made sweet,sugary promises to impressionable young girls like me. The music videos cemented that vow: Carter and the rest would move so slowly that you could size them up twice before they changed their dance steps. In Quit Playing Games (with my heart),they were standing in the rain and crying because they were betrayed. I felt betrayed too: Carter never took off his wet shirt. But he sang a deliciously saucy song on Side B of the album titled If you want it to be good,girl,get yourself a bad boy. Oh yes!

In 1999,they came out with Millennium,an album I had lost my breath waiting for. The first track was called Larger than Life and it was about me,their most devoted fan and clones of me. “All you people,can’t you see,can’t you see,how your love ‘s affecting our reality,Everytime we’re down,you can make it right and That makes you Larger than Life!” But the song that set me aflame was their monster hit from the same album,I want it that way: “You are my fire,the one desire,Believe,when I say,I want it that way.”

At 14 years,I was overweight,sprouting the sudden growth on my upper lip,combating the hormones that raged in the dark of the night. My middle-class Bengali parents who only wanted me to pass math,chemistry,physics and top the humanities subjects thought I was burning the midnight oil over Surds (the numbers,not the people) and the periodic table. Oh no,I was sitting with my Walkman,pausing and playing and copying down all the lyrics of my favourite BSB songs. As my obsession grew,so did the extent of my daydreams. With all the academic pressure on my tender and chubby shoulders,I wasn’t exactly “homies” with my parents. In fact,I loathed having them around: I only wanted to be left alone with Nick. In my head,of course.

And that’s where the master plan to get to Florida,where he lived,began to germinate. All I needed was a spectacular earthquake in Kolkata,an 8.1 on the Richter scale,and my family and some friends would be dead (my loathsome math,physics and chemistry teachers too). I would miraculously survive and the Red Cross would not know what to do with such large numbers of child survivors,they would send us around the world to work in different homes — child labour with a purpose. Again,by Jove,I would land in Tampa,Florida and seek employment at the Carter household,posing as Esmeralda,a Hispanic teenager. Senor Carter would return from tours and on spotting the nubile (I would lose weight thanks to all the housework) domestic help,would fall deeply in love with me. My list of prayers now included Nick Carter along with passing the final Math exams. Neither was granted.

But the Backstreet Boys are finally coming to India. After I read the news I logged on Facebook and posted a status message about it. I had nearly 20 comments on it,most of them from my school mates who I rarely meet or even speak to. They all remembered my devotion,my dogged determination to stay BSB’s most loyal fan. They remembered the stories I would spin during free periods,about Esmeralda and Senor Carter. They were happy for me: I finally had a dream come true.
I’ve outgrown their music ,I’ve just begun an affair with drum and bass but I will go to the concert,I will sing every song I know (trust me,I know every BSB song till 2002) and I will scream and faint when I see Nick Carter. I will try. I want it that way.