Tidbit Tuesday - A music theme

Hello beautiful people!

I promised that Tuesdays would bring a little insight into the story I am currently working on. I'm still at the early stages on this one, very much at the start. I have so much I can say about this story, and at the same time I draw a blank! Stage fright, I guess. Yeah, even virtual!

Let's see - about this WIP. It's the story of a young woman looking to find her place in the world. Her dilemma? She has her feet in two worlds. No, it's not a paranormal, nor a fantasy. It's a very contemporary romance. This girl wants identity, roots, a place to belong, somewhere to call home. How can you be who you are meant to be, when you don't even know where you come from?

The world she has always known is that of culture, and that too, the culture of the Indo-Britons. Living in Southall, the Little India of Greater London, her world is full of nagging old aunties, ethnic clothing, bhangra music and fiery spices. But this is the problem - she is not Indian, nor is she really of Indian descent.

Will she find herself and those roots she longs for one day? Maybe the key is in the hands of  a man who suddenly appears in her life. Does he bring answers, or more questions? This is what she will have to find out, and along the way, will she happen to find love too?

Straddling between Southall, the very posh British settting of the Ritz in London, and the glamour, glitter, and lush beauty of a 5-star beachfront resort in Mauritius, along with my heroine I travel to these settings to bring this story alive.
When I describe my world, I can see, hear, and smell every little detail that makes it so obviously a cultural, exotic, or 'different' setting. I try to pass this across in my writing - I can show you the room or the way the sun sparkles upon the turquoise blue lagoon. I can make you 'smell' the spices by describing the reaction one gets upon inhaling such scents. I can paint this decor for you, maybe even make you 'taste' the food, touch the linen. But what I cannot really do is make you hear the background music. Not when you, my reader, don't know what bhangra, the predominant ethno-pop music of Indo-Britons is, or the sega, the folk music of my island.

Listening a song on my MP3 player the other day, it struck me that this tune actually portrays the Indo-Briton world of my heroine so well! It's taken from an Indian movie, and lol, you should know that 99.8% of Indian movies are what the Western world calls Musicals. There is always music, songs, dancing. The actors dance and lip-sync! That's right - the songs are playback, and being a playback singer in India can make you even more famous than a movie star!

So check this video. It's actually the music I wanna make you listen to, the rhythm, the mix of English and Punjabi, but it doesn't hurt to watch it either! The movie is titled Singh is King, and it is a riotous comedy of errors, where one misunderstanding follows upon another. From rural India to metropolitan Autralia and the Indian-expatriate community there, this is the world and sound of modern, fusion bhangra. Modern Indian girls do dress like Katrina Kaif, the actress in the clip, when they are not sporting the traditional ethnic wear.
If the video doesn't load (just my luck!), you can catch it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezd-ZMjRJJY&feature=related

Enjoy!!



I'll tell you more about the sega another Tuesday, when my heroine will have landed on the island in the story!

From Mauritius with love,

Zee