THE GLOBAL AND THE LOCAL

SUSHMA JOSHI IN MUMBAI, MAY 12, 2005 Source : www.kantipuronline.com About 500 Nepalis wait in the Arun Kumar Vaidya Maidan in Gatkopar, Mumbai for a cultural programme featuring Nepali talents to start. The programme expects Usha Mangeshkar, one of the siblings of that famous clan, to be chief guest. The outdoor stage has a large poster of Boudha up and gigantic speakers on either side. Smoke rises up as a man in a Nepali topi escorts an old man on stage. "I met this old man crying by the door," he narrates. "He says he used to have a happy family with sons and daughters, and now he doesn't know where they have gone. He came to search for his son in Bombay." The man in the topi is Badri Pangeni, a well-known folk singer, and the old man is part of an act for his famous song "Jetho chora kaha cha, kaha cha" (I don't know where my eldest son is)." My eldest son is in the Maobadi, my second son is in the Army, the third is in Bombay, and my four