Lisnaholic

When she was 36, Monica Ali's first novel, Brick Lane, was published to great critical acclaim. Her novel is most notable for its subject matter: exploring the often hum-drum life of a Bangladeshi family living in a block of Council flats near central London. (Council flats = British version of America's "projects")
The book does a good job of shining some light on a type of person who is often overlooked: Muslim women in Western cities. It's easy enough to read, has a couple of interesting characters, but has some limitations too. Within four years the book had been turned into a movie, but along with its outward success came a fair amount of controversy as well: the community Monica A was describing felt that they were being caricatured, and in truth this Bengali/British group of Muslims might well feel defensive. They are ostracized by many other Londoners for being so foreign, and criticized by other Muslims for being impure and too Westernised.

One Bangladeshi rock band that gets a mention in Brick Lane is called "Miles". Led by Shafin Ahmed, they are a pop-rock band living and recording in Bangladesh and Jala Jala was one of their bigger hits. It was released in 1996 and so falls exactly into the time period described by Monica Ali:



My verdict: This starts strong with a great guitar riff and it has the kind of easy-to-remember title that used to dominate the Eurovision Song Contest at one time.(Remember these classics of international baby-talk: La La La, Boom Bang-a-Bang, Ding-a-Dong and Diggi-Loo, Diggi-Ley? All Eurovision Song Contest winners.) I like the short interludes of synth and guitar, but for me, Miles never move far enough away from the pop format to be really interesting.

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"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953