Lounge Loves: Cuckoos in the Spring, ‘Last One Laughing’ and more

Chasing songs

There are spoilers ahead for fans of Peaky Blinders who have yet to watch the new movie, The Immortal Man. The brooding Cillian Murphy as the protagonist Tommy Shelby is gorgeous, but for me the movie’s eclectic soundtrack stayed long after the credits rolled. The atmospheric song that plays at Shelby’s funeral is by Irish band Lankum and is called Hunting the Wren, symbolic of the late gangster’s dramatic end. It became a chart-topping number after the movie released earlier this month. Singer Nick Cave’s deep baritone in Red Ride Hand brings alive the scene when Shelby returns from a self-imposed exile riding a black horse. Each song—there are 36—is emblematic, and I found myself going down several rabbit holes while googling each one. My playlist is richer and more diverse now.

—Jahnabee Borah

When Trees Bloom

It's the season of showy trees in Bengaluru—bright pink trumpet trees, often called the city’s “cherry blossoms”, its cousins in yellow, and the soft purple jacarandas. And since this is Bengaluru, techies have to do techie things to show their appreciation—Faris Mohammed has created BLR Bloom, an interactive map based on the city’s tree census data, to help tree lovers chase the bursts of colour. Anyone who spots a flowering tree can report it with a photograph. But the weeks after Ugadi, or the Kannada new year, is also the time for the less flashy Pongamia and Neem trees. Their clusters of pretty little blooms aren’t flamboyant and unlikely to make it to gimmicky maps or Reels, but their delicate colours as the flower-laden branches dip into the street and the carpet fallen form underfoot from the fallen make any walk that much more joyful.

—Shalini Umachandran

Cuckoo of the spring

I have always associated the koel (cuckoo) with spring. Crisp blue skies, flowers everywhere, trees swaying in the evening breeze—no wonder it is happy. But Mumbai does not have spring. Then how do you explain the koel cooing? I am particularly amused by this one fella that continues to call well until dark, perched atop a tree outside my window. I somehow always connect it with Bankim Chandra Chattopadhya’s essay Boshonter Kokil. The Bengali author draws parallels between the cuckoo (of the spring) and human nature to explain just how the bird stops cooing once spring is over, people too disappear during difficult times. For me, the koel is a reminder that nature goes about its course, no matter how you treat it.

— Rituparna Roy

Laugh Till you Cry

I binged the first season of Last One Laughing UK (on Amazon Prime) last year in one sitting, So, when season 2—hosted by Jimmy Carr and Roisin Conaty—dropped last week, I pressed “Play” faster than you could type “Haha”. The cast this time has got popular names like Diane “Philomena Cunk” Morgan, David Mitchell and Romesh Ranganathan in the mix . Derived from the Japanese original Documental, the show has 10 comedians sitting in a room for six hours with one rule: no laughing, no matter how funny the gags and conversations around you are. With such a crackling cast, the episodes are a riot. If Morgan’s fart-punctuated rendition of the poem Do not go Gentle into the Night into that Good Night had me laughing till I cried, Ranganathan’s skit left me in splits. Need a reason to laugh out loud? Watch this show. —Mahalakshmi Prabhakaran