Some good blog posts

A couple of interesting blog posts from neoindian:

1. Why it is meaningless to say you’re proud to be an Indian

2. Why you should read the Vedas, and why the religious will never understand them

3. A quick refresher of ancient Indian history, in case you forgot what you learnt in school

Simplicity

I love this song. For one its Kishore, and has beautiful lyrics. But what I love more is the simplicity of the room portrayed - a bed, bookcase, rocking chair, table and easel - what more does a person need...

Anna Karenina

I detest romantic novels, unless ofcourse they are heart rendering like Anna Karenina. Love is beautifully terrible and all consuming, and this is perhaps why most of the greatest love stories are tragedies.

Anna Karenina is Tolstoy's and Tolstoy has an amazing way of knowing what a person would feel in any situation and has an even more amazing ability to convey those exact emotions to his readers. This is a story of a married woman who falls in love with a younger army officer and the tragedy that their being together begets. And no, its not a book on morality. It is just a story of real-life-like people caught up in a terrible torrent.

Ekla Chalo

Bengali and Urdu are the two languages I really wish I knew... Bengali for Tagore, and Urdu for Faiz and Ghalib. Reading poetry in it's own language is a joy. But till we get there, here is a translation of a simple and profound Tagore composition:


If they answer not to thy call, walk alone;
If they are afraid and cower mutely facing the wall,
Open thy mind and speak out alone.

If they turn away and desert you when crossing the wilderness,
Trample the thorns under thy tread,
And along the blood-lined track travel alone.

If they do not hold up the light when the night is troubled with storm,
With the thunder-flame of pain ignite thine own heart,
And let it burn alone.

- Tagore

You may say I'm a dreamer...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

The Second Coming

Yesterday we sat around bemoaning about creationists, Sarah Palin, and overall nut cases we keep hearing from, when I was reminded of the lines from this poem: " The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity". Yeats, being Yeats, makes this poem nicely dark and brings forth such a vivid imagery of hopelessness.

It somehow feels nice to think that even back then the world was full of madmen shouting hoarse, and yet the world moved ahead and became better overall. I suppose reason does have some impact.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

तुतारी

Keshavsut was a poet of an earlier era but he is credited to bring Marathi poetry into the modern world where poets talked of feelings, revolution, and other worldly emotions and concerns versus the religious poetry of his era. Even then his poems are quite different and reach the depths of emotions. Not sure how to convey it, but once I put up a couple here, you will know what I mean.

I really like this poem by him. I don't know whats an equivalent of a 'tutari', but its a big curved horn like instrument that people used to blow before staring out for a war. If you have ever watched a Prabhat Studio film, its in their icon. Look here.

Though ofcourse, I feel that his asking for someone to hand him a tutari in the first paragraph violates the spirit of the poem. But thats a trivial objection :)

Unfortunately, as I am translating it, I realize that my poor translation skills are stripping the poem of it's beauty.

एक तुतारी द्या मज आणुनी
फुंकीन जी मी स्वप्राणाने
भेदुनी टाकीन सारी गगने
दीर्घ तिच्या त्या किंकाळीने,
अशी तुतारी द्या मजलागुनि

Bring me a tutari
I will blow into it with my own life
And shatter all the skies
With that tutari's shrill sound
Bring me such a tutari

जुने जाऊ द्या मरणालागुनि
जाळूनी किंवा पुरुनी टाका
सडत न एका ठायी ठाका
सावध ऐका पुढल्या हाका
खांद्यास चला खांदा भिडवूनी
एक तुतारी द्या मज आणुनी

Let the old stuff wilt away
Burn it or bury it
Don't let it rot in your heart
Be aware and listed to the calls from the future
Walk ahead shoulder to shoulder
Bring me such a tutari

प्राप्तकाल हा विशाल भूधर
सुंदर लेणी तयात खोदा
निजनामे त्या वरती नोंदा
बसुनी का वाढविता मेदा
विक्रम काही करा चला तर
हल्ला करण्या ह्या दंभावर,ह्या बंडावर

(This is the best stanza)
Present is like a huge rock
Carve beautiful carvings in it
Write your names on them
Why do you sit and and add to the nothingness?
Come on and achieve some valor
Attack these rules, these revolutions

शुरांनो या त्वरा करा रे
समते चा ध्वज उंच धारा रे
नीती ची द्वाही फिरवा रे
तुतारीच्या या सुरा बरोबर

Warriors hurry
Hold aloft the flag of equality
Spread the announcement of justice
With this tutari's horn