WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 2010
Hazarika - It's Music Time
There are some songs that I would get back to. Like the way, I get back to some books, some scriptures…
Of all the songs, there is one that I frequently get back to….in those dull un-inspired moments, to gain some energy….even if its to get into the routine daily chores or to get 'working' with my writing work…yeah most of us know the feeling.
So as the pencil cutter said to the pencil…lets come to the point? :)
[idea courtesy: Paulo Coelho]
Yeah, the song is Bhupen Hazarika’s GANGA BEHTI HO KYUN? (Ganga, why do Flow?]
Its is an Assamese song…and I didn’t know the meaning for a long while…it was just the music that worked for me. But recently a friend of mine gave me the lyrics with an English translation….I love the song even more:
Here’s the link to the song and the lyrics, translation in blue ink. Hope you too find it enjoyable:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzWa6yuLX2A#
GANGA BEHTI HO KYUN? (Ganga, Why do you Flow)
Bisterno varorey, afankhya janore, hahakar sunio nisabdth nirovey,
Bhural *** tumhi, bhural *** bura ki aur……….
Vistar hai apar, praja dono par, kare hahakar ni sabdth sada,
your expanse is unreachable, the public on both sides is wailing silently
Oh ganga tum, oh ganga behti ho kyun?……………..
O Ganges, why do you flow
Vistar hai apar, praja dono par, kare hahakar ni sabdth sada,
Oh ganga tum, ganga behti ho kyun?……………..
your expanse is unreachable, the public on both sides is wailing silently
O Ganges, why do you flow
Naitikta nasht ***, manavta bhrasht ***,
morality is destroyed, humanity has been corrupted
nirlajj bhav se behti ho kyun?……..
why do you flow in this shameless way
Itihas ki pukar, kare hunkar,
the call of history is roaring
oh ganga ki dhar, nirbal jan ko, sabalsangrami, samagrogrami, banati nahi ho kyun?…………….
Oh flow of Ganges, why don't you make the weak people stronger, make the villagers unite to fight for their rights
Vistar hai apar, praja dono par, kare hahakar ni sabdth sada,
Oh ganga tum, oh ganga behti ho kyun?……………..
your expanse is unreachable, the public on both sides is wailing silently
O Ganges, why do you flow
Anparjan, aksharheen, anginjan, khadyoviheen, neatravhiheen, dikshmon ho kyun?
innumerable people are illiterate, letterless, without food, blind,…….
Why are you not teaching them the path?
Itihas ki pukar, kare hunkar, oh ganga ki dhar, nirbal jan ko, sabalsangrami,
samagrogrami, banati nahi ho kyun?…………….
the call of history is roaring
Oh flow of Ganges, why don't you make the weak people stronger, make the villagers unite to fight for their rights
Vistar hai apar, praja dono par, kare hahakar ni sabdth sada,
Oh ganga tum, ganga behti ho kyun?……………..
your expanse is unreachable, the public on both sides is wailing silently
O Ganges, why do you flow
vayakti rahey, vayakshti nirvighn, sakalsamaj, vayakshtitva rahit nishpran samaj, upbhoktina kyun?………..
people stay without sufficient income, the entire society is economically challenged
society is lifeless, why are you unaware / unfeeling of this?
Itihas ki pukar, kare hunkar, oh ganga ki dhar, nirbal jan ko, sabalsangrami,
samagrogrami, banati nahi ho kyun?…………….
the call of history is roaring
Oh flow of Ganges, why don't you make the weak people stronger, make the villagers unite to fight for their rights
Vistar hai apar, praza dono par, kare hahakar ni sabdth sada,
Oh ganga tum, ganga behti ho kyun?……………..
your expanse is unreachable, the public on both sides is wailing silently
O Ganges, why do you flow
Tejasvini, kyun na rahin,
why did you not stay full of glory
tum nishchay, chintan nahin,
you are decided, no worries
prano mey prerna deti na kyun?……………
why don't you give inspiration to life
Tum madhyavami, kurushetra grami, gangey janani, navbharat mey,
hismarupi sutsamrajey, janati nahi ho kyun?………….
you are flowing through the middle, seen the villages of Kurushetra (where Mahabharat took place), mother of Bhishm (great uncle of Pandavs & Kauravs),
in this new India why don't you give birth to sons like Bhishm again?
Vistar hai apar, praja dono par, kare hahakar ni sabdth sada,
Oh ganga tum, ganga behti ho kyun?……………..
your expanse is unreachable, the public on both sides is wailing silently
O Ganges, why do you flow
Vistar hai apar, praja dono par, kare hahakar ni sabdth sada,
Oh ganga tum, ganga behti ho kyun?……………..
Vistar hai apar, praja dono par, kare hahakar ni sabdth sada,
Oh ganga tum, ganga tum, ganga tum, oh ganga tum, ganga tum, ganga behti ho kyun?……………..
Ganga behti ho kyun?……………………………….
****************
Photo: As per original copyright at:http://www.belarusguide.com/culture1/music/Instruments.html
FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2010
Happy Easter
Happy Holy Easter to You All! :)best wishes,
devika
Picture: http://www.brothersoft.com/30-happy-easter-riddles-screensaver-84369.html
FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2010
Kahlil Gibran – Kindling the Spirit
Poetry is that which kindles my spirit every time I feel exhausted, doomed…..If music soothes and appeases the soul, poetry activates it…And, I find myself more comfortable in the dynamic state, than the static. There’s something about poetry – about words-- that sets the mind into motion…then it’s a restiveness that takes me through the day…spirited.Since the time I’d identified it, I’d tried to understand my love for words, poets and poetry…Never found a clear answer…Just knew it was there, as a constituent of my soul, to live in me…
Then, I came across Kahlil Gibran’s 'The Poet,' which kind of reasoned it out to me… It defines the persona of a poet, and there were many elements that I could relate… Though I seldom dared to call or consider myself a poet, many aspects seemed to match, an inimitable likeness…
‘The Poet’ is one which I read, and reread, when I need to rekindle my spirit on dull and boring days. It takes me to a world…a beautiful world, where my classical and romantic ideas come alive, a place I love to be. Many would have read it, might know it; for those who haven’t come across, it is here:
THE POET
He is a link between this and the coming world.
He is
A pure spring from which all thirsty souls may drink.
He is a tree watered by the River of Beauty, bearing
Fruit which the hungry heart craves;
He is a nightingale, soothing the depressed
Spirit with his beautiful melodies;
He is a white cloud appearing over the horizon,
Ascending and growing until it fills the face of the sky.
Then it falls on the flowers in the field of Life,
Opening their petals to admit the light.
He is an angel, send by the goddess to
Preach the Deity's gospel;
He is a brilliant lamp, unconquered by darkness
And inextinguishable by the wind. It is filled with
Oil by Istar of Love, and lighted by Apollon of Music.
He is a solitary figure, robed in simplicity and
Kindness; He sits upon the lap of Nature to draw his
Inspiration, and stays up in the silence of the night,
Awaiting the descending of the spirit.
He is a sower who sows the seeds of his heart in the
Prairies of affection, and humanity reaps the
Harvest for her nourishment.
This is the poet -- whom the people ignore in this life,
And who is recognised only when he bids the earthly
World farewell and returns to his arbour in heaven.
This is the poet -- who asks naught of
Humanity but a smile.
This is the poet -- whose spirit ascends and
Fills the firmament with beautiful sayings;
Yet the people deny themselves his radiance.
Until when shall the people remain asleep?
Until when shall they continue to glorify those
Who attain greatness by moments of advantage?
How long shall they ignore those who enable
Them to see the beauty of their spirit,
Symbol of peace and love?
Until when shall human beings honour the dead
And forget the living, who spend their lives
Encircled in misery, and who consume themselves
Like burning candles to illuminate the way
For the ignorant and lead them into the path of light?
Poet, you are the life of this life, and you have
Triumphed over the ages despite their severity.
Poet, you will one day rule the hearts, and
Therefore, your kingdom has no ending.
Poet, examine your crown of thorns; you will
Find concealed in it a budding wreath of laurel.
- Khalil Gibran
Photo: as per original copyright at:
http://friendsofgibran.org/html/biography.html
SATURDAY, MARCH 6, 2010
On the Risk of Heartlessness - AK
“………………………………………..Yes,
To keep it cool when strangers’ children hiss
As if they knew what none could know nor guess
At the bottom, of all this bottomless
Enterprise to keep simple the heart’s given beat,
The only risk is heartlessness”
I came across these lines in a handwritten note left by some unknown reader, between the pages of a book borrowed from the American Centre last year, here in New Delhi. It was a book onSociological Jurisprudence – and this note was sheer poetry. I was stumped…I kept the note with me, inside me journal, wondering if it were the reader’s own thought or if it was quoted.
The words often came back to me….in striking objective correlative…
Then suddenly one day it struck, to do an Internet search – and yes, I found it was the closing lines AK Ramanujan’s THE HINDOO: the only risk. I had read about Ramanujan, a Tamil poet and a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Chicago, in many contemporary writings on Indian poets writing in English…and some of his poetry also appeared in magazines at the time of his death (in 1993).
‘Apolitically political’ – that was the impression I had, at the time. Political poetry does appeal me…but then, for some reason, it didn’t evoke much interest in me, so as to source his books.
But here were some lines, which compelled me to search more about his works, and finally I got it. His ‘Collected Poems’ and on getting the book, I rushed through the ‘Contents’ to find “THE HINDOO:”, first. And then to read the others…Many poems worth mentioning – dissecting and displaying the interconnections of human body, nature and culture in diverse situations – a visionary quality, mixing realism with mysticism….well, much to talk about….
But since this blog isn’t about review, but the influence of artist and poets on my mind, I shall only present that. And “THE HINDOO: the only risk” still remains the most significant for its first impact. I reproduce it here, for you:
THE HINDOO: the only risk
Just to keep the heart’s simple given beat
Through a neighbour’s striptease or a friend’s suicide
To keep one’s hand away from the kitchen knife
Through that returning weekly need
To maim oneself or carve up wife
And child. Always and everywhere, to eat
Three square meals at regular hours, suppress
That itch to take a peek at the dead street-
Dog before the scavengers come. Nor to be caught
Dead at sea, battle, riot, adultery or hate
Nor between the rollers of a giant lathe. Yes,
To keep it cool when strangers’ children hiss
As if they knew what none could know nor guess
At the bottom, of all this bottomless
Enterprise to keep simple the heart’s given beat,
The only risk is heartlessness”
That seemed a critical perspective on the life of an average Indian of his times…my times, the present times…and possibly into many generations to come….
As for me, I have always felt the need to shake myself off from things that seem to lead me into heartlessness, invariably almost every day since the time my social and societal interactions began as a young woman...Not as a Hindu, or as a Hindoo as Ramanujan describes, but as a simple, responsive human being…
And, the poem confirmed the need to.
And, that is the relevance and influence of A. K. Ramanujan on my daily life. He will not be forgotten; rather, he will be remembered every time my heart would miss its given beat!
***************
Photo : as per original copyright at:
http://www.eng.auburn.edu/~prasaps/kan_authors.htm
http://www.eng.auburn.edu/~prasaps/kan_authors.htm
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2009
Greetings
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!May Peace and Joy be
Yours in Days to Come….
I am off from blogging for a while…
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2009
An Existential Essence…
‘What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am to do, not what I am to know, except in so far as a certain knowledge must precede every action. The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do: the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die. ... I certainly do not deny that I still recognise an imperative of knowledge and that through it one can work upon men, but it must be taken up into my life, and that is what I now recognise as the most important thing.’ ---
Søren Kierkegaard in a letter to Peter Wilhelm Lund
Inspiring words that once led me to explore, even further, to find my truth- the truth that endures in me…
I was not very young when I read that - in my late twenties. I quite knew it wasn’t the quest for knowledge or even understanding the self- it was perhaps the quest for happiness….and I had quite outlived the happiness that materialistic pleasures offer me….
The exploration still continues….But now, I know that the only idea I find true, and the one that endures in me is Love!
It wasn’t easy ever…and I quite know it will never be... Yet, love remains the only idea I chose to live and die for…
************
Photo: Søren Kierkegaard, as per original copyright at:
http://www.kierkegaard-kultur.dk/pressesksygdomdod.htm
PS: This post was inspired after a reading a poem by Carlos Gesmundo:
SATURDAY, AUGUST 8, 2009
Pablo Neruda – Unfinished, Yet
If someone asked me who I consider the father of world poets, it’s Chilean poet Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, alias Pablo Neruda, without doubt. And that is essentially for his remark upon receiving Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971:
‘I never found in books any formula for writing poetry and I, in turn do not intend to leave in print a word of advice, a method, or a style that will allow young poets to receive from me some supposed wisdom.’
As a lover of poetry, who attempted writing it at times, that was a license…a fatherly license to choose my words, form, rhyme and meter in whatever I write in the name of poetry.
It was during the undergraduate years that I heard Neruda’s poem for the first time. A classmate was reciting ‘Tonight I Can Write’ in a distinct arduousness; and me, a hopeless romantic at heart, was instantly drawn into the melancholy so much that the next few days found me soaking in the lines of Twenty Love Poems andSong of Despair.
Of all ‘I like for you to be still’ strikes a deeper chord….especially as I read it again and again:
‘I like for you to be still, as though you were absent
Distant and full of sorrow, as though you had died
One word then, one smile, is enough.
And I am happy, happy that it’s not true’
As my reading and understanding of poetry and politics grew in the subsequent years, I went back to read Neruda again, who was also a Communist political activist and to my great surprise a supporter of Joseph Stalin. While I wasn’t fully convinced of his esteem for Stalin, though it was mainly for Stalin’s role in defeating Nazi Germany, that Neruda called Lenin the ‘great genius of this (the past) century,’ was quite inspiring as Vladimir Lenin was on top of my list of world political leaders too.
Reading Neruda’s collection of poems again, I was quite gripped by his passion for politics, his unremitting engagement with the people of his land and his nation more than with himself….Reading ‘I Explain a Few Things,’ ‘Autumn Testament,’ ‘Canto General,’ I was amazed by the power of poetic words – simple words with the power to write and rewrite the history of a nation and its people.
‘Nations are born in the hearts of poets, they prosper and die in the hands of politicians’ - Allama Muhammad Iqbal said.
But Neruda showed how a nation and its destiny could shape itself in the hands of a poet. And Neruda was officially acknowledged‘for a poetry that with the action of an elemental force brings alive a continent’s destiny and dreams’.
It was fascinating to note that Neruda always wrote in green ink as it was the colour of Esperanza (hope). So fascinating was his love for silence and solitude despite his constant engagement and communication with society…it bears a certain contradiction, but relatable to a sensitive mind when he says, ‘There is no unassailable solitude. All roads lead to a same point: to the communication of who we are. And we must travel across lonely and rugged terrain, through isolation and silence, to reach the magic zone where we can dance an awkward dance.’
‘I never found in books any formula for writing poetry and I, in turn do not intend to leave in print a word of advice, a method, or a style that will allow young poets to receive from me some supposed wisdom.’
As a lover of poetry, who attempted writing it at times, that was a license…a fatherly license to choose my words, form, rhyme and meter in whatever I write in the name of poetry.
It was during the undergraduate years that I heard Neruda’s poem for the first time. A classmate was reciting ‘Tonight I Can Write’ in a distinct arduousness; and me, a hopeless romantic at heart, was instantly drawn into the melancholy so much that the next few days found me soaking in the lines of Twenty Love Poems andSong of Despair.
Of all ‘I like for you to be still’ strikes a deeper chord….especially as I read it again and again:
‘I like for you to be still, as though you were absent
Distant and full of sorrow, as though you had died
One word then, one smile, is enough.
And I am happy, happy that it’s not true’
As my reading and understanding of poetry and politics grew in the subsequent years, I went back to read Neruda again, who was also a Communist political activist and to my great surprise a supporter of Joseph Stalin. While I wasn’t fully convinced of his esteem for Stalin, though it was mainly for Stalin’s role in defeating Nazi Germany, that Neruda called Lenin the ‘great genius of this (the past) century,’ was quite inspiring as Vladimir Lenin was on top of my list of world political leaders too.
Reading Neruda’s collection of poems again, I was quite gripped by his passion for politics, his unremitting engagement with the people of his land and his nation more than with himself….Reading ‘I Explain a Few Things,’ ‘Autumn Testament,’ ‘Canto General,’ I was amazed by the power of poetic words – simple words with the power to write and rewrite the history of a nation and its people.
‘Nations are born in the hearts of poets, they prosper and die in the hands of politicians’ - Allama Muhammad Iqbal said.
But Neruda showed how a nation and its destiny could shape itself in the hands of a poet. And Neruda was officially acknowledged‘for a poetry that with the action of an elemental force brings alive a continent’s destiny and dreams’.
It was fascinating to note that Neruda always wrote in green ink as it was the colour of Esperanza (hope). So fascinating was his love for silence and solitude despite his constant engagement and communication with society…it bears a certain contradiction, but relatable to a sensitive mind when he says, ‘There is no unassailable solitude. All roads lead to a same point: to the communication of who we are. And we must travel across lonely and rugged terrain, through isolation and silence, to reach the magic zone where we can dance an awkward dance.’
As for me, I will never be over with a note on Pablo Neruda….Unfinished it is, yet I feel an urge to leave it here…
**********
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ABOUT ME
- DEVIKA JYOTHI
- NEW DELHI, INDIA
- A socio-politically inclined self, who likes to analyse the ways of the world....and remain a certain kind of woman. More About Me @: 'Essential Me':-)
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