Eco-friendly couplet

This is not exactly a bhajan. It is what might be called a nazm, I think.

Anyways, coming back to the topic ...


This is from the collector's item of a musical album called Sajda. Sajda is one of its kind because it brought together the Nightingale, Lata, and the person who gave a new meaning to Ghazals, Jagjit Singh.

In the album Sajda, the first song - sung by Lata, the first has a wonderful couplet. And it goes something like this ...

Ya dharti kay zakhmon par marham rakh day,

Ya mera dil pathar kar day, ya allah

Either apply ointment to earth's wound,

or turn my heart into a stone, Allah.

(because, I can no longer tolerate earth's wound)

Urdu couplets have this wonderful habit of not stating the obvious; I know what I have typed out in the parenthesis above destroys the beauty of the couplet; in fact the mere act of translation has already destroyed the pain the couplet carries.

Have you come across any such song? Then enlighten me. Only those songs that have not been written to celebrate Earth Day and the like, please.

By the way the lyricist of dard say mera daaman bhar day (from which I extracted the 'ecological' couplet) is Qateel Shifai. You would be hard pressed to find a more soulful number. The first strains of the song, when Lata Mangeshkar calls out the name of Allah is absolutely ethereal. I would recommend the album, Sajda, unhesitatingly.

An idea for Dan Brown

I see more and more non fiction writers referring to Internet in their books. More often than not these are consigned to the footnotes so that the flow of the text does not break. And you know what such references actually enhances the pleasure of reading such books.

Here's an example from Kluge by Gary Marcus ...

If you should mishear John Fogerty's "There's a bad moon on the rise" as "There's a bathroom on the right" so be it. Or Jimi Hendrix's "Excuse me while I kiss the sky" for "Excuse me while I kiss the guy." If you, like me, get a kick out of these examples, Google for the term Mondegreen and find oodles more.

And so I did and now I know what Mondegreen means. I also recollect an old Hindi joke of an extremely bad taste where Mondegreen was used. "There was a cold day" was heard as "Darwaza khol dey" (open the door) when the person singing is taking a shower in the bathroom whose door wouldn't latch.

Here's another from the same book ... [I]f you are into [memorizing digits of pi, such as 3.1415926535], refer to http://www.ludism.org/PiMemorisation

for some basic tips.

Ok! Here's a take away for Dan Brown or a would-be Dan Brown. :D

How about writing a fiction with clues hidden on Internet?
The interested readers would be invited to search the Internet to figure out the clue for themselves. Of course, the skill lies in writing so that even those who are too lazy to search the Internet for clues would enjoy the story. Now that would be something.

Sound of Silence

Now I am sleeping and now I am wide awake. Just like that.

I try to figure out what happened.
Was it some bad dream?
A noise?
Then I realize ... there is no noise. In fact no sound. No where.
I stay awake trying to listen to any sound from anywhere. Nah!
The entire hill station of Kodai goes absolutely still at around 3 a.m. in the morning.
This happened to me the first two nights I spent at Kodaikanal.
I now know what is meant by 'deafening sound of silence'
I feel like a zen master :-)

Or rather like Kamal Hassan in the movie Pushpak Vimana. He cannot sleep in the 5 star hotel. So he goes back to his room that is next to the cinema hall and records the loud noise. Back at the hotel he plays the tape recorder and snores away to glory.

Have you seen the movie. It was released in the north as Pushpak. There are no dialogs in the movie. It is not required. Unfortunately, it was not a box office hit. I wonder why wasn't it India's official entry at the Oscars. Anyways, click on the above link to know more about the movie. And if you haven't seen it, go ahead and get a copy from the local video library. I promise you won't be disappointed.

Coming back to my experience of total silence at Kodai ... I was disappointed that I did not wake up in the middle of the night on the 3rd and 4th day. I sort of started enjoying the experience. There is a kind of peace in total silence.

Are you wasting your time in the city?

Do you go to see theaters?
Do you go for book reading sessions by popular authors?
Have you been inspired by a new artist when you visited that art gallery?
In the past 3 months, have you met some one interesting?
In the past 6 months, has someone visited your house for the first time?
Or have you visited someone for the first time?
Did you exchange your cell number with someone you met at a gettogether?
Did you go to a gettogether where there were more unknowns than knowns?

No?

Then what are you doing in a city? Go live in a suburb.


Picture courtesy: Raphael Castello

Slow down!

No, seriously, just slow down.

Learn to expand life the way

Hindustani Classical Music is expounded by masters. Now most of you would balk at the thought. Nothing can be boring than a Classical Music concert, right? Wrong! It may seem long drawn and boring vocalization but it holds within itself treasure.

It may seem anachronistic in this fast moving life but classical music has a lot to offer. The fundamental thesis of classical music is perfection of each note. The singer or the musician dwells on each note and moves on to the next only after reaching perfection. The full rendition of a piece of music is therefore long and deliberate. The idea is too reach perfection. What is bad about that?

Ok! A completely different subject. Have you seen a fast paced thriller movie twice? I bet you have. Notice how much you missed out when you saw it the first time. Many details escaped your notice. These tiny details made the movie much more enjoyable. So much so that you might have seen it again.

What about books? The pace is slower than a movie but definitely faster than classical music. Why then do you find details in the second reading that escaped you in the first?

How many times have to regretted taking a decision in double quick time? If only you had paused and given it a thought.

Take life slow. It is much too precious to be counted in minutes rushing past. If you like ice-cream you will know what I mean. Enjoy life one lick at a time and before taking the second lick savour the moment.

Picture Courtesy: Kriss Szkurlatowski