Daily Archives: February 14, 2010

Return to The Land of Poems

Published February 14, 2010 / by Jehangir

Kashmir is famous for the lol* of Zooni, its poetess-queen, and Arnimal.
Rasul Mir and Mahjoor represent the peak of the romantic era.
*‘Lol’ may be considered a Kashmiri form of ‘Lyric’ poetry which is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person.

hatyuk rath bu kadha,
naman tas bu malha,
hekya baar temkui,
su naazuk athanh peth

This kashmiri couplet was narrated to me years ago by the late Mohiuddin Shah, one of the most outstanding bureaucrats that Kashmir has produced. There is a bit of history associated with it, which I may relate at a later date. Meanwhile, permit me to attempt a translation:

If I slit my throat
to paint my beloveds' nails
Would she bear the strain
on her delicate hands?

A similar sentiment is echoed in this translation of a Kashmiri poem by Marion Doughty, an English traveller to the valley.

O that my blood were water, thou athirst !
And thou and I in some far desert land,
How would I shed it gladly, if but first
It touched thy lips before it reached the sand.

Urdu poetry is a goldmine of romantic imagery. Ghalib is said to have offered his Diwan in exchange for this couplet by his rival Momin.

tum mere paas hote ho goya
jab koi doosra nahin hota.

Then there is Ibn-e-Insha and his Farhad-meets-Freud ballad, Farz Karo.

farz karo hum ahl-e-wafaa ho
farz karo deewane ho
farz karo yeh dono baatein
jhooti ho afsane hon
farz karo yeh ji ki bipta
ji se jor sunai ho
farz karo abhi aur ho itni
aadhi humne chhupai ho
farz karo tumhe khush karne ke
dhoonde humne bahaane ho
farz karo yeh nain tumhare
sach-much ke maikhaane ho
farz karo yeh rog hai jhoota,
jhooti preet hamari ho
farz karo is preet ke rog mein
saans bhi hum pe bhaari ho
farz karo yeh jog bijog ka
humne dhong rachaaya ho
farz karo bas yahi haqeeqat
baqi sab kuch maaya ho

How about the great revolutionary poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz with Teri Samundar Ankhon Mein.

ye dhoop kinara, sham dhale
milte hain dono waqt jahan,
jo raat na din, jo aaj na kal,
pal bhar ko amar,
pal bhar mein dhuan,
is dhoop kinare, pal do pal,
honton ki lapak,
baahon ki chanak,
ye mel hamara jhoot na sach,
kyon raaz karo, kyun dosh dharo,
kis kaaran jhooti baat karo,
jab teri samundar aankhon mein,
is shaam ka sooraj doobega,
sukh soenge ghar dar wale,
aur raahi apni raah lega

Let me dedicate the last poem to my wife:

The Land of Poems*
For just one glimpse of you,
The rosebud of your street
Has bloomed anew !
No songbird there to greet
Your rose, which blooms alone,
But in that land
Of poems, where have grown
My roses, and I stand
Within the shrine
Of secret meanings, hail !
How every verse of mine
The nightingale
Will sing, and none destroy
The ecstasy we share,
His house of joy
On heights none others dare.

* Persian Diwan of Mahmud Gami
(Translation by Nilla Cram Cook)

Update: Translations are available here.

Jai Ho or Not

Published February 14, 2010 / by Jehangir

|It's almost official now. The world has been cocacolised.

John Dvorak , writing on technology in the USA, commented that " It's almost as if the collective brain of the American public has been put into neutral ." That is just the tip of the iceberg.

Hype-mania is an international pandemic. Just look at the headlines. Avatar is the highest grossing film of all time. Crippled-spec Netbooks are outselling laptops. AR Rehman has a couple of Grammy Awards to match his double Oscars.

What are we to make of headlines exclaiming that Science Channel Refuses To Dumb Down Science Any Further?

Avatar was a huge disappointment. The cutting-edge special effects experience quickly wore off, leaving the feeling of watching an interminable Discovery Channel documentary. The plot was ridden with every moth-eaten cliche in the book.

A far better movie experience, IMHO, was the reboot of the Star Trek film series. In the seventies the Star Trek TV series was broadcast by PTV and Jammu was near enough the LOC to receive a faint signal. An ingenious combination of an antenna with a bicycle rim enabled grainy though quite watchable B&W reception and we became avid Trekkies. I will be surprised if Avatar achieves that kind of longevity.


Is this our future?

Netbooks are low- powered devices with ridiculously small squint-inducing screens, cramped keyboards and missing CD/DVD drives. Tablet laptops that beat the pants off netbooks are available for similar amounts of money but everyone and their uncle are buying netbooks.

Lower standards and expectations are not only acceptable but fashionable too.

The enormously talented A R Rahman is accepting multiple Oscar and Grammy awards for the music of Jai Ho . I am sure that it takes quite an effort on his part to keep a straight face. Jai Ho is not his best work – not by a long shot.

The starkest example is that of Facebook. The social networking site has taken over the world with millions of users all over the globe. Here is the result:

Facebook Wants to Be Your One True Login

Just go through the comments. Hundreds of people were trying to login to Facebook from a totally unrelated site called ReadWriteWeb and getting frustrated at their inability to do so despite the following message printed in bold letters:

Dear visitors from Google. This site is not Facebook. This is a website called ReadWriteWeb that reports on news about Facebook and other Internet services.

One commenter joked about removing these people from the gene pool. What about Twitter – and the millions of people who are tweeting inanities this very moment? Don’t even get me started on the selfie mania.

To their credit, till the sun set on their missionary/capitalist empire, the British insisted on excellence. The strategy of the modern neo-colonist unipower is quite the reverse – the imposition of dumbocracy in every nation on earth. The world could not be converted but, like poor Santa Claus, it sure as hell has been cocacola-ized.

Update: The rules of Scrabble have been changed to allow the use of proper nouns like people's names, places, and company names or brands! Be sure to read the comments.

Postscript : ‘I will be surprised if Avatar achieves that kind of longevity.’
This is the part where I eat my hat.