Her:

If we had written these silent fictions on the waters of rivers with our tears, if you had neither given the Word nor had I heard you as you spoke the Word, I wonder how it would have been....

Don't ask how my heart is tonight, for it's just my heart that had been telling these stories: that he will come soon, tomorrow and if not then the day after that. And will continue to tell these stories,so why ask it, that which still belives what it imagines!!

And as these days end, I hold my breath when a lamp extinguishes and as another lights up somewhere in the distance, as I wonder only if you had lit a lamp for me to follow to your house in the starry sky, how it would have been...

Him:

And to how many shores did I go to to find you but until my boat sank in the current midstream, I didn't find your shore. Only if had you unfurled your shore before I sank, I wonder how it would have been...

2002:12:04 16:30 Atlanta

A translation from Gulzar's "Khaamosh sa afsaana". The movie's name is Libaas(Garnments). It never got made but neverthless Gulzar and R D Burman wove some crazy magic in this soundtrack. A classic song for every one who is a poet at heart.

A possible XMas vacation project would be to translate all of Gulzar's songs into poems although I am not 'poet' enough to take on this task!!

How wise I am to have instructed the butler to instruct the first footman to instruct the second footman to instruct the doorman to order my carriage; I am about to volunteer a definition of marriage. Just as I know that there are two Hagens, Walter and Copen, I know that marriage is a legal and religious alliance entered into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut and a woman who can't sleep with the window open. Moreover just as I am unsure of the difference between flora and fauna and flotsam and jetsam I am quite sure that marriage is the alliance of two people one of whom never remembers birthdays and the other never forgetsam, And he refuses to believe there is a leak in the water pipe or the gas pipe and she is convinced she is about to asphyxiate or drown, And she says Quick get up and get my hairbrushes off the window sill, it's raining in, and he replies Oh they're all right, it's only raining straight down. That is why marriage is so much more interesting than divorce, Because it's the only known example of the happy meeting of the immovable object and the irresistible force. So I hope husbands and wives will continue to debate and combat over everything debatable and combatable, Because I believe a little incompatibility is the spice of life, particularly if he has income and she is pattable.

After the sadness comes laughter. So this toast is to marriage or as Paul Erdos says to being "captured"!! And some laughter I need to dig myself out of this fever I dug myself into, which is currently being battled by the ministrations of vitamin C and Advil, courtesy Granpa.