Ghazal - Gulzar
An old season has returned; a memory laden wind as well.
This doesn't happen too often; that she is longing as well.
In memory's rain when the eyelids begin to get wet, This sunk heart's disgrace smells fragrant as well.
Every face appears as two in this flooded mirror of mine. On every journey her fluid shadow follows me as well.
The journey towards silence is silent as well. I hear her words again; I speak again as well.
Translated from the Hindustani*
* I have taken liberties with my translation of this (much more sombre) ghazal in order to make it fit my current mood of longing. Listen to it sung by Jagjit Singh here. Also this is a translation of Gulzar's (I love the man's voice as well) preface to the singing.
Translations
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RIP: Laurie Baker
A friend had sent me a link to a Amichai poem (read previously when I was devouring Amichai and meditating on Israel-Palestine) via email earlier, and that link lead me to this post on the passing of Laurie Baker early last week.
Laurie Baker was a sustainable architecture guru, and more importantly, a lovely person who stood and lived by an elegant variation of Gandhian philosophy. Also it so eerily happens that it was only just a while ago I had thought of the beauty of Laurie's buildings (I was looking up one of my posts here that mentions him )!! If I ever build a house for myself - none of the suburban mass-produced ugliness for me - I will certainly borrow one lovely feature of Baker's work: stained glass effects created from broken bottle ends; perhaps a Laurie's wall or ceiling.
Farewell Laurie - you will live on via your buildings, and ideas that they will continue to radiate on how to live a good life.
My Daily Notes
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Malgudi Again
A while back I had posted a few download links to Shankar Nag's wonderful TV series bases on The Great Narayan's Malgudi stories. And this evening, I found that you can watch many of these episodes as streaming video here (including all the episodes based on the novel "Swami & Friends"). Also does anyone remember reading Narayan's story "Hero" in one of those NCERT textbooks for English?
Movie Posts
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