in the land where "the pursuit of happiness", along with the life and liberty (I suppose because these two are minimum pre-requirements to pursue happiness?) were declared to be unalienable rights. Since I am still an "alien”, a legal one, I may not be able to make a full fledged claim to these "unalienable rights", as yet.

But if I change to human from alien, and theoretically speaking, manage to amass a modest fortune of say $10 million, and if this GOP engineered minimum wage bill passes, I will not have to pay the darn "guvnment" any of my money. But on the other hand, if I, theoretically, end up as a moderately ambitious waiter (who is also an aspiring writer) - it has known to happen; PhDs becoming waiters - in a moderately expensive restaurant, where people who are more successful in the pursuit of happiness would dine, any tips I may then receive, under this bill, would count towards the minimum wage.

O! Senator Frist, how many psychological incentives you provide to motivate lazy bones, like yours truely, to really, really pursue happiness, to hit that $10 million mark, and not turn to waitressing. Brilliant use of your Harvard Medical Degree, sir, if I may say so. Now let's turn to what is an essential book for both of us, sir, the Bible (even though you read it for divine guidance in order to effectively pronounce on sick people like Terri Schiavo for TV, while I read it, in the KJV version, for literary inspiration), and consider Matthew 19:24:

"And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."

Gosh darn it. Surely, Mr. Jesus was joking?! Ok, back to work. This is why I find reading newspapers to be a satirical and comic activity.

Raga Darbari is one of the most popular night ragas of Hindustani Classical Music. And every major musician has had a go at it. Of all these Darbari-s, I personally find Ustad Amir Khan's to be the tops, perhaps because I first heard Raga Darbari is his voice.

Amir Khan is classed with Bade Ghulam Ali Khan in the pantheon of great Hindustani musicians. His singing, unlike those wildly gesticulating ustads and pandits of various gharanas, caricatured on MTV India, is stately and grandoise. Also listen to Aaj More Ghar Aaye Na Balmaa in Raga Malkauns, another night raga.

The twin loci of my attempts at translating poetry are Gulzar and Faiz Ahmed Faiz. I have very little Urdu, and a bit of Hindi that has grown rusty from disuse. Yet, I persist in producing half baked translations (if you have the patience, these translations are here; and this is an note in which I tried to explain how I went about translating a Fai'z ghazal) with the main hope that a little of the sensibility of these two poets will travel, as I have traveled, from those Eastern languages into this Western language, the only one in which I can fashion sentences I am not ashamed to claim parentage of, and also the one I call home. This is task is further complicated by the fact that there have been many precursors, some illustrious such as Agha Shahid Ali, who have done this before, especially in the case of Faiz's poetry. Yes,, Prof. Harold Bloom, your anxiety of influence strikes again.

...

Naomi Lazard, who is among one the earliest translators of Faiz, in this article* writes about her memories of interacting with Faiz, and also working with him on her translations. She correctly notes the enormous popularity enjoyed by Faiz in the Subcontinent, and to illustrate narrates the following anecdote:

"When we were leaving Honolulu, I asked for his address. He told me I didn't really need it. A letter would reach him if I simply sent it to Faiz, Pakistan. The reason? He helped found the postal workers' union. They were his people. They would know where to find him."

Ms. Lazard, after noting that it is difficult to describe the process of translation that is much like describe the process of writing poetry, goes on discuss, via examples, of her process of translating Faiz. I envy the luck and advantage she had of working directly with Faiz's literal renderings into English, as well the opportunity to interrogate Faiz on his choices of words, phrases, metaphors etc. Now what would I give for that!

...

Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his opus "The Gulag Archipelago" - a must read in my opinion for its ability to shift the readers consciousness - writes satirically about Moscow's hypocritical condemnation of the prosecution of left-leaning writers abroad while simultaneously hearing writers and other members of the intelligentsia into the most degrading of prison camps. He notes, correctly, that compared to the Gulag, prisons elsewhere in the world would surely be like paradise.

Faiz, like the Chilean Pablo Neruda, the Turk Nazim Hikmet, the Greek Yannis Ritsos among others, was one of these writers who was a dedicated Communist. Consequently, like many writers in this ground he was also imprisoned for various periods of time; the longest being four continuous years. The readers, who are familiar with Faiz's poetry, have no doubt encountered the brooding images of the prison and the gallows, the shadows of prison on memory and on love, etc. These connections might be further illuminated by reading some of the letters* Faiz wrote from prison to his wife, Alys, and her letters back to him.

In these letters, Faiz and Alys, apart from discussing the difficult financial and emotional situation the prison put them in, in a minor fashion, also talk about their daughters, learning French (Alys, jokingly, reprimands Faiz for wanting to quickly master French by writing, "I am glad your French progresses, but don't rush too far ahead. I must maintain superiority in at least one sphere - even if it be French (and the biological status of having babies)" ), the weather, memories of their ten years of marriage, gossip of friends and family etc. Of course Faiz also has some very interesting things to say on the psychological effects of prison on him. So go read them.

*H/T to N.V of Within/Without for the pointer to The Annual of Urdu Studies