Tribute to Nandigram Protest

Most of the readers of my blog, I am sure, are aware of the gruesome killings of protesting peasants and farmers by the West Bengal state in India that happened almost a month before. It has got considerable media coverage and some good in-depth analyses are readily available on net. As a mark of respect (I hate to 'sympathise' with a good cause) I wrote few words:

Pukaar

Aur, is aasmaan ke saaye mein
Ye zameen jo door talak dikhti hai,
Lahoo ke rang mein zinda hokar
Khoye kadmon ke nishaan doondhti hai,

Lab jo sil gaye the bebasi mein
Ek "Pukaar" jo sulagti thi khamoshi mein,
Sathon (surface) ko chirkar jo nikla wo
Wo maut hi tha jo zindagi mein utra wo,

Kuch mitt gaye, kuch mita gaye
Ek aag dilon mein laga gaye,
Takht-e-siyaasat to na palat sake, par
Takht-e-umraan wo hila gaye.

This time to "aid" my readers, I have also done an English version (and NOT a translation). I think I am seriously incapable to do a translation of the above; so the following is just an impression:

A Call

Beyond the line
Till the horizon
Where the grief impales our vision,
The traces of life in which are fading
That world, seemingly is changing,

For years, we remained mute,
Alive but not astute
Nonetheless, we nurtured a speechless agony
One that haunted our lives incessantly,

We hoped, we tried
We perished in our cry,
No, we didn't succeed,
Or did we? let the future decide.

The doomed diva

The doomed diva Har ek mod pe bas do hi naam milte hain Maut keh lo – jo muhabbat na kehne paao (There are only two names on each pathways (of life) Call it death, if you can’t call it love) I am sorry for even trying my hands at translating these beautiful verses portraying intense suffering, tragedy and clamour of an individual. Are there any guesses who penned these lines? I am sure very few of us would rightfully identify this poetess-in-oblivion who wrote many such verses and couplets as a personal way of registering, recording and dealing with her grief-stricken short life of forty odd years. She was born on 1st August 1932 in Mumbai to Ali Baksh and Iqbal Begum (renamed from Prabhawati Devi). Her father was an actor in Parsi theatre and also dabbled in Urdu poetry and occasionally gave music direction in Hindi movies. This girl, Mahjabeen Bano, was the youngest of her siblings and in the family mired in financial hardships she was literally forced to work in films. Her career st...

More seek than hide: the simple riddles of Vihir

The guy in green played: Nachiket The guy in white played: Samya The small girl played: Soni The man in black: Umesh Kulkarni (director) The man in white churidaar: Girish Kulkarni (producer and co-script writer). More seek than hide : the simple riddles of Vihir Writing a review or even a critical note on Vihir is a daunting task for two reasons: one, the film has such a rich polyphonic repertoire that it is almost impossible for an untrained reviewer like me to do any justice to the film, and second, it has already been brilliantly written about by Shekhar Deshpande on http://dearcinema.com/. The Berlinale 2010 screening has also been reported there . Therefore, rather than a standard review that recounts the basic storyline, this note tries to raise certain issues related to the thematics of the film. In teh post-screening interaction, the first question thrown at Umesh Kulkarni, the director of the movie, was about the fate of Nachiket. The film I guess left a section of audien...

doublethink

Search This Blog