'Amen'

From "LiIies of the Field".
I remember this song because my poor father once tried to hum Sidney Poitier/Jester Hairston's part but got the timing completely wrong, and finally exclaimed, "Arre baap re, this is a difficult song!"

from Dr Zhivago: the joy of writing

     After two or three stanzas and several images by which he was himself astonished, his work took possession of him and he experienced the approach of inspiration. At such moments the correlation of the forces controlling the artist is, as it were, stood on its head. The ascendancy is no longer with the artist or the state of mind he is trying to express, but with language, his instrument of expression. Language, the home and dwelling of beauty and meaning, itself begins to think and speak for man and turns wholly into music, not in the sense of outward, audible sounds but by virtue of the power and momentum of its outward flow. Then, like the current of a mighty river polishing stones and turning wheels by its very movement, the flow of speech creates in passing, by the force of its own laws, rhyme and rhythm and countless other forms and formations, still more important and until now undiscovered, unconsidered and unnamed.

     At such moments Yury felt that the main part of his work was not being done by him but by something which was above him and controlling him: the thought and poetry of the world as it was at that moment and as it would be in the future. He was controlled by the next step it was to take in the order of its historical development; and he felt himself to be only the pretext and the pivot setting it in motion.

     This feeling relieved him for a time of self-reproach, of dissatisfaction with himself, of the sense of his nothingness....

No more pretences

When I first saw him, I was struck by how small he was, compared to the rickshaw he used to pull. Then, gradually, the details began to capture my attention. Hair that could not even be called salt and pepper because the grime on his hair gave it a million shades of black, grey, white and brown. An equally grimy beard that reminded you of a certain limerick written by Lear...

There was an old man in a tree,
Whose whiskers were lovely to see;
But the birds of the air,
Pluck'd them perfectly bare,
To make themselves nests on that tree.

Come to think of it, he actually looked like that man in the illustration, with his beard sticking out in all directions! You only needed a few sparrows to come pecking at his beard. Whenever I had anywhere to go, he would invariably be the only man waiting at the gate with his rickshaw. It didn't take me too long to find out why. Most people avoided him because he was extreeeemely slow! I suppose, in a city where everyone is in a big hurry, he could be quite a liability. The problem with me, as a few of my friends point out, is that I am too generous with my rickshaw pullers. So I happen to be the favourite among all the rickshaw pullers standing at the gate. They all treat me like a princess, and I still haven't figured out whether that's good or bad. But with this old man, straight out of Lear's limerick, I had an extra special relationship. First was, of course of chance. I almost always happened to come out of my gate just when all the other rickshaws were taken. Second was of mere absent-mindedness, because invariably, in that split second when I had to choose a rickshaw, I would be thinking of something else, and end up getting on to his rickshaw.

It was awfully painful to sit behind this man. He would always be reeking of alcohol, and his clothes would be smeared with dirt, with tiny twigs sticking out here and there. Looking at him, I always imagined him lying bleary eyed in some gutter after his daily drinking binge. Drink had obviously taken a toll on his body. He was so tiny that his feet could barely reach the pedals; with his frail health, getting the rickshaw to move was almost impossible. And heavens help you if he had to take a sharp turn! You would have this scrawny old man literally standing on the pedal and simultaneously heaving on the handles of the rickshaw, while the rickshaw moved neither forwards nor backwards, stuck in the most uneconomical position in the middle of the busy road. Then of course, would follow the taunts of the drivers on the road-"Oye! Raasta kyon block kar raha hai?", "Arre, dadaji, raaste se hat jao!" And I would cringe in my seat, feeling apologetic on his behalf! Soon, I began to feel like avoiding him, but the eagerness with which he looked at me each time I came out of the gate wouldn't let me do that. After all I was, perhaps, his only regular passenger.

There were moments of sublime human connection between us too. One winter evening, when his drinking habit was probably getting the better of him, the cold was biting him through his tattered sweater, and his body was tortured by this racking cough he had caught, we were riding up the camel back road of Civil Lines. And as usual, the rickshaw refused to move. I offered to get down so that he could push the rickshaw over the hillock, but he pretended not to hear me. I could see proud self respect throbbing in every joint of his body. He doggedly pushed and pushed till we were finally over the hillock, and then he turned around and said, "Wait till I get that new rickshaw with gears. I'm really going to fly then!" That gave me food for thought that lasted the whole evening.

Soon, he got that rickshaw with gears, but that didn't have too much of an impact on his speed. Soon, my respect, sympathy and conscience began to bother me like a millstone around my neck. There were so many appointments I had nearly missed, so many lectures and meetings I had to enter with embarrassment written all over my face, all because of him. And people started calling him my 'favourite' rickshaw puller.

So the other day, I was in a great hurry, and in a really selfish mood. As usual, his was the only rickshaw at the gate and he came smiling up to me. I shook my head and said, I wanted to walk today. Halfway down the road, I saw another rickshaw coming towards me; the rickshaw puller stopped and asked where I wanted to go. I got onto it, feeling like a complete bitch. As I sat, I looked around furtively, only to see him looking straight at me. I found myself lowering my eyes and shrinking into myself, almost as if to hide my very existence. But then, I drew a long breath, turned and looked ahead. The breeze hit my face as the rickshaw took speed. Suddenly, I felt a weight lift from my heart. I was no longer bound by my conscience. There were no pretences between us anymore.

Slipping away...

Guess it's just another day
That's slipping away
Each time that I draw my breath
It's slipping away
Just as you have touched my heart
I awake and we're apart
Slipping away...
                       The Rolling Stones

There are some days when you can do nothing but watch your life pass by, slipping though your fingers like sand. So many things you couldn't control, so many chances you missed, so many things you couldn't hold on to, so many good things that ended too soon.... And yet, there are no regrets, just a sad acceptance of the truth. There is beauty in that loss too, there is pleasure in that aching of the heart too. It is as beautiful and comforting as the warm, shiny sand slipping through your fingers.

Nobody says that as well as the Rolling Stones. Nobody sings it as well as Keith Richards with wisdom in his voice and sadness in his smile.

Jayanta Hazarika

Whenever I think of Jayanta Hazarika, I am filled with sadness; I am reminded of so many young people who leave behind a whole body of work almost as a reminder of how much more they could have done, had they lived a few years longer. I was once asked by a friend from Rajasthan, why Jayanta never became as famous as his elder brother Bhupen, and the only answer I could give was that he died at the young age of thirty four. Many people have given many other reasons for this--his music does not have the depth of that of Bhupen, he did not experiment as much as Bhupen, his music is not as socially committed or as hard hitting as that of Bhupen...it just goes on.

True, Jayanta's music has a lighter touch than that of Bhupen, and mostly appeals to younger listeners. But let us put and end to this comparison game. Jayanta's music is beautiful in its own right. He has often been given the credit of being a pioneer in introducing Western musical instruments in Assamese music in the 1960s and 70s. But what is better, is how he uses those instruments. What amazes me is that in spite of these innovations, his music still remains close to the Assamese soil.

I first realised the beauty of his music on a road journey around the Assamese countryside. We were travelling by car, with my father at the wheel and my mother by his side, while I had the whole backseat to myself. Although we had a variety of music to entertain ourselves with, we finally ended up listening only to Jayanta's songs. And that is when I realised, his music reflects everyday Assamese life most beautifully. He sings about nothing phenomenal, just about ordinary things like love, time, family, sorrow, happiness, hills, rivers, trees, flowers and life. It is this simplicity that is so endearing. His melodies and rhythms echo the undulating surface of the land, the meandering of the rivers and the greenery of the fields. In short, if you are travelling through Assam, you must carry Jayanta's music with you.

Wondering what triggered off this emotional tribute to Jayanta? Well, while surfing through Youtube today, I came across a video of one of my favourite Assamese songs, 'Xar Paam Moi Puwoti Nixate' (I will wake up at the crack of dawn), sung of course, by Jayanta. A very well made video, because it has black and white photos of Jayanta, which made me even more nostalgic. I am attaching the clip here:



This song has been subsequently covered by his only son, Mayukh, and that is also perhaps one of the reasons I like this song so much.

I couldn't resist translating this song. I know I might have killed the song in the process, but what the hell, that is one of the few things I know how to do. Translating is my way of making something my own, my way of connecting with the creator of a great piece of work. So here goes:

                  Xar paam moi puwoti nixate

I will wake up
At the crack of dawn
When dewdrops are falling;
That hour, which moistens
The dry dust lying on the road.
Mother, won’t you wake me up?

I want to see
How the crimson sun
Vanquishes all the darkness;
How it casts a spell
On each budding flower,
So it blooms in all its glory.
How it fills the heart
Of the vacant air
With sweet fragrances.
Mother, won’t you wake me up?

Mother, I want to learn
The secret spell of creation
I want to know,
What is that skill
That can drive away
All emptiness?
I too have a wish:
To open up and bloom,
Like a glorious sunflower.
Mother, won’t you wake me up?

Random images

This is going to be a really random piece full of quotations...

It's funny how certain images have a tendency to get permanently etched in your mind. I was teaching Attia Hosain's Sunlight on a Broken Column this morning when it struck me that one of the things that define this book for me happens to be one horrifying image-that of a woman dying of tetanus.

This woman gives birth to a still-born child and gets infected with tetanus.
Everyone thinks she is possessed by the devil. They try to drive away the
devil by opening the Quran...
I could hardly see. Jumman stood by the door. Some women grouped round the bed lifted the mother of Nandi toward me, supporting her head and shoulders. I could see the skull of a small animal near the head of the bed. And then I looked at her face, her mouth.It was twisting fiendishly. My paralysed lips scarcely moved. I held the open Quran near her face, and my fingers fumbled as I drew them rapidly through the thin pages.

...The woman's face and body twisted. The women around her moaned.
I ran into the sunshine towards my room.

In One Hundred Years of Solitude, an image that haunts me to this day is that of a baby being eaten up by ants.

And then he saw the child. It was a dry bloated bag of skin that all the ants in the world were dragging toward their holes along the stone path in the garden.

Then there are the rats in Orwell's 1984...

The circle of the mask was large enough now to shut out the vision of anything else. The wire door was a couple of hand-spans from his face. The rats knew what was coming now.One of them was leaping up and down, the other, an old scaly grandfather of the sewers, stood up, with his pink hands against the bars, and fiercely sniffed the air. Winston could see the whiskers and the yellow teeth. Again the black panic took hold of him. He was blind, helpless, mindless.

All random images tied together by the sense of horror, tied together by the hair standing on the back of my neck...

Song: A question

Must this be
Your journey alone,
No longer mine to share?
Must I sink
As your passions rise
And the music fills the air?


Your throat swells
And your body sways
With songs I do not know;
With every beat
And every note
I feel my emptiness grow.


You shake me off
And rise alone,
So proud, so disdainful;
Must I look on
At your alien face
So crue, so forgetful?


Will you ever
Look down below
For what you've left behind?
Will you ever look
In the mirror one day
For the one you will never find?