Silly Midnight Musing about a Song

A few days ago, I was on a bus when this song floated out of the speakers. Automatic smile across my face. There is something about these songs which tenderly bless the even more tender woman in the song. What makes it even more special is Rafi's voice caressing your ears. Naazuk words made even more naazuk. Nothing can smoothen your ruffled feathers at the end of a rough day like this song. I know I am exaggerating, but it really is a lovely song.

Like many of the songs of the 1960s, this is one of the songs I heard a countless number of times before actually seeing its picturization in the movie. As usual, once you see the picturization, the quaintness of the song unfolds. It's only when I saw it that I noticed that the song starts with soft regular guitar strumming. Why so? Because there is not a single guitar in that scene! Now, that's not unusual in a Bollywood movie, but a guitar replaced by a sitar which the actor is not even playing? Well. And then you notice that the ambiance that the intro creates is nothing like the scene in the move. It's supposed to be a song about a singer serenading a princess in an ancient royal court. Thankfully, as the song goes on, you realize that it does not jar that much because there is actually a lot of sitar playing in the song and you go, "Hmm. Guitar and sitar. Interesting combination."

The songs of that period had a certain lilting quality, which my mother describes as "songs which make your heart fly." She says new songs don't have that power. This is a song which reminds one of flowers under the open sky, and for some reason, also reminds me of moonlight. At the same time, it does not quite gel with that imagery which I'm calling romantic because I can't think of a better word. The sitar makes it sound too royal for that. Really, what a strange mixture of images in my head. When he sings "Naazuk ho naaz se bhi..." I imagine Saira Banu or maybe Sharmila Tagore walking in a garden in a saree or a salwar kameez, playing with her plait. And let me also add a Shammi Kapoor following her around. But then the really complicated sitar and the powerful tabla playing in teentaal takes my mind straight to a Mughal-e-Azam type of scene.

Anyway, maybe I should actually stop dissecting this song. No need to spoil the memory of that bus trip when I gazed dreamily at the gulmohar against the blue sky and thought, "Ah! Bless the driver. He's got good taste."

On dreary evenings

Ever since I woke up this morning, an incident from Brecht's play the "Good Person of Szechwan" is coming to my mind. The one where Shen Teh tries to stop Sun from committing suicide. Sun is trying to hang himself from the branch of a tree, and Shen Teh comes and tries to distract him. He asks her why she is so eager to stop him from killing himself and she says,

"It frightens me. I'm sure you only felt like that because the evening's so dreary.
In our country
There should be no dreary evenings
Or tall bridges over rivers
Even the hour between night and morning
And the whole winter season too, that is dangerous.
For in the face of misery
Only a little is needed
Before men start throwing
Their unbearable life away."

Delhi is such a dreary city, it takes courage to wake up in the morning and face the world. Perhaps all cities are like that. Perhaps life is like that. It's not often that a Shen Teh comes in to distract a Sun from the dreariness of life. Most of the time it's just someone crying out into the dark night, unseen, unheard.

On writer's block and other things

Of late, I've been suffering from a severe case of writer's block and I've been feeling nervous about it (not that I'm much of a writer, but still...) Horrible thoughts have crossed my mind. Is this the end of my writing streak? Am I running out of things to write about? Did I have only so many poems in me? Am I like a one movie actor? Well, I've decided to take desperate measures, to overhaul my way of functioning. I've been doing some research, looking up websites on writer's block, reading what great writers have to say about writing, and have finally ended up with the idea of scribbling in secret notebooks for my own joy. 


Kerouac in his "Belief and Technique for Modern Prose" says, among other things, that you should have "scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy." I know he's talking about prose, but a lot of what he says is true of other forms of writing too. And at this point, the reader will probably say, "Duh! That's obvious! You mean you didn't have any scribbled notes?" Well sometimes, as one goes through life, one needs to be reminded of the most basic, obvious rules, what with the world changing so rapidly. And Kerouac helps a lot with that. Always go back to it if you feel lost. Have you missed out something? I had. I did have typewritten, or rather, computerwritten pages, but I no longer had too many scribbled notes. The notes I had were the ones I scribbled at times when I didn't have the computer around me. Now I have realized, they are both indispensable. One can't replace the other. The feeling of having a pen in your hands and drawing out letters on a hard surface cannot be the same as pressing keys. The very pace of your thoughts changes when you start using a pen. And this may be taking things too literally, but maybe the typewriter can't be replaced by the computer either. The typewriter has a different tactile quality and the very force required to press down the keys so that they can make an impression on paper must surely affect the process of writing. The noise of an old rackety typewriter is irreplaceable too. The experience of typing things that appear on the screen and come out on paper only if you print them out is very different from that of typing things that are instantly spewed out by the typewriter in concrete form. And I love the fact that Kerouac actually typed on long rolls of paper instead of sheets, like a long road. MS Word does create the virtual impression of typing on a long roll, but seeing this loooong black and white roll of paper oozing out of the typewriter is definitely not the same as seeing only five inches of that roll appear on the screen as you scroll up and down. The link between life and art is completely destroyed by the process of typing on a computer.


Now, why did it take so long for me to realize that? Blame technology for it. I was not this dumb when I was younger. There was a time when I was suspicious of computers and refused to type my papers directly on MS Word. Moreover, I had this favourite pen that my father gifted me, and there was a time when I was terribly dependent on it. My ideas would flow only if I used that particular pen. I remember there were so many times when I'd misplace it and spend hours looking for it, refusing to resort to another one. And here I am, transformed into this techno-savvy writer who only types on the computer and sometimes, even directly on the blog (you see, there was a time when I used to write on MS Word and then paste my writings onto the blog). I don't know how and when this happened. I just vaguely remember 'wise' people telling me to get used to technology, learn to process information on the computer, because soon, there will be nothing available outside the virtual world. I don't blame these 'wise' people. I half agreed with them too. But now I wonder, is the current of history so powerful that we can't determine the way it goes while we are a part of it? Surely we can keep alive the physical side of life. There is still so much world out there.


This blog is taking a toll on me too. Although I know that just a handful of people read this blog, writing on a public forum does make you a wee bit self-conscious. My brain has probably frozen out of self-consciousness. I need a place to write in private, where nobody can see how my mind works. Right now, I feel as if the private space between me and the computer is being intruded upon by these invisible people who glance at what I write and pass on to other blogs because it doesn't impress them. I am paralyzed by the need to impress. It's funny, this process of writing. You want people to read and appreciate what you write, but you can't write if you know they are reading what you write. Another thing Kerouac says, and this is a beauty: "something that you feel will find its own form." (I'm taking it out of context, and my interpretation might contradict the rest of the things he says, but I like to see it this way too.) Maybe the things I'm feeling right now are in the process of finding a form other than a blog entry or a poem. Maybe the form they want is a simple diary entry or a scrawl at the corner of a page in a dogeared notebook. Then so be it. Let them find their own forms. I won't try to force them into a poem or a story or an essay.


So I have started scribbling once again, with my favourite old pen on a beautiful notebook I bought the other day. A beautiful notebook with Madhubani paintings on the cover. My favourite pen, by the way, is a Parker fountain pen. There is a story behind this pen. My father gave it to me on my birthday and told me how, as a child, he saw his own father using a similar Parker pen. My grandfather died when my father was really young, so it must be a memory my father treasures. And he told me he always wished for a pen like that, which is why he wanted me to have one. Yes, a lot of sentiments attached to that one tiny black pen.


To end this post on a less sentimental note, I must say, I love starting new notebooks. Starting a new MS Word document is nothing compared to the joy of putting your own mark on a fresh white first page. And if your handwriting is as untidy as mine, and if you are as clumsy as I am with fountain pens, well then it's just the beginning of a gloriously, deliciously scrawly and blotchy journey.

Invigilators and examinees

There,

Where the silence
Is earth-shattering,

With the scratchings

Of your scrawling pens,

With a commotion of voices

Inside brains

Cluttered
With last night’s crammings,

There,

We will meet

At the appointed hour
Like enemies
On two sides
Of a dusty old desk—

My tryst with eternal boredom!

Guwahatik Nomoskar

The song of the Assamese common man, sung by Dost Habibur Rahman in the 1970s. I have always been delighted by this song about a villager who visits Guwahati, the confusing, corrupt, muddy, dusty, mosquito-infested capital city of Assam. I remember hearing it for the first time on the radio when I was a child, and I remember going breathless with laughter. After that, this song has been a fleeting thing which I would hear once in a blue moon, always on the radio, till a person named Himjyoti Talukdar uploaded it on Facebook and Youtube for everyone to hear at leisure. Although I'm afraid that the old world delight of being taken by surprise with this song playing on the radio has gone away, I have to admit that I'm grateful to him for making it possible for me to hear it so far away from home in Delhi. And I also have to admit that this song might soon be rarely played, or not at all, by the radio stations of Assam.


Rahman sings the song in the Kamrupiya dialect, and the song has a typically perky, funny folk tune. Each and every line in this song is so hilarious! And in the midst of that humour, he manages to touch so many socio-economic problems in the state. I wish I could translate it right now, but I know that this seemingly simple song is extremely difficult to translate. The accent and dialect, along with region specific idioms, and the situational humour make it practically untranslatable. So, I'll compensate by translating two lines that made me chuckle this time I heard it, but I'll have to tell you the story in order quote those lines. So here goes:

One day, our common man sits under a tree and wonders where his life is going, why his life is so sad. He wonders how people get to live in buildings in the city, while they can't even build a small house in the village. The next morning, he sets off to the railway station before anyone wakes up at home. There, he decides that Guwahati is the best place to go, because that is where he will be able to make some money.

When our common man gets down at Guwahati Railway Station, it begins to rain, and the water flows all over the roads and houses. After the rains, the sun comes up and dries the water and mud. The mud promptly turns into dust, which flies around and drastically reduces visibility. When the dust clears, our man sees people walking down narrow lanes and sings,

Nau men baat manuh soilsi, soisli motar bohu, 

Tatei dekhu baat gilanot dangar dangar khohu.

(So many people , so many cars 

are running on such tiny lanes,

And there are such big blisters on those lanes.)

These are probably my favourite lines now because of the current deplorable state of the roads in Assam (usually a seasonal problem), what with the Brahmaputra rising and the roads getting battered with heavy rains and heavier vehicles, and the government's famous inefficiency at repairing the damage. And I know that each time I hear the song, a new line will catch my attention, depending on what concerns me about Assam at that point of time. 


To continue with the song, our man goes through a lot of misadventures: 

He mistakes the High Court for Kamakhya temple and prays to Kamakhya Devi; he goes to the marketplace and sees 'foreigners' monopolizing the market; he sees people indulging in adulteration, smuggling with impunity; he sees 'beggar-like' people lining up at the ration stores where they are given half a kilo of rice each for a week, and he wonders how they manage with that; when evening comes, he sleeps in some verandah and is woken up in the middle of the night by the crowing of a cock and the buzzing of mosquitoes.... 

Finally, at dawn, he decides that his village is much cleaner (in all senses) than Guwahati and bids goodbye to the city, hence the name of the song: 'Guwahatik Nomoskar!' 


It's a wonderful song, so here's the Youtube link to it:

Bird Thongchai...my first crush...

Yesterday, I remembered my first crush. Me and my friend were having a conversation about good looking Irish men like Aidan Quinn and Cillian Murphy: men with beautiful watery blue eyes....Yes, much as we protest against racial stereotypes and commodification of women, we ourselves engage in the crime of commodifying men, our evaluations laden with thousands of racial considerations. But we can't help it. We are self-confessed connoisseurs of beauty in all forms. So we unabashedly went on to a discussion on how children of mixed parentage would look, you know, like children of Irish and Asian parentage; when an image and a voice--a twenty year old memory--floated into my mind: Thongchai 'Bird' McIntyre, 'Bird Thongchai', or simply, 'Phi Bird,' the Thai singer and actor with a sweet and powerful husky voice, a charismatic performer, capable of singeing a thousand hearts with his disarming smile and twinkling eyes. Born to a Thai mother and an Irish father, he did not have typically Irish features, but boy, he was definitely a heart-breaker!

This was something like twenty years ago, when my father had gone with us to Bangkok on deputation for three years. I was nine years old when I went there and almost thirteen when I came back. Those three odd years there were the most exciting in my life, as it always is, for a pre-teen, who is just beginning to open her eyes to the beauty all around her. And then there was Phi Bird, the craze of Thailand, who was in his early thirties, and had just tasted sweet success and fame. I think it was 1990, when he sang "Boomerang," a cheerful song that swept the nation. There was 'Bird' fever all around, and I was one of the afflicted ones. The song went: "I will always come back to you, because I am a boomerang!" Then there was the wonderful "Boomerang Man Concert" with the live-wire Bird on stage, and fans swooning all around him, and then, videos of the Boomerang concert playing in every store you entered. He was a phenomenon. Here is a clip of the music video:





Although I can speak very little Thai and have forgotten most of it by now, I still remember each and every word in that song, and I don't think I will ever forget, even if I try. I had fallen in love. I followed his every move. There was this serial he used to act in, called "Koo Kam," in which he acted as this intense Japanese soldier in the second World War, who was in love with a Thai girl. And even if there were no subtitles, and I could only understand the expressions on the faces of the actors, I used to sit and watch it every afternoon and weep salty tears because Phi Bird was so torn apart by the conflict between love and war!


I was so much in love with Phi Bird that I developed a crush in school, on a boy who looked a bit like him. As my crappy luck would have it, that boy broke my heart by not caring two hoots about me, but that was alright, because I still had my Phi Bird to fall back upon.


Then we moved back to India, and I shut out all memories of Thailand in my enthusiasm to adjust to life in a new school, in an attempt to make new friends with new people. I went through all the trouble and adventure a child goes through in a life that is full of unstable circumstances. Those three years in Thailand were the longest time we had ever spent in any city. Otherwise, our life was all about packing and moving to a new place almost every year. Not that I didn't love the variety in my life, but sometimes, the constant moving and adjusting got to me.


But no more of that whining about "I had a difficult childhood." I'm sure it was not all that bad. As time went by, I began to appreciate beauty back home with the same fervour that I had for Phi Bird, moving on to home-grown stars and then to classmates and friends who did not necessarily look like my star crushes. In other words, I grew up.


And then yesterday, I was suddenly flown back on a trip to the past. I searched the net for any remnants of old memories and found two clips of "Boomerang." One being the old music video I used to love, in which Phi Bird was thirty two years old, and a new one in which he is much older, but sexier. It took me some time to get used to the sexy avatar of the cute man I used to know, but I like him both ways now. My friend, of course, prefers the new, cooler video in which Phi Bird dances with his hands in his pockets and shoots smouldering looks at the camera:




In my enthusiasm to catch up with the past, I found out that Phi Bird became even more successful after we left Thailand and became the first Thai singer to get an MTV award. I also found a newer song of his that I really like, "Mee Tae Kid Teung," a sad song about lost love, which goes, "I keep thinking of you." I just love the emotions in his voice and his new maturity. I also love the beautiful blending of Thai cadences with western music. I think, for a Thai singer who uses western styles, this blending is inevitable because Thai is essentially a tonal language. This song is so typically Thai in tone, and yet so accessible:

Maybe I'm making too much of a silly little star crush. I don't know what it is about star crushes, why they sometimes seem more tangible than the reality around you. This one, at least, is significant because it is a sweet childhood memory, and I thank my friend for bringing it back to me.

Abu...

One of the things I learned from my grandma was how to find pleasure in the blandest fare that life has to offer. And I don't mean this in a boring figurative way, but in fact, with regard to the most tangible, most sensuous aspect of life--food. Not that she did not give me that same wisdom at the figurative level: I did ultimately learn that every experience, whether sweet or bitter, had its own unique taste, and that even the most terrible moments deserved to be savoured because they were just as beautiful and ephemeral as the pleasant ones; but I'd rather talk about food here, because that was something my grandma savoured at a level almost bordering on spirituality.

When I was fourteen years old, my grandma decided that she wanted to live with her youngest son and moved in with us. That was the beginning of trouble for me. I was an obnoxious teenager, that too an only child, who was forced to submit to the authority of one more adult in her life. What was worse, I had to share my room with her! And she was a disciplinarian who thought I was the worst brought up kid in the world. She needed to feel that she had some say in the upbringing of the only child in the house she was a part of, and also wanted to mould me into a person of her liking. And I had a fierce resistance to this kind of manipulation, along with a feeling of rejection and an aching desire for unconditional approval. Those were turbulent times--shouting matches, slamming of doors, bouts of crying--I just hated her.

But I am digressing here. I was going to talk about food, right? Well, when she first came, I thought my grandma was the most boring person in the world. And she ate the most boring kind of food. Poor thing. Bland boiled food for her delicate stomach and high blood pressure. I used to pity her, with silent pleasure, of course (I was such a jerk). Mealtimes were the only part of the day when I enjoyed the sweet pleasure of revenge. But as days went by, I began to feel that her food looked tastier than mine. She had a way of mixing the food on her plate that made the pure white rice and the fresh green vegetables of all shades look like a work of art, and a way of rolling that mixture in her mouth which made that austere morsel look like the food of the gods. Soon, the food on my own plate became progressively unattractive and I found myself eying her food during every meal till one day, she offered me some of it. It wasn't bad at all. Every meal after that day was topped by one huge morsel of her food as the last bite.


That was the thawing of the ice. We became great friends after that and all the shouting matches proved to be the building blocks of a most beautiful relationship. Ultimately, I think I became the only grandchild of hers who was allowed to scream at her, storm out of the room and then come back an hour later to lie by her side while she gently stroked my hair. And I have abused that privilege so many times! It's needless to say how much I miss her now.

Now that she is gone, I cook boiled food for myself when I am in the mood sometimes, while my poor exasperated friends attribute my bizarre taste to an obsession with healthy food habits. I have learned that the taste of food lies in the art of eating (very mundane wisdom, but wisdom nevertheless), and I have also learned how to make that heavenly mixture she used to make on her plate,  but I still can't get rid of the nagging feeling that the mixture on her plate was far far tastier than mine.

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...

Niggling thoughts

Today, I was on my way to CP by the Metro. At the Kashmiri Gate Station, this guy got in, stood right next to me and flashed this muscular arm with a long tattoo on it. I couldn’t help but scrutinize. It had a nondescript picture which was half covered by his sleeve. Below it was written

GIRLS ARE NOT FROD.
THEY HAVE ONLY
FAMILY
P
R
E
S
S
U
R
E

Does it make any sense to you? What is ‘frod’? Fraud? Or as ‘So Long and Thanks for all the Fish’ says, some mint fresh but very bad slang word? But above all, I just can’t figure out why anyone would want to have those words permanently imprinted on their body. Perhaps this statement means a lot. Or else, why would he go through the painful process of getting more than thirty letters tattooed on his arm? Pity, I just don’t get the point.