Monthly Archives: January 2009

Naveed Siraj has sent the captioned audio link. The track is originally by Ustaad Manzoor Ali Khan who belongs to the Gwaliar Gharana. The track is called “Khutaa Keenjhar kinaray, tambo tamachee jaam ja” which NS has translated as: “At the banks of (Lake) Keenjhar, the King (Jam Tamachee) puts up the camp”. Here, we can visualise the mighty ruler of the land arriving at the Keenjhar with all the pomp and protocol and is received by poor mohanas.  This track as is mesmerising.

While taking me through the audio journey, I learnt about Khuta Kinjhar kin (The King puts up camp at Keenjhar). This is Shah Latif’s Sur Nooree-Jam-Tamachee & it is simply describing the scene of the King Jam Tamachee falling for the simple fisherwoman Nooree.

So it starts with Shah giving voice to Nooree who cries out to the Samoo King “You are the supreme lord, I, a lowly fisherwoman, full of blemishes, pray do not foresake me and turn your back on me in view of our abject poverty. (more…)

I am seeing a moon outside the eye in the eye, which neither eye has seen or ear heard of.
I do not see tongue and soul and heart save without myself, from that moment that I stole a glance at that cheek.
Had Plato seen the loveliness and beauty of that moon, he would have become even madder and more distressed than I.
Eternity is the mirror of the temporal, the temporal the mirror of pre-eternity – in this mirror those two are twisted together like his tresses.
A cloud beyond the sense whose rain is all spirit; sprinkling on the dust of the body – what rains he has rained!
The moonfaced ones of heaven, seeing the picture of his face, have become ashamed before that beauty and scratched the bank of their necks.
Posteternity took the hand of pre-eternity and took it toward the place of that moon: having seen both, it laughed in jealous pride at the two.
About and around his palace what lions there are, roaring jealously, aiming at the blood of the self-sacrificing, adventurous men.
Suddenly the word jumped from my mouth, ‘Who is that king? Shams-al-din king of Tabriz’; and at those words my blood surged.

Rumi translated by A.J. Arberry

Read the captioned story in the Times of India today- politics of war mongering can be such a disruptive influence on ordinary lives. In Pakistan, we have shops and businesses named as Bombay restaurant, Bombay cloth house and even a Bombay sweet house. And of course Hyderabad’s premier bakery – the Bombay bakery as reminded by Kazim. I am posting an image of the Hyderabad outlet during my recent, fleeting  visit to the city.

Deep down, the links continue despite 61 years of turbulence…

MUMBAI: Karachi Sweets in Mulund is not the only business establishment that bears the name of a Pakistani city. TOI came across at least seven shops, offices, halls and restaurants named after Karachi, Peshawar, Multan, Sindh and Lahore-most of the owners probably could never forget their hometowns that they had to leave during Partition.

“How can the MNS ban shop names like Karachi, Lahore or Sindh as most of the owners are refugees from Pakistan?” said a shop owner in Bandra. “Even my shop is named after a Pakistani city and we have been running this business for the past 100 years. A lot of sentiment is attached to the name.” He added that it was unfair to target innocent shop owners who have settled down in India and are patriotic. “We just carry a Pakistani city’s name on our signboard. We are true Indians and not Pakistanis.” (more…)

Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Latuff creates artworks that call on the world to condemn Israeli brutalities in Gaza.  Carlos Latuff’s statement:

I’d like to beg all viewers to spread this image anywhere, as a way to expose Israeli war crimes against Palestinians. Use it on t-shirts, posters, banners. Reproduce it in zines, papers, magazines, and make it visible everywhere…Thank you in the name of every suffering Palestinian. (more…)

Last night I stumbled upon this translation of Parveen Shakir’s poem (Navishta) rendered by C M Naim. This is where she addresses her only son on the perils of living with a famous mother. Parveen was extraordinary and her poems continue to cajole, haunt and address the readers.
“. . . then Zaid cursed Bakar, ‘Your mother
is more well known than your father!’ ”
My son,
this curse is your fate too.
In a fathers’ world you too, one day,
must pay a heavy price
for being known by your mother,
though your eyes’ color, your brow’s
expanse,
and all the curves your lips create
come from the man
who shared with me in your birth,
yet alone gives you significance
in the eyes of the law-givers.
But the tree that nurtured you three
seasons
must claim one season as its own,
to comb the stars, turn thoughts into
perfumes,
make poems leapfrog your ancestors’ walls . . .
a season that Mira couldn’t send away,
nor could Sappho.
Now it must be this family’s fate
that you should frequently feel abashed
before your playmates, and that your
father
must grin and bear it among his friends.
The name on the doorbell means
nothing;
the world knows you by one name
alone

Adrian Mitchell died on December 21, 2008 in London. A prolific poet, novelist and playwright, he was perhaps best known for saying “most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people.” He was a strongly committed anti-war poet and wrote extensively against Vietnam and Iraq wars.

Norman Morrison

On November 2nd 1965

in the multi-colored multi-minded

United beautiful States of terrible America

Norman Morrison set himself on fire

outside the Pentagon.

He was thirty-one, he was a Quaker,

and his wife (seen weeping in the newsreels)

and his three children

survive him as best they can.

He did it in Washington where everyone could see

because

people were being set on fire (more…)

Rasha Elass

Sufism is the ascetic element of Islam and it derives from the Sunni tradition. Scholars trace the word to two possible roots: “suf”, Arabic for wool, or “safa”, which means purity. Both roots describe the ascetics of the early days of Islam, as Muslims committed themselves to purity of heart and were known to wear wool robes.

Various schools of Sufism developed by Arabs during the Damascus-based Ummayed (660-750AD) and Baghdad-based Abbasid (750-1258AD) eras. Independent Persian ascetic tradition also developed during that time. Sufism continued through Ottoman times (1299-1923AD), and various schools that still exist today began developing in Turkey. (more…)

Rumi on the beauty of spiritually intimate associations..

It is a sign of intimate friendship
when speech flows freely from the heart;
without intimacy, the flow is blocked.
When the heart has seen the sweetheart,
how can it remain bitter?
When a nightingale has seen the rose,
how can it keep from singing? (more…)

How long shall we be satisfied with the shapes and appearances of time?

How long shall we watch and smell existence?

I am tired of the materials and creatures of the present.

It’s time to see the Beauties of beauties.

But when I look at Him, I see my image;

And when I look at myself, I see His image. (more…)

James Astill writing for the Economist says that the Islam of the Taliban is far removed from the popular Sufism practised by most South Asian Muslims

“NORMALLY, we cannot know God,” says Rizwan Qadeer, a neat and amiable inhabitant of Lahore, Western-dressed and American-educated, eyes shining behind his spectacles. “But our saints, they have that knowledge.” (more…)

As clouds of war hover in the skies of Lahore, I am missing Delhi and lamenting the relatively difficult venture to visit the city The December of . 2008 was a month of promise. I was meant to visit the Jawaharlal Nehru University, read a paper, participate in a conference and enjoy the environs of the campus that would have glowed in December sunshine. Not to forget that I was meant to pick up two books on Gulzar, the great modern poet and lyricist of India whose links with Urdu and Pakistan’s Punjab are as intractable as the nine centuries of our South Asian past. How keen I was to walk around the bookstores of Delhi and try out the unfrequented eateries hidden behind the mayhem of the urban life. Above all, I wanted to finish the book that I have been writing on Delhi. For that I have to do a little more exploring of its myriad moods. Alas! Certain things are not meant to be. My trip was scheduled right after the tragic Mum bai events which were equally mourned in Pakistan. But that terrorist event has now become a bone of contention, almost a drumbeat for war, between India and my country . (more…)