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Yadi hota ki mai bhe ek sarkari afsar hota
Phone mobile gaari ek sundar sa ghar apana hoga
Yadi hota ki mai bhe ek sarkari afsar hota
Apradhi jan aate rahate darwaje par mere
Noto ki bauchhaar hoti sandhya our sabere
Danlap ke gadde par paig lagaa ke sota hota
Yadi hota ki mai bhe ek sarkari afsar hota
Nit uth bachche padhane jaate saath me body guard
Bibi baithee mauj urati computer ke saath
Jai jai kar jam ke hotee galiyare me mere
Rang jamate pichhlaggu sab mai bhee sapane me khota
Yadi hota ki mai bhe ek sarkari afsar hota

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Desh ki matee
Is mitti se bair karo mat ye mitti hi sona hai
Eesi me hansana eesi me gana eesi me yaro rona hai
Is mitti se bair karo mat ye mitti hi sona hai
Eesi mitti me janm liye ho eesi mitti me rahana hai
Eesi me khaa ke eesi me jaa ke eesi me wapas aanaa hai
Ees mitti se prem karoge naam amar ho jana hai
Eesi me sapana eesi me apana eesi me ye jag sara hai
Is mitti se bair karo mat ye mitti hi sona hai
Eesi me aanaa eesi me jaanaa eesi me khona paanaa hai
Eesi me ram ji eesi me kishan ji eesi me prabhu ko aanaa hai
Jitane papi hai dunia me unako mita ke jaanaa hai
Eesi me paap eesi punya dono leke jaanaa hai
Achchhe karmo ka fal achchha bura karke pachhtana hai
Is mitti se bair karo mat ye mitti hi sona hai
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koyal

koyal koo –koo karati hai
bachcho ka man bharti hai
isaki pyari boli hai
lagati kitani bholi hai
isaki geet bari matwali
sab ke man ko bhane wali
pyaar ka geet sunane wali
sab ke man ko bhaane wali
pratah hote kahati bachcho
utho sabera aayaa hai
chanda mama chale hai ghar ko
ravi kiran failaya hai
pyaari ka geet sunati hai
prem ka path padhati hai
aise bachcho ek din jag me
naam amar kar jaao ge
chore sapane jo bapu the
poora karke dikhao ge
mithee isaki boli hai
lagati kitani soni hai
pyari geet sunati hai
sab ka man bahalati hai
koyal koo-koo karati hai
bachcho ka man bharti hai

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Meri kalam ki laaj rakhiyo bhole shankar
Rakh lo dada ka maan lage na kankar pattar
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aisa mat karo byavhaar
ganguli ka balla bolega
chouko chakko ki jhari lagegee
logo ka man dolega
dada ka balla bolega
abhi bhari hai takat ganguli ke haatho me
kyo karto uphaas nukili baato se
naam kiya roshan bharat karahe safal kaptaan
samay chakra to chalata rahata aaj inhe kal unhe kamaan
kar dege majboor chayan karta bhee bolege
dada ko wapas laayege sab veero sang cricket khelege
chappal bhee chup-chaap tamasha dekhe ge
unake hi anushashan me dada cricket khelege
ganguli ka balla abhi kai saikara joregaa
ek nahi hajaro baar dada ka balla bolegaa

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Sachin tendulkar
Tum logo ne kari thitholi
Mai sah na paayaa halle ko
Fir thaam liyaa hoo balle ko
Fir thaam liyaa hoo balle ko
Gend baajo ki genbaji pe
Chauke par chauka mar diya
Samay hamara bahut hai baki
Mai bhi usako jaan liya
Bhoola nahi hoo us din ko mai
Na karuye rasgulle ko
Fir thaam liyaa hoo balle ko
Vish cup tak mai kheloogaa
Kai record banaaugaa
Apane balle ke bauchharo se
Lamba kila dhahaugaa
Karua hota cricket ka jiwan
Mai bhool gayaa us halle ko
Fir thaam liyaa hoo balle ko

Shambhu nath

Kala pur rani ganj kaithoula
Pratap garh-U.P

Suffice to say – that each generation is different. But you can’t place a hierarchy of values on generations. The problem with angst against the system is that it doesn’t really get you anywhere. Angst with the self is another matter altogether. Deewar is differenty interpreted by my generation as more a conflict with the self than conflict with conventional values.

We’re not torch bearers for our respective generations. We have the right to reminisce, but not to degrade another generation in the process of doing so. One generation is not better than the other. In fact – how can one even think of lumping people together in monoliths as “generations”. Even technically speaking, a generation is a cohort-group – of people born in a span of 22 (or 33) years. Why get defensive about a generation? Is every one who is 24 years old responsible for me?

On another note – I have seen Ardh Satya quite a few times and know this poem rather well. I was looking for a Hindi poem – and the suggestion was great. I am not here to indulge anyone other than myself.

Going back to Sangam poetry – the notion of the exterior and interior mindscape as explored in the concept of agam and puram is just that. They are extensions of each other. What someone sees as rage against a system, somebody else as anguish with the self. It’s what a person relates to. Or even say someone like Milan Kundera. He talks of angst and love in personal relationships – but it’s easy to see how his notes on exile are both political and personal. The best movies and art are not the ones that tell us what to think, rather, they become interpretative over time. They are open to contextualization. It really is an individual’s right to interpret and generate her own meaning – as long as she doesn’t force it on others. This is the way I interpret Ardh Satya – I am not asking anyone else to interpret it that way.

Half Truth. Do you think an entire generation can even share a half-truth? Truth is not absolute. And that – is my take away.

As for my accent – I am not going to justify it. What makes one accent better than another? What that hierarchy? Why this value over the “original” – as though “original” can be defined? I don’t think I have a Brit accent, but even if I did – so what? Why is one accent necessarily an improvement over the other? Is Tamil-accented English worse than Brit-accented English?

Some people are more spontaneous than the other. Don’t judge the time spans of gratification. Some people take years, others take seconds. Everyone is right in their place and time. And that – is a half-truth.

I am bewildered by your insistence on haunting this blog, for months on end, leaving mile long messages, some very nasty ones at that, you are anonymous in some, with a fake nick in others, Why? What is this insistence on protecting your identity when you feel so free to criticize others?

http://www.withinandwithout.com/?p=646#comment-825

If your purpose is to distract us from why we are here, to listen to Neha´s voice, and read what she has to say, you are mistaken. Let us say, your incoherence reveals itself before the first punctuation mark.

Maybe you should blog on your own, but you know very well that with the way your write you would get fewer eyeballs than comment # 75 on a Neha post. So you try and get at least that.

Every blogger keeps an open house with an enabled comments section. For a blogger, the open house is even more important than a physical space. Maybe Roethke says it better:

OPEN HOUSE

My secrets cry aloud.
I have no need for tongue.
My heart keeps open house,
My doors are widely swung.
An epic of the eyes
My love, with no disguise.

My truths are all foreknown,
This anguish self-revealed.
I’m naked to the bone,
With nakedness my shield.
Myself is what I wear:
I keep the spirit spare.

The anger will endure,
The deed will speak the truth
In language strict and pure.
I stop the lying mouth;
Rage warps my dearest cry
To witness agony.

Maybe you are anonymous as you know about stalking laws in UK. You could be put inside and your crime is so lame, that the your fellow inmates would be obliged to get together and give you a free enema. Maybe after that, you might have the first coherent release of your life.

But lame as you are, all I am saying is, keep an open house. If you fancy yourself a creative artist, start a blog, write a poem, make a movie, and keep the comments section enabled. What you are doing is easy. Try something more difficult.

Venk at Ease,
Could you give your url/ email ?

So when Neha says – I’m impatient person, I will just read it in 15 minutes – then it is naturally a bit discomfiting to us. Because if you cannot even take the time to atleast attempt to get somewhat close to the original, then we feel something is amiss. Poem is afterall not just string of rhyming words, it has pathos and emotion that can only be conveyed if you read it in a certain way, with feeling. If you just wash your hands off and say I am not Om Puri, that is silly. Nobody is saying you are Om Puri. Infact even if you call Om Puri himself, today, and ask him to audition with same poem, it will feel very different. That magic of those days, one cannot recapture it. But one can atleast try. That is what I felt was missing.

Otherwise, it is a good effort – I said so in first line itself. In fact, if you have never been exposed to the original, it is a superlative effort.

But let me ask you this – why are you people being so servile ? Do you always have to kiss ass ? She is a very promising budding talent, tell her how she can improve. That will take her to the next level. I can already visualize the day when she releases an album of poetry rendition like those Blogswara people. Then she can even debut it on iTunes. That would be simply awesome.

Regarding my lame translation, well, honestly that is how I wrote in those days. Infact my hostel mate, he had a translation very similar to mine. But his translation was a set of seven questions. It was like this

Before I walked in, who was I ?
Now that I’m in, does it matter ?
When I exit, what then ?
Can’t a mercenary be a victim ?
Can a sleepwalker walk into his dreams ?
Won’t the lights of justice blind him ?
Between impotence and courage, how do the scales tip ?

He had posted it on the toilet door, so for three years everyday i was forced to read it while sitting in loo :)

Incidentally, Neha has a somewhat different interpretation of the movie itself. You know, we grew up on Amitabh and Shashi Kapoor – that Deewar dialogue under the bridge is something that defines so many crores of our generation. We must have seen it atleast a dozen times in the theatre, on large screen, with loud, very loud screams and whistles, people tearing their shirts off, violently attacking the furniture! All that rage and emotion, it does something to you. It changes your whole fiber on a fundamental level. I find that is just missing today. I see that the present generation watching the same Deewar dialogue being parodied on MTV. The kids today first watch the parody. Later on they grow up, buy the VCD and watch the movie, and they think, man what a kitschy movie! Whereas, for our generation, the parody absolutely sucks. I actually walk out of the room when that parody shows up on tv, I cannot take it. So times have definitely changed.

For instance, Neha says “his loss is amplified when he meets a woman, who appears to have far greater courage than him. He questions his courage and self”
Very nice, but that is simply wishful thinking. Nihalani takes quite a few jabs at the rather shallow courage of Jyotsna. She being a schoolteacher is certainly not facing a challenge anywhere close to same proportion as Anant. He has to, in his position as the principled cop, deal with a challenge to his moral principles on an everyday basis. Whereas she, in her cushy sheltered position of a teacher in the arts college, is unwilling even to debate the injustice of the police atrocities. When her colleague tries to provoke debate, Jyotsna says “why bother ? No point talking about these things if you cannot effect change. Otherwise there is no end to rhetoric.” Jyotsna gets up and walks out from the faculty room. But what change does she in fact effect ? When she is groped in the BEST bus, she just stands there dumbly. She doesn’t even turn around to slap the groper. In fact, she alerts Anant – and when Anant beats the shit out of the groper, Jyotsna is stupid enough to stop Anant and tell him that these things happen to women everyday, you cannot change the system! Then why the fuck bother? Like she herself says, the system is what it is. Your entry or exit is immaterial. So much for Jyotsna’s “far greater courage”. In fact, it is Jyotsna’s quiet suppressed rage at her impotency to deal with the system that spills out in the form of this poem she shares with Anant. The fact that it mirrors Anant’s predicament in a later part of the story – is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT matter. In other words, Jyotsna does not write this poem with Anant in mind – in fact nothing has happened between them at that point to bring them that close. It is just that she happends to be prescient – her present predicament goes on to become his future predicament. The poem is in the first 10 minutes of the film, but in fact it lays the roadmap of the whole film. In fact, during those days, we had heated debates on this film – India Today had taken up the charge, saying that Ardh Satya was the best Indian film ever made, and so it was all the rage in colleges. At that time, one popular notion doing the rounds was that Chitre’s poem was so far ahead of Nihalani’s visuals, Nihalani could have easily cut to credits after the poem’s recital, because the poem says everything, nothing more remains to be said!!! Film then becomes a gratuitous exercise, an afterthought. Clearly, Chitre was far ahead of his time, and Nihalani had a lot of catching up to do. The film, in the light of the poem, is barely adequate, and would definitely stumble in the absence of the poem.

Neha also says “He ends up seeking protection from the very goon he wanted to lock up.”. Again, Anant does nothing of the sort. When Anant first tries to arrest Rama Shetty, he is verbally raped by his DIG, and forced to beat a hasty retreat. His repressed rage results in a custody death, that leads to a suspension, to counter which Inspector Hyder says Anant could speak with Rama Shetty. However, talks between Anant and Rama Shetty break down in 5 minutes. Shetty has by then become a politician, and promises he can easily bail Anant out but Anant will have to become a stooge. Anant is outraged and strangles Shetty then and there – never once does he even entertain the notion of seeking protection from Shetty. In fact, the conversation with Shetty begins like a trade agreement – Anant says he is willing to pay Shetty, in cash, for making the right calls. Shetty mocks him and turns this straightforward business proposition around to a sort of master-slave relationship, which is when things start heading south.

Finally, some words are best left untranslated. Mahabharatha was written millions of years ago, English language is probably a few hundred years old. I wouldn’t even attempt to find an analogy for Chakravyuh because of that time gap. You will have to get into Abhimanyu and Shubadra and all that detail to atleast have a half-decent concept of what Chakravyuh means. Neha gets it right when she uses the word “organism”. War-maze, Maze, Spiral formation etc. doesn’t even begin to capture the idea. It would be like attempting to translate some western concept like female orgasm and G-spot into say Tamil. Such words don’t exist and you will have to bend over backwords. I guess that’s why when we translated the poem in our time, we deliberately chose not to even mention Chakravyuh in the translation – because there is just no equivalent in English. We stuck to completely omitting reference to Chakravyuh, just calling it “it”, and leaving it to reader’s imagination what that “it” was. Ok time for lunch, bye.