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Thursday, November 30, 2006

Name's claim
















Ok. We all know Romeo’s comments on names: What’s in a name? Names are nevertheless important. They are our windows to understanding things.
This is particularly true in case of books, where a few words or a phrase must explain what the book is all about. So, the pre-requisite is that the name must sound innovative and catchy, something that forces the reader/buyer to pick it up and browse through its pages. Names are the first step to knowing a book.
I remember picking up Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy just for the name. Galaxy? Sounds like a science fiction. But hitchhiking to galaxy? I mean, can you just ask for a lift, to say, March or Venus? Isn’t it inventive enough? And the book lives up to its expectations, unlike some others, like, Robin Sharma’s The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. Sharma’s title is very symbolic and since it’s just a self-help book, the meaning goes awry.
Novelist Kavery Nambisan’s titles are highly poetic. One of her books is called Mango-Coloured Fish, another Scent of Pepper. Where did she find her titles? Kavery confesses that they are not her own, but was suggested by David Davidar, the then head of Penguin India. Mr Davidar must be a man with great gastronomic taste and I am sure he loves mangoes. His own novel is called The House of Blue Mangoes.
Kiran Desai’s Booker winner The Inheritance of Loss sounds odd at the first glance. How on earth you inherit loss? But as you enter her world, the title begins to make sense. It’s about the second-generation Indian immigrants, who inherit their parent’s loss of their homeland.
Probably no Booker winner is as innovative as Alan Hollinghurst who received the award for The Line of Beauty in 2004. His first novel is The Swimming-Pool Library. I failed to find the connection between swimming-pool and library. But the book sunk me completely. His next novel is The Folding Star (I confess, I had to fold the book halfway through. It was just beyond me!).
Coming to an individual writer’s way of naming his books, Vikram Seth seems to have exhausted the possibilities of articles ‘a’, ‘an’ and ‘the.’ Observe the names: The Golden Gate, A Suitable Boy, An Equal Music. Now, he has begun with numbers, staring with two, in Two Lives. Probably his next book would be called Three This or Three That.
There are some titles that outgrow the book and become the part of our popular vocabulary. Suketu Mehta calls Bombay Maximum City. Now, we use the epithet beyond the context of the book. William Dalrymple calls Delhi The City of Djinns. Dominique Lapierre calls Calcutta the City of Joy. R Raj Rao again calls Bombay soul city in One Day I Locked My Flat in Soul City.
Indian English fiction, especially those published abroad are notorious for exotic, highly romanticised titles. Sample this: Salman Rushdie’s The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Raj Kamal Jha’s The Blue Bedspread and If You Are Afraid of Heights, Uma Parameswaran‘s Rootless But Green are the Boulevard Trees.
A book is the product of an individual mind but titles are not. They are the part of a publisher’s marketing strategy, which is apparent in Kavery Nambisan’s titles. Pune based author R Raj Rao wanted to call his first novel Krishna and Sudama but his publishers did not want to take any risks, and it was renamed the Boyfriend. This is probably the same reason why Kavya Vishwanathan’s book has such a long title, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed… William Dalrymple, on the other hand, seems to be fascinated by the word Mughal. His last book was The White Mughal, and his latest tome is The Last Mughal.
Sasthi Brata calls his memoir My God Died Young, simply because he’s an atheist, while Dom Moraes’s autobiography is My Son’s Father, the ultimate example of circumlocution. Another interesting name for an autobiography is Dannie Abse’s called Ash on a Young Man’s Sleeve.
It is a popular custom to name a book with some quotations form poems. Gone with the Wind takes the title from a poem by Ernest Dowson. Rohinton Mistry borrowed the title Such a Long Journey from a T S Eliot poem.
I was highly impressed by Alan Sillitoe’s title The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner. It can’t be more symbolic than this. Another title that seduced me into purchasing the book is Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges are not the Only Fruit. And no, the book is not about oranges or other fruits.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Application Wanted

Nilim Kumar
Translated from original Asomiya
By Dibyajyoti Sarma

For a revolution
Applications wanted

The ideology of the revolution is love

The applicant must have faith in the ideology
They must themselves be a lover or beloved
The must have the qualifications to understand men
They should carry a anguished-exiled heart but
There must remain insatiable desire to fight for blood
Experience of doing mistakes in life and spending days in hell is a must
Some seats are reserved for the
Agony-lovers and those crazy in love
Applicants with grotesque characters will be given preference

Age: till death
But the age to understand life and world should not be less

No limits to remuneration
As per work would be given blood, death or life
Coins of joy and sorrow

The limit to submit application form is evening
Before people go out to drink

Address:
Tormented Revolutionary Lover
Office: open field
Post: heart
Via: soil, water, fire, air, sky etc.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Blue shirt

(On the death of Rajen Hazarika)
Hiren Bhattacharya
Translated from original Asomiya
By Dibyajyoti Sarma

When death is inconsequential news
Faraway in self-melody below fluttering breathes
Lie seeds of live constellation…
We picked up that heartfelt picture
On the terminally ill busy bedside
Revered blue shirt!

Ambrosia till now

Hiren Bhattacharya
Translated from original Asomiya
By Dibyajyoti Sarma

1.

Memory is beyond sadness
Whistling goes away the green valley

2.

Mouthful of blood. The sun is hanged
Sky is the scaffold

3.

In the long-breathed filthy sky who are you the figurine of sorrow

Again...

Hiren Bhattacharya
Translated from original Asomiya
By Dibyajyoti Sarma

Every day I’ve one death or other
Long life on the lines of my palms
I live this way. Listening to the footsteps
Of dream’s fairy.
I think alone:
Life is more beautiful that it can
Actually be

Saturday, November 18, 2006

A beginner's guide to James Bond


Dr No (1962)
Fourth book of the Ian Fleming series brings you the very first Bond on screen, Sean Connery, though he was not the first choice. The first choice was Roger Moore, who turned down the offer only to return as the third incarnation. The scene is Jamaica, the villain is Dr No, who intends to destroy the US space program with a radar-jamming device, and the Bond girl is Ursula Andress, who appears from the sea. No pre-title action, not much gizmos, but the first Bond offers his immortal intro: “Bond. James Bond.”

From Russia With Love (1963)
Connery returns as Bond, in Istanbul, in a mission to acquire a Russian cypher machine known as Lektor, and falls in the trap laid by his mortal enemy SPECTRE, who wants to avenge the death of Dr No. A slow, sleek thriller, but far from being a signature bond film.

Goldfinger (1963)
The mother of all Bond movies. Starts the trend of pre-credit action sequence, and deadlier villains in Auric Goldfinger, who kills with painted gold. Bond gets his finest gadget: The Aston Martin complete with machine guns and ejector seat, and not to mention his girls.

Thunderball (1965)
Bond investigates about two nuclear bombs stolen by SPECTRE. Not upto Goldfinger, the highlight is the underwater extravaganza.

You Only Live Twice (1967)
Bond comes to Japan for a final confrontation with the SPECTRE leader Ernest Stavro Blofeld. It was supposed to be Connery’s last appearance as Bond, even supposedly the last Bond film. But it was never to be so.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)
Comes a new Bond, an unknown Australian model George Lazenby. Blofeld too returns with new vigor, and Bond finally falls in love and marries Tracy, before she is killed. The point is, Lazenby failed to recreate the Connery magic.

Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
Connery returns for one last time to face another Blofeld who uses an orbiting diamond laser to enslave the world.

Live and Let Die (1973)
Roger Moore takes over as Bond, this time after a heroin king in the Caribbean islands.

The Man With the Golden Gun (1974)
Famous for the ultimate Bond baddie, Christopher ‘Dracula’ Lee as the titled assassin, in front of whom Moore looks really juvenile.

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
Moore at the Bond’s best, especially remembered for its incredible skydiving pre-title sequences.

Moonraker (1979)
Bond goes to the moon. Over-the-top, to say the least.

For Your Eyes Only (1981)
Bond comes down to earth in a serious mission to chases down an encryption machine before the bad guys catch hold of it.

Octopussy (1983)
From Indian point of view, known for Kabir Bedi and a very dashing Vijay Amritraj, and the incredible auto-rickshaw chase in the streets of Udaipur.

Never Say Never Again (1983)
Connery returns for a second time. But clearly, this Bond is old, even his gadgets look older. Only fresh thing was the introduction of Kim Basinger.

A View to a Kill (1985)
Moore again, trying to stop a madman industrialist from blowing up a fault line in California to obliterate Silicon Valley, a rip-off from Superman.

The Living Daylights (1987)
A newcomer called Timothy Dalton tries to wear Moore’s boots, but he’s too brooding to be flamboyant. And Afghanistan didn’t really suit him.

Licence to Kill (1989)
Dalton again. Bond improves in his performance, but the story does not.

Golden Eye (1995)
A long hiatus and we get the fifth Bond, the Generation X favourite Pierce Brosnan, that too, on the mean streets of Russia.

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
After the jittery of the first film, Brosnan looks comfortable, even to drive a motorbike with one hand, other being handled by Michelle Yeoh, in the streets of Shanghai this time.

The World is Not Enough (1999)
Truly world is not enough for Brosnan, and even to his nemesis, a beautifully ruthless Sophie Marceau, and Denise Richards as a nuclear scientist in short shorts and a bare midriff. Nothing looks like real anyways.

Die Another Day (2002)
The best special effect in the film is Halle Berry, wearing a bikini and a big knife, a throw-back to Dr No with the bikini-clad Ursula Andress and her large blade, and did we mention diamond are forever, especially when they are strewn on your face!

Incurable love


On Love in the Time of Cholera


When Dr Juvenal Urbino died, his widow Fermina Daza did not have much to grieve, their marriage was a success after all. That evening, she said goodnight to the mourners, and as she was about to close the front door, she saw a thin, impeccably dressed man standing there -- a man long forgotten, yet vaguely remembered. It was Florentino Ariza. He stepped forward, and not wasting any time, asked her what he was waiting to ask for the last 50 years: “Fermina, will you marry me?”

In Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez does not tell us what love is. He gives us the symptoms. It is very much like cholera. For one thing, both are incurable (especially in the context of the time, in the Caribbean, where the novel is set). It is the story of Florentino Ariza, poet, businessman and a casanova, and his incurable disease called love. A teenage Florentino falls in love with school-going Fermina. They have a brief courtship until her father finds out. The father tries all his might to keep them apart; one reason being, Florentino is poor and a bastard. Finally, he succeeds when rich Juvenal Urbino comes along and proposes marriage to Fermina.

Heartbroken as he was, Florentino soon decides that one day Dr Urbino is surely going to die and then he can win Fermina back. And till then he must work towards making himself worthy of her. Thus begins a long wait spanning 50 years -- a wait that defies age, time and memory, a wait interspersed with unrequited love and numerous sexual escapades.

What makes the novel extraordinary is the way Marquez embroiders upon the story of Florentino’s excessively romantic and impossibly melancholic love by adding layers upon layers of episodes, unquestionably of love, in different facets. Apart from Florentino-Fermina, Fermina-Juvenal love stories, there are also numerous affairs of Florentino Ariza.

At one point the novel becomes a collage of love stories of every possible manner. But what saves the book from being a mess is the charming presence of Florentino himself -- who refuses to dwell on the loss of love and works obsessively towards getting his love back, which he finally succeeds and how! Marquez does not tell us what love is. Instead, he introduces us to Florentino, who could say with conviction (even after his numerous affairs) to Fermina: “I have kept myself virgin only for you.”

Novel fusion


Selected artworks, world music and tabla would surely enhance the experience of reading a novel. To cherish Over the Edge: A Fusion of Literature, Music and Art, step into Maulana Abul Kalam Hall tomorrow (November 18, 2006) at 6 pm...

Gone are the days when you could just pick up your favourite novel, along with a steaming mug of coffee, and spend the entire day in the snug comfort of your home, till the coffee gets cold and you are transported to another world!

There are many of us who just can’t stop grumbling about having no time to read novels at all. There are others who somehow manage time, but the question is where are the books? There are still others who think the age of the novel is over. It’s the time of digital media.

And there are people like Zubin and Masha Mistry, who think novels are not dead yet. But yes, fusion is certainly the key.

So, what happens when literature joins hands with music and art? That’s a million-dollar question. If you are looking for answers, drop by at Maulana Abul Kalam Hall in Koregaon Park tomorrow (November 18) at 6 pm as the Grasswork Events presents Over the Edge: A Fusion of Literature, Music and Art. The event is free for all.

Based on the recently-published novel by Randhir Khare, Over The Edge, the programme is not your regular book-reading session, neither it is a dramatisation of a work of art. As the name suggests, it is a fusion of sorts where music and art comes forward to celebrate and experience a novel.

The programme is divided in two parts. First, reading of the novel by Khare himself accompanied by Pandit Mukund on the tabla. The second part is an audiovisual presentation on the novel from a reader’s perspective by Zubin and Masha Mistry.“It’s like the two sides of a coin,” explains Khare. “Both the programmes complement each other. And to tell the truth, the entire programme is the brainchild of Zubin.”Zubin, the dynamic participant of Talking Art, a campus group devoted to literature and art at Wadia College, read Khare’s novel while it was in the manuscript form, and the novel -- which he calls a dream world -- opened ‘windows of perception’ to him. Being a literature student, Zubin soon made notes of his reactions.

For him, it was an experience he wanted to share and cherish. Talking Art has been organising literary events on and off for the last two and half years within the campus. But Zubin wanted to do something that can reach a larger audience. That’s when his wife Masha, who has a taste for music and art, came along and the fusion happened. For his audiovisual experience, Zubin has selected artworks of artist Richard Fisher, which works as the centrepiece to the presentation. They are accompanied by a selection of world music. For Zubin, this combination would create that same impact as reading of the novel. But this is not all. The integral part of the show is the commentary by Zubin himself, which is interspersed with the music and visuals. “This is my way of responding to the novel,” says Zubin. “A personal reflection on a work of art.”

“The music here is neither an accompaniment, nor an accessory to the reading. Instead, it is very much part of it,” Khare reveals. “I am reading the last bit of the novel, which is a long poem. What Pt Mukund would be doing is to create the moods that the words evoke.”

But why tabla? Khare answers: “Writing and reading is a personal experience. That same way tabla is also a very personal instrument.”

Pt Mukund is an accomplished tabla player in his own right, who has performed in almost all major musical concerts in India. “But this is something I have never done before,” he says. So, how is he prepared? “There’s a bit of rehearsals, yes. But the main point is, I am responding to Khare sir’s words. Together, with words and music, we plan to create something. I can’t tell you exactly what. But there would be something for sure. Something spontaneous. That’s the beauty of Indian music.”

“This event is not for my novel,” continues Khare, “The novel is just an occasion. What we are trying to do is to bring together a group of talented people, and share their vision with the world. What we are trying to create is a work of art in itself, irrespective of the source, the novel.”

Indeed. And that too a novel art, an art that evokes all our senses, and probably beyond.

Monday, November 06, 2006

Mine and the world’s

Hiren Bhattacharya
Translated from original Asomiya
By Dibyajyoti Sarma

5.

I exist this way: grief is my child, have to
Hold it in both hands every time. On the tongue is the salt of sadness,
Barfs rice gruel! Can’t get angry easily
Like a responsible father I know
How to control my anger
And what is forgiveness. I have grave responsibility
The onerous responsibility to rear my grieves into success
Drenched in solitude is my sick body
At an attempt to say something from the pharynx
Spreads blood inside and out of the face

7.

Comrade, the heart aches, let the gun warm my heart
Don’t remove it; keep my middle finger
On the trigger: let incessant thunder surge from the gun point
What to fear once the night passes?
Together we’ll reach the open fields of Beltola.

International

Hiren Bhattacharya
Translated from original Asomiya
By Dibyajyoti Sarma

Buoyant like brooks
Cool like corps holding my mother’s hand
I tour from one futureless present
To another present!

On my way the sky is filled with
My neighbours and friends’ best wishes
Like resonance of some sacred
Music

Holding my mother’s hand I tour
From one country to another
My neighbours and friends
Draws closer to me

Holding my mother’s hand I tour

Scented butterfly

Hiren Bhattacharya
Translated from Original Asomiya
By Dibyajyoti Sarma

1.

Hummings
Tremble the tree’s docile shade, rays on the leaves
In a moment
Falls on my heart
Speechless days
Who is not Christianised yet.

2.

Poems are usually free; memory’s its scented butterfly

3

While putting off the moist clothes
On the soggy garments, there’s the key of knowledge
The night of full moon
Slowly behind the mountain
The moon descends
Wails the jingle of my aphonic song

The wise old woman

King Chandrakanta Singh of Pragjyotishpur was a whimsical man. Though he thought of himself as the most intelligent man in the whole kingdom, in reality, he was stupid and a buffoon. Every one in the kingdom knew this, but they feared him so much that no one dared to say a world against him.
Recently, the king had implemented a new law, according to which no one in the kingdom was allowed to use any light after nightfall. He was so much in love with his subjects that he though it was a crime to keep them awake after the sun was gone. Hence, this edict; none should be awake after nightfall. The king made sure that the decree was observed sternly. The king's men roamed around the city and peeped into every household to see if somebody was awake and, if there were lights somewhere.
Bhanumati was an old woman who lived with her granddaughter in a small hut at the outskirts of the city. She was too old to provide food and accommodation to her granddaughter. The only thing she could do was to make dolls from old rags and sell them in the city. As she had to be outside selling dolls during the day, the only time she could actually find to manufacture her dolls was the night. After the king's law was forcefully implemented, Bhanumati was scared to light a lamp and work at night. Soon, all her stock of dolls was over, and as there was nothing else to sell, she and her granddaughter began to starve.
Finally, after starving for one whole week, Bhanumati decided that enough was enough. They surely could not starve to death. It would be far better if the king caught her awake at nigh and hang her. That night, Bhanumati lit a small earthen diya of mustard oil. She put the diya under her bed and began her work. Two nights passed without any mishap. On the third night, to her misfortune, Bhanumati was caught. It was a dark night, and one of the king's men, who was surprisingly not asleep, saw a small dot of yellow glimmering somewhere, chased it, and found Bhanumati at her nocturnal trade.
The next morning, Bhanumati was presented before the king. She looked frail and was shivering. The king only had a look of her and, began to abuse her. He called her names, and told her that though she was old enough to die any day, she had not had any shame to treason against a revered king who always thought of his subjects. Bhanumati, scared and shuddered, tried to defend herself saying that she never thought of treason. She only did so in order to get her granddaughter some food. But the king would hear none of it.
After much abuse, the king ordered his men, "Take this wretched old woman to the market and have her ears and nose severed. This is a worthy punishment to anybody who thinks of treason."
Bhanumati was thunderstruck. If that happened, if the king cut her ears and nose, then she and her granddaughter had to die surely; for she wouldn’t be able to go on hawking her dolls with a face without ears and nose. She had to do something to prevent the king from doing so.
As the king's verdict was over, Bhanumati jumped up. She prostrated upon the floor, and begun to hail the king. "Oh, my benevolent king, how great you are! You are so intelligent, so kind-hearted!" The she started to sing in a clear, loud voice:
"Oh my sweet king, how clever
If you cut my nose and ears
It’ll grow again, year after years
But if you cut my hair, it’ll grow never."
Thus singing for several times, she began, "Oh my king, you are so worthy, you are so benevolent, you are so wise! You knew my predicament very well. If I cut my hair, it never grows. But if I cut my nose or my ears, it grows the very next year." Bhanumati went on and on with her speech.
At first the king did not believe a word what Bhanumati was saying. But finally he gave up. He began to believe that what that woman was saying was probably true. He pondered over the matter for a long time. Then he changed his verdict. He ordered his men, "take this stupid lady to the market and bestow the best punishment she deserves. Cut her hair for good, and spare her nose and ears."
Bhanumati was so happy at the success of her ploy that she gave out a cry of happiness, which she quickly converted into a cry of sheer despair. She fell upon the king's feet and asked for forgiveness. But the foolish king was only too happy in his decree to listen.
Bhanumati was duly taken into the market and the punishment was done. After the last strand of hair was taken off from her head, Bhanumati quickly slipped away from the spot with a vow of never to show her face again to the king or the king's men.
Thus the way wise Bhanumati saved her face from the clutches of a wicked king.

Friday, November 03, 2006

In the company of the courtesan




Entertaining men and yearning for love, nautch girls are very much a part of the Bollywood dream. Dibyajyoti Sarma traces a few who take special place in our hearts




Muzaffar Ali must be a very sad man these days. His Umrao Jaan returns to the silver screen again, looking stunning than ever. As J P Dutta’s Umrao Jaan hits the screen, please spare a thought for Ali, who gave his everything to that one last movie, a film that made Rekha a heart-throb of millions.
J P claims that his Umrao Jaan is not a remake of Ali’s. His film is based on the original novel Umrao Jaan Ada, and he is just telling the story in his own way.
J P is correct to an extent. Ultimately, Umrao Jaan’s story is not something really unique. Is it? It is the same story told on Bollywood celluloid over and over again. It is the story of the other woman, the fallen woman, the story of a woman wronged by society, a woman with a heart of gold. Call her a courtesan, baiji, kothewali, prostitute, she is the same, a woman out there to entertain the men, and forbidden to fall in love, which she does, and almost always to tragic consequences.
You cannot really blame J P. Every filmmaker worth his name, from Gulzar to Shyam Benegal to Girish Karnad has his version of the story and we must give J P his shares.
The story and the characters are the same. New are the locales, costumes, jewelleries and in the latest version, Aishwarya Rai’s contact lenses!
Devdas’s Chandramukhi (a graceful Madhuri Dixit in the recent version) exemplifies the eternal tragedy of the other woman in Bollywood cinema. She has the world at her feet, but ends up falling in love with the alcoholic Devdas, who in turn is in love with someone else. Devdas meets his destined end but Chandramukhi must suffer the fate of unrequited love. Rekha as Zohrabai in Muqaddar Ka Sikander and Tabu as Tulsibai in Jeet, had similar fate.
This is her tragedy. She can’t fall in love and have a family. Jo kahi gayi na mujse woh zamana keh raha hai, sings Pakeezah’s Sahibjaan. The Kamal Amrohi classic narrates the eternal story of the courtesan with such grace and romanticism that Bollywood could ever muster. Love visits Sahibjaan at an unexpected juncture and since then ‘every night a train gets down from its tracks and enters my heart,’ she confesses. It was too late when she comes to know that love was not for her. In the climatic scene, Salim takes her to a maulavi to get married and gives her a new name, Pakeezah, the pure one. But Sahibjaan, with her past, can’t take the risk of spoiling Salim’s life.
Javed Akhtar once said the courtesans in Bollywood are the fragments of imagination, just like the dacoits and the underworld dons, who are there to entertain the public, which Guru Dutt used brilliantly in Saheb, Biwi aur Ghulam. They are not the part of the so-called mujra culture of Lucknow. Whatever it may be, courtesans, the nice-hearted nautch girls are very much the part of Bollywood dream.
Coming to our time, we often confuse courtesans with sex-workers. But Umrao Jaan and her cousins were a different breed altogether. Their main job was to entertain the men, not necessarily going to the sexual level, though the sub-text was always there. A faint trace of the courtesans of the by-gone era can be found in the nautanki girls, which Bipasa Basu recently played with lot of oomph in Omkara.
But the rustic charm of Teesri Kasam can never be beaten where Waheeda Rehman played a nautanki performer to perfection, especially in the song Pan khaye saiyan humaro... She also played a Baiji, Chameli Jaan in Sunil Dutta’s Mujhe Jeene Do where she sang raat bhi hai kuch bheegi bheegi.
However, the original courtesan was Vasantasena, nayika of Sudraka’s Sanskrit play The Little Clay Cart, played by Rekha in Girish Karnad’s film version Utsav. She is a feisty woman, who would never cow down to society and try every means to be with her lover Charudutta.
Her life is tragic indeed, but there are times when she decides to defy tragedy. In Mujhe Jeene Do, Chameli finally wields a gun. In Mangal Pandey, Heera (Rani Mukherji) knows her mind. In Ghungroo, Smita Patil’s Kesarbai forgets her tragedy to bring up her daughter.
Probably the luckiest one of them was Gulabo in Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa, when Vijay, discontent with the world returns back to his courtesan lover.

I just had a bath

Sananta Tanti
Translated from original Asomiya by
Dibyajyoti Sarma

I just had a bath in dream. Bare was I.
My soul was spread. I was playing with
Dreams. From my forehead dripped the dream’s
Water. Eyes were closed and unknotted was my
Relations to night.
In the dirty bedspread, pillows and even in my mirror
There lay crystal water drops. I was ready to
Stand somewhere and hide the dreams in my mind.
After that in remembrance I’ll soak my interior
I’ll play with dream’s crystal waters forever.
Suddenly she arrived, seeing me bare smiled shyly.
Seeing me bare asked me to cover immediately
My shame. She dragged me away from my dreams.
Making me stand on some corner she asked me
To wear slave’s dress.
I refused. I protested. I said:
Slaves will wear slave’s dress. I would not.
She left. I just had a bath in dream. Bare was I.
My soul was without attire. Full of sound.
I was ready for freedom.