This Fall

Banjaara #26
A translation please..

I do believe I am not mistaken. A khichDi term to apply to this passive-aggression could be `unconsummated petulance`. If you read all his pieces, you can verify it for yourself.

And Ghalib himself ran into something similar in another context :)
`Hai bas ki har ik unke ishaare mei`n nisha`n aur
Karthey hai`n muhabbat tho guzartha hai guma`n aur`

From the Republic of Conscience

1

When I landed in the republic of conscience
it was so noiseless when the engine stopped
I could hear a curlew high above the runway.

At immigration, the clerk was an old man
who produced a wallet from his homespun coat
and showed me a photograph of my grandfather.

The woman in customs asked me to declare
the words of our traditional cures and charms
to heal dumbness and avert the evil eye.

No porters. No interpreter. No taxi.
You carried your own burden and very soon
your symptoms of creeping privilege disappeared....

-Paul Muldoon

correction: that poem excerpt was from Seamus Heaney.

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Rehan, seems like your thoughts are in the right place, especially the allusion to Rome`s Fall, hopefully that doesn`t come true! Best Luck for the Citizens of Manhattan.

sadna # 22

[Its like passive-aggression which you cannot get a grip on.]

You can`t, because you wish to see what isn`t really there ;)

Ghaltihaay mazameeN mut pooch
log nalay ko rasa baandhtay haiN ( Ghalib)
Regards.

Sameer,
So zenlike.

The aussies on this board. Considering Ur govt is another buttkisser of the USA, rnt U worried what mite `appen to Ur civil liberties? U shdnt b chitchattin here bros. U shd b hunkerin down in Ur bunkers.

Re 19 Zafar

Fair dinkum maate. Thats beaut, as long as no one asks me to ``go bite your bum`` :-)
A bludger like me just likes to sit here beyond the Black Stump putting the Billy on. You know listening to the bush telegraph, watching the Sheilas in cossies, keeping clear of the bush pig. Steering clear of the Drongos (these Ockers I tell ya). The way I am rambling I hope no one thinks that I am a stubbie short of a sixpack. But I must say that I am a happy little Vegemite who now needs to get some hard yakka done.

Isthytle-whyle tho theek hai but my guess is Mr Ansari`s readers tend to be badtempered for 2 reasons. Firstly (just a guess) janata whose pieces chowk has not yet decided to publish wonder why, when THEY obviously took so much more trouble.. :). Secondly, and I`m speaking for myself, he almost always has going this undercurrent of some directed and specific negative sentiment about which he leads readers on and then thumbs his nose at them by ending his piece without being upfront about it, whether he is talking of Pico Iyer or uneven treatment of immigrants or TNT. Its like passive-aggression which you cannot get a grip on. Its OK to encounter this is a newspaper which you put down and forget about but on an interactive forum its a tease:).

Immigration and even visitation is difficult for those coming from Muslim countries. I`ve been reading several Newsday accounts of some very questionable behavior on the parts of the State Dept. and Immigration. These two branches were never meant to work together-now what is happening can only happen to the most demonized population in NYC.

Rehan, being in NY is a lot like what you`ve described; no huge emotional trajectory, a war that no one besides the Bush administration supports and the local war on undocumented workers; its kind of a quiet tortuous calm...

#16 by sameerJB

:)

Ajeet, sounds like you are saying that it all boils down to whether the King looks good without any clothes on or not. Eye of the beholder etc. Ciao.


Subroto - flasher than a rat with a gold tooth (but also shadier than a galah with a parasol). That`s bonza (I think). You have got to start giving lessons :-) Regards

reading this, as well as other reports heightens my apprehension about the days to come...so much for power to the people...i feel rather powerless in the face of the anti-immigration wallahs, and the war-mongerers...have been attending forums, which are eye-opening, but a lot of good that does when the powers-that-be are so incredibly blind to humanitarian issues, to the lives of anyone other than themselves...the war drums are getting louder and louder...

Zafar,

Thanks for the explaination, but it reminds me of the story of the king, who was fooled into walking down the street, in his birthday suit, by a group of con men, who cinvinced him that they had tailored such fine clothes for him, that only people enlightened vision could see them.

Regards

DrDr: This Fall means ``Fall nikalna``. You put your hand in the pandora box and take out a twice folded slip. What you do with the slip is your business. You may read the future from it, roll it into a cigarette and smoke it or send it to chowk for quick publishing.
You must have blind faith in the slip before you open it, otherwise it loses its magical quality. Usually the writing on the slip has a deeper meaning and only good interpretors can unfold the mystery. Once you get to the deeper meaning, you will find that it still has even further deeper meaning. You keep digging for deeper and deeper meaning until you finally get to the bottom of it. There you have it. It`s deepest meaning is pitched black - total darkness. Are you ready for this fall?
New York maiN do hee fall
aik pat jhar, aik Niagra fall
mitthu miaN ab nikaalo fall
kab Amreeka ka ho ga fall

Re Ajeet #4

“You [Rehan] start with an idea and all of sudden you branch off to an entirely different subject. After meandering through sundry observations you may or may not return to the original idea.”


& Zafar #14 ``Ajeet, it’s called a segue...``

Remember Ajeet segue is actually a recent addition to the language, it also means remix, e.g. to do a bally sague

And the best example of this is -actually something I posted a while back but as with my posts probably never got read - so here goes the bally segue

A ruler has twelve inches
Queen Elizabeth was a ruler
She ruled the seven seas
In the seas there are sharks
The sharks have finns
The Finns fought the Russian
The Russians are red
and thats why the red sea is red

But I did like this piece by Rehan as I always do.