Extracts from a Book.

"...it was one of those unclassified affections of which there are so many."

"How then did it work out, all this? How did one judge people, think of them? How did one add up this and that and conclude that it was liking one felt, or disliking? And to those words, what meaning attached, after all?"

"Love had a thousand shapes. There might be lovers whose gift it was to choose out the elements of things and place them together and so, giving them a wholeness not theirs in life, make of some scene, or meeting of people (all now gone and separate), one of those globed, compacted things over which thought lingers, and love plays."

- To the Lighthouse
  Virginia Woolf

Tiger Tales

"Look, he said to his imagination, if this is how you're going to behave, I shan't bring you again."

Going Postal

Terry Pratchett

I remember reading The Thak Man Eater with my back to the window in the TV room on a summer afternoon when, in one of those rare moments of peace, no one in my house seemed to be around. And I remember finishing the tale and staying in my chair, not daring to move, for fear of attracting the tiger's attention that I knew was lurking somewhere behind my right shoulder, waiting for me to reveal myself with the slightest movement. 

Since then, Corbett's tigers have stalked me in dreams, waking me up convinced that they were hiding beneath my bed, and they have followed me on solitary walks in the hills near Kasauli, defeating all sensible responses - there are barely any tigers or leopards left in India; they are not natural man-eaters; if there was one in the vicinity, it would be known, especially if it were a man-eater - there's always a first time, argues the imagination.

And so, my walks are accompanied by a pounding heart, a watchful eye and an ear straining to recognise the sounds of the forest and be alert to the warnings provided by its folk when a predator is on the prowl. My feeble attempts at self-preservation may be laughable but I do observe more of the forest and forest-life now. 

Flying in style to the accompaniment of perfect music.

1. Flight of the Frenchies - The one I've watched the most. Beautiful music, magical places, gorgeous people and most lovingly shot.  Do also visit the site of the filmmaker - http://sebmontaz.com/

2. Jeb Corliss - Birdman. He suffered extensive injuries after a January 16, 2012 crash but he promises to be back.

3. Jetman Yvet Rossy - who has also flown with jets  (which can be seen here). I like this one more, for the grace - almost as if he were dancing to the music. (Also, if you know the piece, please do tell me?)

He will not come, and still I wait.

I read A Little Boy in the Morning many years ago, in a book called This is Not a Novel (by Jennifer Johnston) many years ago. I remember the book but vaguely, but the poem has stayed with me, taking on myriad meanings in different years and moods.

A Little Boy in the Morning

He will not come, and still I wait.
He whistles at another gate
Where angels listen. Ah I know
He will not come, yet if I go
How shall I know he did not pass
barefooted in the flowery grass?

The moon leans on one silver horn
Above the silhouettes of morn,
And from their nest-sills finches whistle
Or stooping pluck the downy thistle.
How is the morn so gay and fair
Without his whistling in its air?

The world is calling, I must go.
How shall I know he did not pass
Barefooted in the shining grass?

Francis Ledwidge

In Memoriam.

IN MEMORIAM: G.R.Y.T.

(Killed in action, April 23, 1917)

I spoke with you but seldom, yet there lay

Some nameless glamour in your written word,

And thoughts of you rose often - longings stirred

By dear remembrance of the sad blue-grey

That dwelt within your eyes, the even sway

Of your young god-like gait, the rarely heard

But frank bright laughter, hallowed by a Day

That made of Youth Right's offering to the sword.

So now I ponder, since your day is done,

Ere dawn was past, on all you meant to me,

And all the more you might have come to be,

And wonder if some state, beyond the sun

And shadows here, may yet some completion see

Of intimacy sweet though scarce begun.

- Vera Brittain

Poetry from the Eastern Front.

BEFORE ATTACK

When soldiers go to death they sing,
but just before it
                          one may cry.
In battle, the most fearful thing
is when you know you soon may die.
The snow's ploughed up with mortar shells
no longer white, but black with dust.
Whizz - goes one,
                      and a friend lies dead,
and I'm alive - death's hurtled past.
Next turn is mine -
                            so beastly near.
It's me they're aiming at, I know.
It's 41,
          the grimmest year
infantry frozen in the snow.
A magnet's what I seem to be
Attracting every shell that flies.
But once again death misses me -
a blast,
           and my lieutenant dies...
But now we've grown too tense to wait
And crouching, out of trenches get,
driven along by icy hate
that goads us like a bayonet.

It wasn't long, the skirmish.
                                  Then
we swilled cold vodkas, lashed by gales
and scraped the blood of other men,
unruffled,
               from beneath our nails.

- Semyon Gudzenko
   (1942)
  translated by Dorian Rottenberg
(from Immortality - Verse by Soviet Poets who laid down their lives in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945)


Another translation of the poem available here.

A Song for Baisakhi

Memories of Mum singing this.

A farmer has got a good wheat crop. He tells his wife to put aside her work for the day and to quickly dress in all her finery and come with him to the mela where they will celebrate Baisakhi together. He thanks God for his blessings, but the heart of the song is the joy of the farmer for having had a successful harvest and his love for his wife.

King's Circle buys - Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes

King's Circle, Mumbai, has provided me with some of my most random, most fun and most precious buys, one of which is this classic - "Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes" that introduced me to the rhyme of Harry Graham.

Warning: The content is "cheerfully cruel".

I give you a few particularly pleasing ones:

The Stern Parent
Father heard his children scream
So he threw them in the stream

Saying, as he drowned the third,
"Children should be seen, not heard!"


Self-Sacrifice

FATHER, chancing to chastise
His indignant daughter Sue,
Said, "I hope you realize
That this hurts me more than you."

Susan straightway ceased to roar.

"If that's really true," said she,
"I can stand a good deal more;
Pray go on, and don't mind me."

Tender-Heartedness
BILLY, in one of his nice new sashes,
Fell in the fire and was burnt to ashes;
Now, although the room grows chilly,
I haven't the heart to poke poor Billy.

The poet does warn in his preface that the book is not meant for kids under seventeen:

Harry Graham with niece - I guess he didn't really hate children. 

WITH guilty, conscience-stricken tears
I offer up these rhymes of mine
To children of maturer years
(From Seventeen to Ninety-nine).
A special solace may they be
In days of second infancy...

And

...Fond parent, you whose children are
Of tender age (from two to eight),
Pray keep this little volume far
From reach of such, and relegate
My verses to an upper shelf,--
Where you may study them yourself.

The Times editorial described his writing as that “enchanted world where there are no values, nor standards of conduct or feeling and where the plainest sense is the plainest nonsense” and The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography compares his verse with that of W. S. Gilbert and suggests that his prose was an early influence on P. G. Wodehouse. (Source: Wikipedia). The eggs and b. author may certainly have picked up his habit of abbreviating a word or two from Mr. Graham:

Poetical Economy

What hours I spent of precious time,
What pints of ink I used to waste,
Attempting to secure a rhyme
To suit the public taste,
Until I found a simple plan
Which makes the lamest lyric scan!

When I’ve a syllable de trop,
I cut it off without apol.
This verbal sacrifice, I know,
May irritate the schol.
But all must praise my dev’lish cunn.
Who realize that time is mon.

My sense remains as clear as cryst.,
My style as pure as any duch.
Who does not boast a bar sinist.
Upon her fam. escutch.,
And I can treat with scornful pit.
The sneers of ev’ry captious crit.

I gladly publish to the pop.
A scheme of which I make no myst.,
And beg my fellow scribes to cop.
This labor-saving syst.
I offer it to the consid.
Of ev’ry thoughtful individ.

The author, working like a beav.,
His readers’ pleasure could redoub.,
Did he but now and then abbrev.
The works he gives his pub.,
Did Upton Sinc. or Edith Whart.
Curtail their output by a quart.

If Mr. Caine rewrote “The Scape.”,
And Miss Corell. condensed “Barabb.”,
What could they save in foolscap pape.
Did they but cultivate the hab.
Which teaches people to suppress
All syllables that are unnec.!

If playwrights would but thus dimin.
The length of time each drama takes
(“The Second Mrs. Tanq.” by Pin.
Or even “Ham.” by Shakes.),
We could maintain a wakeful att.
When at a mat. on Wed. or Sat.

Foll. my examp., O Maurice Hewl.
When next you cater for the mill.;
You, too, immortal Mr. Dool.
And Ella Wheeler Wil.;
And share with me the grave respons.
Of writing this amazing nons.!

– Harry Graham, in Life, December 1909

The Lady Mondegreen.

A Mondegreen is a misheard word or a phrase (most often in a song) that still makes sense, though not the original sense.

"Sylvia Wright coined the word ‘mondegreen’ in an article published in Harper's Magazine in November 1954, ‘The Death of Lady Mondegreen’. ‘When I was a child,’ she wrote, ‘my mother used to read aloud to me from Percy's Reliques [of Ancient English Poetry]. One of my favorite poems began, as I remember:Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,Oh, where hae ye been?They hae slain the Earl Amurray, [sic]And Lady Mondegreen.’‘By now,’ she went on, after a digression or two,several of you more alert readers are jumping up and down in your impatience to interrupt and point out that, according to the poem, after they killed the Earl Amurray, they laid him on the green. I know about this, but I won’t give in to it. Leaving him to die all alone without even anyone to hold his hand—I won’t have it. The point about what I shall hereafter call mondegreens, since no one else has thought up a word for them, is that they are better than the original."

The above explanation is from a medical journal and has a most interesting collection of words that I've come across.

Wiki and the internet have a whole series of mondegreens. A few of my favourites below:

France is Bacon via TYWKIWDBI

[–]Lard_Baron 3891 points 1 year ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

When I was young my father said to me:

"Knowledge is Power....Francis Bacon"

I understood it as "Knowledge is power, France is Bacon".

For more than a decade I wondered over the meaning of the second part and what was the surreal linkage between the two? If I said the quote to someone, "Knowledge is power, France is Bacon" they nodded knowingly. Or someone might say, "Knowledge is power" and I'd finish the quote "France is Bacon" and they wouldn't look at me like I'd said something very odd but thoughtfully agree. I did ask a teacher what did "Knowledge is power, France is bacon" meant and got a full 10 minute explanation of the Knowledge is power bit but nothing on "France is bacon". When I prompted further explanation by saying "France is Bacon?" in a questioning tone I just got a "yes". at 12 I didn't have the confidence to press it further. I just accepted it as something I'd never understand.

It wasn't until years later I saw it written down that the penny dropped.

Bob Dylan's strange lyrics - Dead ants are my friends, they're blowin' in the wind

On TV, during Olympics - Hung Aryan Swimmers

And two from the family
The Bally Sagoo Aaja Nachle cassette in its heyday, was quite a favourite with the kids and was played repeatedly on long, family trips, and for three young boys, this is how two of the songs went -

The original:

O mundeyo aa gayi oi,

sir tey gagar rakhin

(Look boys, there she comes,

With a pitcher on her head)

The brothers' version:
O mundeyo aa gayi oi,
Sir bacha key rakhin!
(Watchout boys, here she comes,
Don't lose your heads now!)

The original:
Preeto dey ghar da bhabhi,
Kunda kharka baitha
(I knocked on the doors of Preeto's house)

The brothers' version:
Preeto dey ghar da bhabhi,
Munda kharka baitha
(I beat up a boy belonging to Preeto's family)

Ball of the Century.

I'm not very much of a cricket person, but there's only so far away you can run from it in India and I enjoy a good story as much as the next person, and cricket, no one can dispute, has some classic tales - of the underdog, the heroes, the rivalries, the last-man-standing, the one where he hit a six off the last ball, where they won from follow-on, the one where he walked and the one where he didn't, the one where he dropped the world cup, and the one about which they say, "never, perhaps, has one delivery cast so long a shadow over a game or a series." The one about the ball of the century.

Which went like this.

So what if I hadn't heard of it until I came across the song.