Yuri Gagarin and Nicholas Roerich.

Yuri Gagarin, a personal hero, apparently commented on one of my favourite artists, saying:

"Rays were blazing through the atmosphere of the earth, the horizon became bright orange, gradually passing into all the colors of the rainbow: from light blue to dark blue, to violet and then to black. What an indescribable gamut of colors! Just like the paintings of the artist Nicholas Roerich."
- Statement of April 1961, as quoted in Warrior of Light : The Life of Nicholas Roerich : Artist, Himalayan explorer and visionary (2002) by Colleen Messina, p. 46

Nicholas Roerich was a Russian painter and philosopher who settled for the latter part of his life at Naggar, near Kullu-Manali and who painted the Himalayas and Mongolia and Tibet in all their glory and various moods. The mountains that he painted are grand and mysterious, and colourful - reds and pinks and blues and all other shades and hues so that if one were to go only up till the Inner Himalayas and not travel through the Greater Himalayas, it would be easy to think that Roerich's paintings are artistic license. It was only when travelling from Manali to Leh that I first realised that mountains can take on shades of the sun and the sky and be, proverbially, "purple-headed".

I don't know if the Gagarin quote is an apocryphal story - the only source for it seems to be from Roerich related links and nothing from the Gagarin ones. But it adds just one more layer to understanding Roerich's paintings. And the earth.

Kanchenjunga. 1936
Tempera on canvas. 60.5 x 99 cm. Nicholas Roerich Museum, New York

Krishna. From “Kulu” series. 1929
Tempera on canvas. 74 x 118 cm. Nicholas Roerich Museum, New York

Mount of Five Treasures (Two Worlds).
From “Holy Mountains” series. 1933

Path to Kailas. From “Holy Mountains” series. 1933
Tempera on canvas. 46.5 x 79 cm. Nicholas Roerich Museum, New York

Tent Mountain. From “Holy Mountains” series. 1933
Tempera on canvas. 46.5 x 78.5 cm. Nicholas Roerich Museum, New York

Wular Lake. From “Lakes and Gilgit Path” series. 1925
Tempera and charcoal on paper mounted on cardboard. 25 x 35.5 cm
Private collection, New York 

Pir Panjal. From the series of the same title. 1925
Tempera on canvas mounted on cardboard. 65.5 x 98 cm. Private collection, New York

Temple of Naggar. From “Kulu” series. 1929
Tempera on canvas. 74.5 x 118 cm. Private collection, USA

Himalayas. From “Holy Mountains” series. 1933
Tempera on canvas. 47 x 79 cm. State Museum of Oriental Art, Moscow

Himalayas
1944. Tempera on board. 28 x 44 cmMuseum of Oriental Art, Moscow

Himalayas
1938. Tempera on board. 28 x 44 cm Museum of Oriental Art, Moscow

Nicholas Roerich. The Hunt.
1937. Tempera on canvas. 45,5 x 78,4.
State Museum of Oriental Arts, Moscow, Russia.

Nicholas Roerich. Ice Sphynx.
1938. Oil on canvas. 48,6 х 78,8.
Museum by name of Nicholas Roerich, ICR, Moscow, Russia.

Paintings sourced from:

• http://www.tanais.info/art/en/roerich.html
• http://www.roerich.org/
• http://www.roerich.ru/index.php?r=1280&l=eng

Gurpurab di lakh lakh vadhai!

Old love.

For a very long time, the only poem of William Savage Landor that I knew was the one on Rose Aylmer's* tomb in Calcutta:

AH, what avails the sceptred race!
Ah, what the form divine!
What every virtue, every grace!
Rose Aylmer, all were thine.
Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep, but never see,
A night of memories and sighs
I consecrate to thee.

Rose Aylmer's Tomb, Park Street Cemetery, Calcutta

Until I came across this:

You smiled, you spoke, and I believed,

By every word and smile deceived.

Another man would hope no more;

Nor hope I what I hoped before: 

But let not this last wish be vain;

Deceive, deceive me once again!

Which reminded me of this poem by Ahmed Faraz:

Ranjish hi sahi dil hi dukhane ke liye aa - Even if you bear a grudge, come at least to tease my heart
Aa phir se mujhe chhod ke jaane ke liye aa - Visit me once again, come, even if to depart

Kuchh to mere pindar-e-mohabbat ka bharam rakh - Respect a little the depth of my love for you
Tu bhi to kabhi mujhko manaane ke liye aa - You should also come someday to assuage my heart

Pehle se marasim na sahi phir bhi kabhi to - Though the relationship we had is over
Rasm-o-rah-e-duniya hi nibhane ke liye aa - Come to fulfill the rituals of the world

Kis kis ko batayenge judai ka sabab hum - Who all must I explain the reason for our separation
Tu mujhse khafa hai to zamane ke liye aa - Come, despite your displeasure, to continue the ceremony

Ek umr se hoon lazzat-e-girya se bhi mehroom - For long I have been denied even the luxury of tears
Aye raahat-e-jaan mujhko rulaane ke liye aa - O joy of my heart, come at least to make me weep

Ab tak dil-e-khushfeham ko tujh se hain umeedain - Even now this gullible heart has pinned its hopes on you
Ye aakhri shamein bhi bujhane ke liye aa - Come to blow out this last glimmering hope

The most famous version by Mehdi Hassan (though not completely faithful to the original poem*):

 

____________________________________________

* On Rose Aylmer, the British Social Life in India 1608-1937 states that she contorted "a most severe bowel complaint brought on entirely by indulging too much with that mischievous and dangerous fruit, the pineapple" and "at the end of a few days fell a martyr to the obstinacy of the malady" (and not cholera as is commonly believed). Maybe it's better to be unknown and forgotten than be remembered a hundred years later for having been a glutton. 

On another note, Rose Aylmer is also referenced in To Kill A Mockingbird: “Rose Aylmer was Uncle Jack’s cat”

** The last two couplets as sung by Mehdi Hasan are not by Ahmad Faraz. These were added later by Talib Baghbati