Obsession with Chinese Script

on Architectural Diagrams

COVID-19 Migration

These are the sights of the people waiting for the government-arranged provisions for migrating back to their hometowns from the city due to their overhauled work during the COVID-19 pandemic. The exercise is happening over a week now. Workers living in the informal settlements in Goregaon and Malad here queue up every morning to be taken by the BEST buses to the railway stations from where they will board the trains that take them to their homeland. The drill is pretty rehearsed. Government personnel call the registered names and allow them entry into buses by giving them basic food supplies and making a headcount. All seats in the buses are filled up, I dont know what they really make of social distancing! The queuing public is anxious and often waits for long hours in the hot summer sun. They are being fed by the authorities, after which, the space is often left littered. 

The sight has brought to me two things. I had always wondered of the mass migration of people during the partition. Only in documentaries I had seen and heard stories of people traveling miles of distances on foot carrying their children, belongings and homes all the way into faraway distances within the newly formed Indian mainland. I had never fathomed how a single human being could cover such long travels on foot. The current polycentered migration from cities back to the homelands seems like a rehearsal of 1947! We have all been reading reports since last month of the people who had already decided to walk back to their homes from the cities which had left them jobless and shelterless. To witness this sight first hand has also made me realize the sheer amount of people that the city externally depends on. They say that Mumbai has about three lakh migrants who oil it everyday. Across the country, there are about eight crore people who migrate from their base towns into cities to offer their labour. 

The crisis of the hour has also helped me understand the state and city machinery. The pandemic has exposed the structure of governmental apparatus, the need and design of protocols and how they are mobilised on ground. These have often remained blurred for me due to several reasons. However, at the same time, we have also come to realize, that there is just so much ground for our administration to  cover up simply for the smooth functioning of the system. And so much can be achieved so smoothly only in the wiser application of the mind and setting up of priorities. It's a pity after all, to see the number of deaths due to hunger and migratory pangs are unnecessarily adding up to the lives we are losing to the pandemic. The anxiety in the working class is real, for, they remain absolutely at the mercy of the state - a state that is trying to deliver double than its capacity. I wonder the fate of covid for India. Meanwhile, we wait and watch the dance of disaster from our windows, at a distance.

The Making of Laterite

The aesthetics of the Sublime

Baisa ra Beera (Translation)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq-RRb9MqDs
Folk Song in Marwari, fused with Assamese
Produced by Coke Studio
Performed by Papon and Kalpana Patowari

Here is a translation of the Marwari parts of the song:



बाई सा रा बीरा म्हने 
पीहरिए ले चालो सा 
पीहरिए री म्हने ओलु आवे 

Baisa ra beera mhane
Pihariye le chalo sa
Pihariye ri mhane olu aawe

Oh sister-in-law's dear brother
Take me to my maiden's home
I am feeling very homesick

धणी अलबेलो बदिला
नैनी मतवाली नार
सासरिए में काईं  दुख पायो?
माइन तो थारी म्हासे पानीड़ो भरवाए सा
पतली कमर महारी लुड़ लुड़ जाए

Dhani albelo badila
Naini matwali naar
Sasariya mein kayin dukh paayo?
Maayin to thaari mhase panido bharwaaye sa
Patli kamar mhari lud lud jaai

Your husband is such a handsome guy
You seem such a sensuous and beautiful woman
What trouble do you find in your husband's place?
Your mother keeps telling me all the time to fill water in the vessels
and my delicate waistline is losing away to the chores


पानी रे खातिर थारे 
पानिहरि लगवा दूँ रे 
पतली कमर काइयाँ लुड़ लुड़ जाए?
बहनल तो थारी महासे आड़ा टेढ़ा बोले सा 
ब्याका बोल म्हने नई भावे 

Paani re khatir thare
Panihari lagwa du re
Patali kamar kaiyaan lud lud jaaye!?
Behnal to thari mhase aada tedha bole sa
Byaka bol mhane nai bhaave

For your water woes,
I will have a water-maid
How then will your waist hurt
Your sister is always talking to me in a crooked way
I can not tolerate her words

---
Assamese here

Gokulä maaje
Ajihe gokulä maaje
Modhurä muruli baaje
Nanderä nändänä
Bräjerä jibänä
Phaguräe khelanu khelaai
Baaje dhool baaje khol
Holir uthise rol
Säräne nupurä baaje
---

बहनल तो महारी हरियल
बागां की कोयलिया
थोड़ा दिन रेवे पछे, उडी उडी जाए
थैं तो बाता का लोभी
समझो ना समझावां सूं
थारी समझ में नई आवे

Behnal to mhari hariyal
Baaga ki koyaliyaa
Thoda din rehwe paache udi udi jaae
Thain to baatan ka lobhi
Samjho na samjhaya sun
Tharee samajh mein nayee aawe!


My sister is simply young
Just like a koyal in the garden
She is going to be here for a small while then fly away (after marriage)
You are just a man of words
You will not understand on explaining
You will not get what I am ever saying!


Note:
The word 'Dhani' may (have) suffer(ed in the song) a translation error. Dhani in Pure Hindi would be pronounced (धनी ) which would mean wealthy, however, in marwari, Dhani would be pronounced as (धणी ) which means husband. The song being a conversation between a husband and wife, the second reading makes complete sense, and has been used here as final.

Similarly, in the last paragraph, the word "baatan ka" (of words) must have been misunderstood as "pataaka" (crakers) which actually doesn't make much sense. I have edited it for my own understanding and haven't referred it to any records.

Essential Differences

On Language

...Then we both said, in effect simultaneously: 'the fact is, they just don't speak the same language.'

...when we come to say 'we just don't speak the same language' we mean something more general: that we have different immediate values or different kinds of valuation, or that we are aware, often intangibly, of different formations and distributions of energy and interest.

 -Raymond Williams in Introduction, Keywords

Stories of Water: Mandu

Why Write?