Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Je Suis Charlie Baudelaire & Nouvelles Fleurs Du Mal & the flowers of innocence


Gulzar’s Ek Tha Bachpan

Gulzar translated from the Hindi by Manfred Spencer Alverston & Associates

“Once there was Childhood”

A fleeting fellowship midst childhood

Once there was a childhood

In that childhood there was a forbearer

An exceptional, authentic father

Amidst us there existed a very beautiful bond

Once when there was childhood.

When flowers adorning distant branches called me forth

My hands unable to reach a single sapling supplement

He would pick me up, enabling these two palms, tiny then

To shake hands with the blooms of trees way back when

Once when there was childhood.

Walking, walking, walking, walking on those paths

In the present-day

Don’t know when Father alighted on the embrace of my childhood

Those flowers remain locked inside my closed fists, desiccated

He remains imprisoned within that grasp of desiccated flowers

The fragrance of my life then, my father is my ambition to live now

His voice still echoes in resonance from my lips

And the faith of his return upon my breath

Don’t know upon which turn we will meet

He will inquire into whether I still remember my childhood

He will ask me, “Do you still possess a perception of childhood?”


Gulzar translated from the Hindi by Manfred Spencer Alverston & Associates




Sunday, January 11, 2015

Defining Acting, Defying Roles: Daniel Day-Lewis & Manoj Bajpai


Raja Mehdi Ali Khan (1928-1996), translated from the Hindi-Urdu by Manfred Spencer Alverston & Associates

The underhanded attain advancements egregiously

As character in close proximity gets kicked around

O’Lord, why such an inordinate axis for the virtuous?

O’Lord, how can I reason for their dignity here and now, the susceptible? 

O’Lord, I want to write a letter but am left wanting an address

O’Lord, I want to write a letter but am left wanting an address

With repentance, I would report the world’s misfortunes already shelved and awaiting deliberation when I’m finished and ontowards the afterlife

But am left wanting an address

O’Lord, I want to write a letter

I must disclose that which will perhaps distract

But I am not attracted to that which seems contract

Cannot disclose publicly, but I think there will never be a shortage of the troublesome

O’Lord, I would deliberate further if not left wanting an address

O’Lord, I want to write a letter but am left wanting an address

Resting upon my head is a bale of misery wanting expression

Throughout sleepless nights I remain awake for fear of waking up my neighbors

Therefore I only whimper

I would have wept before Thee, if not wanting an address

If I say anything, I am sassily told to stop shedding tears and quit such grandiloquence, to stop this loquacity

O’Lord, do not invalidate me in such a world as this!


Raja Mehdi Ali Khan (1928-1996), translated from the Hindi-Urdu by Manfred Spencer Alverston & Associates


Saturday, January 10, 2015

Bollywood Living Legends Swanand Kirkire & Amir Khan


January 10, 2015, Saturday: Maati Maati Main (see Amir Khan’s Satyamev Jayate)

Swanand Kirkire, translated from the Hindi by Manfred Spencer Alverston & Associates.

Earth, Clay, and I

Earth, Dust, and You

Earth, Clay, and I

Earth, Dust, and You

Everything is acquired through the soil

Everybody is produced as a result of its toil

Earth inculcates every body with transience

Omnipotence is a whimsical potter

Be aware of how Omnipotence designs your interments

Become aware of how Omnipotence is designing your interment

Why do you believe persuavie fabrications are the mistake or an oversight of Omnipotence?

Alas, egotistical earthling! Admit and versify that your persuasions are nothing but fabrications

Grip this Earth close to your heart

And publicly recognize that foundational line, “I accept this Earth and assent to this land of mine.”

Earth, Clay, and I

Earth, Dust, and You

Earth, Clay, and I

Earth, Dust, and You

The Earth lays to rest one’s body

Then Earth embraces you

Every musical instrument makes new melodies

At this point in time there is an abundance of songs

Every song will touch one’s heart, if only with a little affection

Through one’s reflection.

Why persist tightening your reigns on Omnipotence? Wherefore this foolishness of yours?

Er! Make this Earth part and parcel of your soul! This aversion of yours to doing so is redundant.

I accept this Earth and assent to this land of mine!

Earth, Clay, I

Earth, Dust, You

Earth, Clay, I

Earth, Dust, You

Earth lays to rest our bodies

The Earth embraces us.

January 10, 2015, Saturday: Maati Maati Main (see Amir Khan’s Satyamev Jayate)


Swanand Kirkire, translated from the Hindi by Manfred Spencer Alverston & Associates.


Friday, January 9, 2015

Hardships and Heartache: Bollywood Living Legend Santosh Anand


Santosh Anand (? to present) and Verma Malik (13 April 1925 – 15 March 2009), translated from the Hindi by Manfred Spencer Alverston & Associates.

Water o’ water, what color are you?

That which you mix into me becomes my hue.


Water o’ water

O’ water o’ water

In this world amidst the civil

Some have remained as such:

Eating stale fractions of bread

And swilling cool water

In civility akin

By one drought, every quaff felt as if an amenity of Heaven


Water o’ water, what color are you?

Water o’ water, what color are you?

Comparable to hunger’s thirst and thirst’s hunger too.


Water o’ water, what color are you?

Water o’ water, what color are you?

That when you’re meeting with the Ganges River,

You become Holy Water.

That when you’re meeting with the clouds,

You become rainfall, nevertheless

Rainfall becomes a monsoon when

The sky pours heavy rains under duress.

Heavy rains instead

Heavy rains instead.


Heavy, horrid, nonstop rains feel possessed with fiery rage

That fiery rage extinguishes youthful vigor

Here and there you look about

Somewhere a roof has lost ground and cracks heavily like an unfathomable sieve

And living becomes appalling.


Water o’ water, what color are you?

It is the same as the Almighty Creator of this Universe.


Water o’ water, what color are you?

With every color entwined are you,

Your splendor outshines even the colors next to you

But when you wash out over one’s hopes your color becomes incomprehensible

It seems as if the blooming flower buds rashly delivered the message of Autumn.


Water o’ water, water o’ water, what color are you?

My color is as such the hope of living a hundred years,

It transformatively informs that hope of living for a hundred years.


Water o’ water

Water o’ water!


Santosh Anand (? to present) and Verma Malik (13 April 1925 – 15 March 2009), translated from the Hindi by Manfred Spencer Alverston & Associates.


Thursday, January 8, 2015

Everlasting Endeavors: Bollywood Living Legend Simi Garewal


Sudarshan Faakir (1934-2008), translated from the Hindi-Urdu by Manfred Spencer Alverston & Associates.  

Those subsequential rain puddles

Those afloat paper boats.

Discount this wealth, discredit this reputation

Take away my youth as well, if not only those rainy days of my childhood.

Those subsequential rain puddles

Those afloat paper boats.


The precious, oldest keepsake of our neighborhood then

That old woman whom all children called “grandmother”

And fairytales residing in her tidings,

Hidden in the wrinkles of her face, a century’s history.

How can one forget a century’s history, even if one tries his best to forget?

How can one forget a century’s history, even after one tries his best to forget

That ephemeral night and that everlasting chronicle

That ephemeral night and that eternal narrative.


Those subsequential rain puddles

Those afloat paper boats.


In sweltering afternoons, sneaking out of one’s own house, endeavoring to catch

That bird the nightingale, and butterfly.


Presiding over the wedding ceremony, between ragdolls;

Disputes and quarrels ensuing among invited guests

Over the shared residence of these ragdoll newlyweds.

And instead of giving away the bride, taking her back to her home of origin.


That falling off a swaying swing,

Recovering from the fall instantly

And incredibly back onto the swing once again.


Those adorable discards, simple brass rings

Meant as tokens of one’s friendships.

Exchanging those broken, nevertheless colorful, pieces of glass bangles

As souvenirs.


Those subsequential rain puddles

Those afloat paper boats.


Sometimes visiting large sand dunes

Constructing toy homes with the coarse-grained sand

And wiping them out afterwards

With vigor and delight


Our playthings being the freehold of our dreams;

Neither did we have any worldly sorrows

Nor the fastening strings of relations.


That existence was so beautiful! That life was so beautiful!

That life so beautiful! That existence so beautiful!


Sudarshan Faakir (1934-2008), translated from the Hindi-Urdu by Manfred Spencer Alverston & Associates.


Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Fate, a Linear Game of Time: Bollywood Living Legend Raakhee Gulzar


Kaifi Azmi (14 January 1919 – 10 May 2002), translated from the Hindi-Urdu by Manfred Spencer Alverston & Associates.

You who are attempting to smile convincingly!

What sorrows could there be that compel you to concealment?

Mositure within the eyes and laughter upon the lips!

What is the actual condition you are perilously hiding from exhibiting?

They will turn poisonous, the tears you secretly imbibe!

Those wounds that are continuing to heal with the passage of time!

Why do you keep on needlessly irritating them by way of touch?

Fate is a linear game of time!

Why do you continue losing perpetually to that fate which is now your past?

You who are attempting to smile convincingly!

What sorrows are there which compel you to concealment?


Kaifi Azmi (14 January 1919 – 10 May 2002), translated from the Hindi-Urdu by Manfred Spencer Alverston & Associates.



Monday, January 5, 2015

Men Wrote, Women Lived: Bollywood Living Legend Waheeda Rehman


Shankardas Kesarilal, aka Shailendra (30 August 1923 – 14 December 1966), translated from the Hindi by Manfred Spencer Alverston & Associates

Darling, do not tell lies.

When you depart and are beside the Almighty,

You will be the possession of an all-powerful divinity.

Indeed, you will neither traverse atop an elephant nor a horse to such astounding blessedness.

No. You will agonizingly yonder afoot.

Your residential riches and entire enterprise will remain attendant when you’re invariably absent.

Darling, why sashay or swagger herein wherefore this head of yours will be bowed over there?

Darling, do not tell lies.

When you depart and are beside the Almighty,

You will be the possession of an all-powerful divinity.

Indeed, you will neither traverse atop an elephant nor a horse to such astounding blessedness.

No. You will agonizingly yonder afoot.

Kindness in the direction of beneficence will afford you beneficence in the direction of kindness.

Vice in the direction of malevolence will engender your malevolence in the direction of vice.

Is there anything to gain or glean from writing encores like these again and again?

These delineated, unhinged anecdotal aphorisms end here.

Darling, do not tell lies.

When you depart and are beside the Almighty,

You will be the possession of an all-powerful divinity.

Indeed, you will neither traverse atop an elephant nor a horse to such astounding blessedness.

No. You will agonizingly yonder afoot.

Spent childhood in play and slept abundantly during youth, but wept approaching old age.

That’s how the delineated, unhinged anecdotal aphorisms end. Repeatedly.

Darling, do not tell lies.

When you depart and are beside the Almighty,

You will be the possession of an all-powerful divinity.

Indeed, you will neither traverse atop an elephant nor a horse to such astounding blessedness.

No. You will agonizingly yonder afoot.

Shankardas Kesarilal, aka Shailendra (1923 – 1966), translated from the Hindi by Manfred Spencer Alverston & Associates.





Sunday, January 4, 2015

Kooky Professor Schnooki 2.1: (Canine) Client Spritzkuchen


2.1: (Canine) Client Spritzkuchen

Professor: Greetings Spritzkuchen. I am Professor Schnooki. What brings you into the office this holiday season?

Client: What brought you to decide to keep office hours during the holidays? Don’t get me wrong. Although grateful, I am in serious need of consultation and rehabilitation this afternoon. The pressure to detoxify soulfully has left me stressed and exasperated, hence the fearlessly reproachable attitude.    

Professor: What particular circumstances have brought upon you the desire to change and, secondly, the will to achieve betterment? 

Client: I have no place else to aspire, Professor. I am forever embedded in the confines of notoriety and cannot maneuver myself into the fields of possibilities and posterity.  

Professor: Is this notoriety comprised of three-fourths naughtiness on your part and one-fourth concern from those you finagle into believing those plights you have not experienced but do indulge in vicariously?  

Client: I am a dramatist! An indulgent dramatist!

Professor: What sort of personas have you undertaken? 

Client: Preferably I am drawn to the fates of those who have accompanied the greatest characters in literature and film. I remain convinced that Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler’s daughter Bonnie Blue would have been better served with a puppy than that rascal pony from which she fell and was summoned to the heavens precipitately.  

Professor: Hooves and paws come four-legged and are both equine, are they not?

Client: Yes, the case has been confirmed numerous times by Mendelian genetics. Let me indulge in macaronic verse momentarily, hooves are rather allele and paws are dominant and distinguished. But I am not labeling alleles as amphigory. How else would I have been blessed with such phantasmagorial green eyes? There are amphigory executives and phantasmagorical engineers at Apple, however. 
  
Professor: Apple? How so? Aren’t allele genes remarkably atypical surprises, such as your splendid green eyes?  

Client: Avant-garde? I am in all my characteristics, but Apple has slumped substantially, having chosen to discontinue iWeb and, instead, promote art apps that do not measure up to the design ethics and innovative stylishness set forth by Steve Jobs.    

Professor: I agree. Please continue.

Client: I shall! Have you seen the new ad campaigns put forth by Apple on their website? The quality of the results from actual Apple users utilizing applications from Apple’s App Store to create so-called original artwork with their Apple devices is debatable. And there’s no calculus involved in Apple executives and researchers employed at Apple, Inc. to figure out except that the only applications worthy of the heroic and iconic Steve Jobs were those non-WYSIWYG components encapsulated in 2009’s iLife program iWeb.

Professor: Please refresh my memory. WYSIWYG?

Client: Are you getting visions of stereotypically costumed people spelling out YMCA in a  cheerleader-like fashion on New Year’s Eve? I get temporarily lost in thoughts of David Copperfield being forced to perform his magic shows during today’s post-Magician’s Code era of thieving politicians and monopolistic businesspeople who basically pull the carpet from under constituents’ and customers’ feet but constituents and customers are left standing and pointing fingers towards fracking sites as if they will too be compensated in the tens of thousands if not millions of dollars if their loved ones would just sign the croaked contracts by crooked contractors from the oil companies promising an expedient crude rush next door or at an adjacent elsewhere.

Professor: I believe I have recovered sufficient memory to figure out the acronym in question. Is it What You See Is What You Get?

Client: Yes! Was it the reference to the YMCA, David Copperfield, or the fracking crude rush that reawakened your memory?

Professor: I cannot say my memory was ever asleep as much as it was riveted by the fact that Rupert Murdoch’s Faux Network was the first to broadcast the eighteen episodes of Breaking the Magician’s Code: Magic’s Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed.

Client: Your memory has certainly recalled quite a riveting fact, Professor Schnooki! Allow me to share another: iWeb is still the standard of excellence that no App Developer can surpass since its discontinuation. iWeb is the Rosetta Stone of WYSIWYG and App Developer Entrepreneurs featured on Apple dot com, like Hideko Ogawa, Takako Horiuchi, Theodore Gray, Torsten Reil, Jocelyn Leavitt, Mengting Gao, Fabian Lucas, Sun Yong, Yuta Tsuruoka, et al, deserve the chance to quicken their innovative pulses by demanding iWeb’s return.     

Professor: One of the incalculable feats carried out by Steve Jobs’s perpetual insistence for product integrity in all details, iWeb made the iMac experience the Zeitgeist of the new millennium, bringing autonomy and confidence to those who otherwise struggled with mathematics and computer sciences.

Client: People will want to learn code and attend Apple Workshops if they receive public library access to an iMac with iWeb particulars like Inspector, which allows one to beautifully adjust colors and sizes and shapes while being able to innovatively color and size and shape images taken by Apple devices like iPad, iPhone, and including the iMac itself. As things stand now at Apple dot com, I’m convinced that living in the surrounds of the elusive feline presence Cat-Zillah is far more fetching than that frighteningly rubescent cat over there!


Professor: I believe that incarnadine presence is only an emoji, Spritzkuchen. Only an emoji.