Beauty of Truth

Songs you fall in love with!

A poem by Sufi saint, Khwaja Ghulam Farid written in the late 19th century, this was performed for the Coke Studio sessions by the talented Pakistani artist Areib Azhar....

The translation produced by Azhar himself is something so stirring, that I almost started abstracting the abstract!

After all, what is it the we call truth? God is the truth, whatever I do, I'll fall short of describing the truth!

Here goes the translation.....

Husn e Haqiqi – Beauty of Truth

O’ Beauty of Truth, the Eternal Light!

Do I call you necessity and possibility,

Do I call you the ancient divinity,

The One, creation and the world,

Do I call you free and pure Being,

Or the apparent lord of all,

Do I call you the souls, the egos and the intellects,

The imbued manifest, and the imbued hidden,

The actual reality, the substance,

The word, the attribute and dignity,

Do I call you the variety, and the circumstance,

The demeanor, and the measure,

Do I call you the throne and the firmament,

And the demurring delights of Paradise,

Do I call you mineral and vegetable,

Animal and human,

Do I call you the mosque, the temple, the monastery,

The scriptures, the Quran,

The rosary, the girdle,

Godlessness, and faith,

Do I call you the clouds, the flash, the thunder,

Lightning and the downpour,

Water and earth,

The gust and the inferno,

Do I call you Lakshmi, and Ram and lovely Sita,

Baldev, Shiv, Nand, and Krishna,

Brahma, Vishnu and Ganesh,

Mahadev and Bhagvaan,

Do I call you the Gita, the Granth, and the Ved,

Knowledge and the unknowable,

Do I call you Abraham, Eve and Seth,

Noah and the deluge,

Abraham the friend, and Moses son of Amran,

And Ahmad the glorious, darling of every heart,

Do I call you the witness, the Lord, or Hejaz,

The awakener, existence, or the point,

Do I call you admiration or prognosis,

Nymph, fairy, and the young lad,

The tip and the nip,

And the redness of betel leaves,

The Tabla and Tanpura,

The drum, the notes and the improvisation,

Do I call you beauty and the fragrant flower,

Coyness and that amorous glance,

Do I call you Love and knowledge,

Superstition, belief, and conjecture,

The beauty of power, and conception,

Aptitude and ecstasy,

Do I call you intoxication and the drunk,

Amazement and the amazed,

Submission and the connection,

Compliance and Gnosticism,

Do I call you the Hyacinth, the Lilly, and the Cypress,

And the rebellious Narcissus,

The bereaved Tulip, the Rose garden, and the orchard,

Do I call you the dagger, the lance, and the rifle,

The hail, the bullet, the spear,

The arrows made of white poplar, and the bow,

The arrow-notch, and the arrowhead,

Do I call you colorless, and unparalleled,

Formless in every instant,

Glory and holiness,

Most glorious and most compassionate,

Repent now Farid forever!

For whatever I may say is less,

Do I call you the pure and the humane,

The Truth without trace or name.

Genocide Denied. Genocide Begotten.

I think I have developed a knack for testing myself with all the grossness of historical documentaries. Each time I think I have escaped the clogging of my own head with the images and screams and ugliness, something more unimaginable comes up. I landed upon

SCREAMERS (Click here to follow on YouTube) , feat. System of A Down, the idea of the film was to cover something few documentaries put so wholly into picture..... 'GENOCIDE' or the killing of genos (races) is truly a 20th century phenomenon.

Starting with the 1915 Genocide of the Armenians in Turkey, The Holocaust, Pol-pot's Cambodia, Kosovo, Serbia, Rwanda and Darfur! Each time the world forgets people in their miseries, each time this comes up again.

The graphics were all real archive footage of these times and these places. More horrifying were stark inconsistencies in the way the world has responded or not responded. The figures speak for themselves, 1500000 Armenians. 6000000 Jews. 200000 Bosnians. 600000 Rwandans. 400000+ in Darfur. Each time political and ideological pressure originates from a majority under threat, the minorities suffer.

Sometimes you often wonder if these acts are even possible for a human to commit, sometimes you feel ashamed of the species! Like when you hear descriptions of survivors from such carnages!

Armenia is a country we would know or bother little about as some far off God forsaken land. The fact that Turkey denied the occurence of a genocide there is further unknown to most of us. But the entire documentary, filmed alongside 'System of A Down' band with members of

Armenian descent presents a grim picture at how the west and particularly the U.S. and U.K. have failed to recognize the cause of the Armenian people for the more important tactical location of Turkey.... Russia's underbelly!

I never really liked the said band's music that much and sticking to a cause and promoting it through concerts is nothing new for bands. But having seen and read about some of these genocides before seeing this film, theres hardly anything to disagree with in the film.

For a major part in me, life goes on as usual. You work, you carry on and nothing changes. But having knowledge of such stuff, I guess would make me more conscious about what are the threats to us in our society, because each time we forget the tragedy of millions.... they come back to haunt us again in another 'Genocide'.

Move on, Stay back!

There are places and situations when you move out and say goodbye to people, the people stay back and carry on their usual lives and you have something good happening around and some place exciting to goto. Then there are times when you're the one staying back and people say good bye to you!

I have lived away from home for the past 4 years now, I have shuttled frequently. When you reach home, your own town, your best friends, your favorite hangouts.... the world glitters!

Every time I came back home, I remember having a warm and enthusiastic family, my best friends, my love and everyone that really mattered most over here! I would visit them, have a lot of fun, do everything from treks on fortresses to getting high on chocolates, I would leave, they'd say good bye, a big hug and the I'd return and the same again!

This time as well, I came back. I had everyone, I had a lot of fun. They say you enjoy life more when you've all kinds of time! I had this one amazing and perhaps the last such period!

I lived it. And we rocked. Only this time, God thought it would be fun to give me the doze!

All my friends have joined colleges, post grad studies in all parts of the country in all sorts of courses and I waved them off, each one of them! They all wished me luck, hugged me and be gone and here I am, sitting alone.

I guess I am lucky, God has blessed me with such a short time for 'doing nothing'. I've invested it all in all the stuff I like. I've worked and chilled out and unwinded and hogged. I've made some startling discoveries, I finally realized why we call what we call the 'idiot box'. I've seen every shower in Jaipur. I've done all sorts of social networking and am hooked to an AOE engine type game!

I still feel the joblessness, the few weeks I'm spending like this make me realize how difficult is it to say good bye and stay and how easy is it to move on!

God has been kind, I've found people who did it everytime smiling yet letting me know how they'd be bored once I'm gone and what all we'd do on my next return.

Its a few more days to Florida. The exodus is about to begin! I'm excited. But I have it for me figured out, it can really be lonely to stay back!