Two poems by Mahamoud Darwish

 

THE WAR WILL END

 

The war will end

The leaders will shake hands

The old woman will keep waiting for her martyred son

The girl will wait for her beloved husband

And those children will wait for their hero father

 

I don’t know who sold our homeland

But I saw who paid the price

 

*

 

THE ID CARD

 

Write down:

I am an Arab.

My ID card number is 50,000.

My children: eight

And the ninth is coming after the summer.

Are you angry?

 

Write down:

I am an Arab.

I work with my toiling comrades in a quarry.

My children are eight,

And out of the rocks

I draw their bread,

Clothing and writing paper.

I do not beg for charity at your door

Nor do I grovel

At your doorstep tiles.

Does that anger you?

 

Write down:

I am an Arab,

A name without a title,

Patient in a country where everything

Lives on flared-up anger.

My roots…

Took firm hold before the birth of time,

Before the beginning of the ages,

Before the cypress and olives,

Before the growth of pastures.

My father… of the people of the plough,

Not of noble masters.

My grandfather, a peasant

Of no prominent lineage,

Taught me pride of self before reading of books.

My house is a watchman’s hut

Of sticks and reed.

Does my status satisfy you?

I am a name without a title

 

Write down:

I am an Arab.

Hair coal-black,

Eyes brown,

My distinguishing feature:

On my head a koufiyah topped by the igal,

And my palms, rough as stone,

Scratch anyone who touches them.

My address:

An unarmed village—forgotten—

Whose streets are nameless,

And all its men are in the field and quarry.

Are you angry?

 

Write down:

I am an Arab

Robbed of my ancestors’ vineyards

And of the land cultivated

By me and all my children.

Nothing is left for us and my grandchildren

Except these rocks…

Will your government take them too, as reported?

Therefore,

Write at the top of page one:

I do not hate people,

I do not assault anyone,

But … if I get hungry,

I eat the flesh of my usurper.

Beware … beware … of my hunger,

And of my anger.

 

[At the age of 24, on 1 May 1965, when a young Darwish read his poem “Identity Card” to a crowd in a Nazareth cinema, there was a tumultuous response. Within days, the poem spread throughout the country and the Arab world.]

*

Mahmoud Darwish (1941–2008) was the unofficial Palestinian National Poet in his lifetime. He wrote about the anguish of being uprooted and of exile.

Born in a family of land owners in 1941, he was taught to read by his grandfather as is mother was illiterate. When he was seven, Israeli forces attacked his village al-Birwa and razed it to the ground to prevent its inhabitants from returning. Darwish’s family fled to Lebanon. A year later, they returned to a different place in Israel. Darwish attended high school and eventually moved to Haifa, the third largest city in Israel.

He published his first book of poetry, WINGLESS BIRDS at the age of 19. He initially published his poems in the literary periodical of the Israeli Communist Party, eventually becoming its editor. Later, he was assistant editor of a literary periodical published by the Israeli Workers Party.

Darwish left Israel in 1970 to study in the Soviet Union for a year, before moving to Egypt and Lebanon. When he joined the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1973, he was banned from returning to Israel. But in 1995, Darwish was allowed to settle in Ramallah, a major Palestinian city on the West Bank, where he said it felt living in exile.

After the Six-Day-War of 1967, when Eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank were annexed by Israel, Darwish, “as a Palestinian poet of the Resistance committed himself to the ... objective of nurturing the vision of defeat and disaster, so much so that it would ‘gnaw at the hearts’ of the future generations.”

A central theme in Darwish's poetry is the concept of homeland. The poet Naomi Shihab Nye wrote Darwish “is the essential breath of the Palestinian people, the eloquent witness of exile and belonging ...”

Over his lifetime, Darwish published eight books of prose and over 30 volumes of poetry and, including the FEWER ROSES and OTHER BARBARIANS WILL COME. His work has been published in 20 languages.

Darwish said Arthur Rimbaud and Allen Ginsberg were his literary influences. He also admired the Hebrew poet Yehuda Amichai, but described his poetry as a “challenge to me, because we write about the same place. He wants to use the landscape and history for his own benefit, based on my destroyed identity. So we have a competition: who is the owner of the language of this land? Who loves it more? Who writes it better?”

Mahmoud Darwish died in 2008 at the age of 67, after a heart surgery in Houston, Texas.

His funeral was attended by the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, thousands of people, and several left-wing Israeli parliament members. After the ceremony, thousands of followers joined the cortege on the way to the Palestinian Palace of Culture, where Mahmoud Darwish was laid to rest.

On 5 October 2008, the International Literature Festival Berlin held a worldwide reading in memory of Mahmoud Darwish.

[The picture of Mahamoud Darwish and the poem THE ID CARD is from Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November-December 2017 issue, which is available at https://www.wrmea.org/017-november-december/id-card-by-mahmoud-darwish-a-translation-and-commentary.html.

The poem THE WAR WILL END is from a twitter feed of Fakrh-e-Alam, a Pakistani pilot, singer, songwriter, and actor.

Information on Mahamoud Darwish is from the Wikipedia and other sources.]

23 January 2021

The news you won’t find in the mainstream media

যে জরুরী খবর সংবাদপত্রে / টিভিতে পাবেন না

আন্দোলনের ময়দান থেকে / From the protest site

ডাঃ স্বপন বিশ্বাস ও আমি ডাঃ কল্যাণব্রত ঘোষ মেডিকেল সার্ভিস সেন্টার (এমএসসি) ও সার্ভিস ডক্টর্স ফোরাম (এসডিএফ)-এর তরফে দিল্লির সংগ্রামরত কৃষকদের পাশে দাঁড়াতে সিংঘুতে পৌঁছই ১৬ ডিসেম্বর ২০২০। দিল্লি থেকে সিংঘু প্রায় ২৪-২৫ কিমি রাস্তা। আমরা যে ট্যাক্সিতে গিয়েছিলাম তার ড্রাইভারের সঙ্গে আলাপচারিতায় জানা গেল, তিনি এই আন্দোলনের সমর্থক। তিনি জানালেন, দিল্লিতে ঢোকার বেশিরভাগ রাস্তা বন্ধ থাকায় শহর অনেকটাই ফাঁকা। বললেন, লোকজন কম থাকায় তাঁর মতো অনেকেরই উপার্জন কমে গেছে। তা সত্ত্বেও দিল্লির সাধারণ মানুষ এই কৃষি আইনের বিরুদ্ধে।

On 16 December 2020, Dr. Swapan Biswas and I, Dr. Kalyanbrata Ghose, reached Delhi to stand beside the protesting farmers at the Singhu-Delhi border, representing Medical Service Centre (MSC) and Service Doctor’s Forum (SDF). Singhu is 24-25 kilometres from Delhi. As we drive down to the place, our taxi driver tells us he supports the movement. He says as most roads to Delhi have been blocked, there isn’t much traffic in the city. Consequently, his business is down. Even then, he is on the side of the agitating farmers.

সিংঘুতে পৌঁছে আমরা রোগী দেখা শুরু করলাম। আমি মূল ক্যাম্পে রোগী দেখার দায়িত্ব নিলাম আর স্বপনদা নিল ভ্রাম্যমাণ ক্যাম্পের আরও গুরুত্বপূর্ণ দায়িত্ব। সকাল ১০টা থেকে সন্ধ্যা ৬টা সারাক্ষণ রোগী দেখেছি। সারাদিনে মূল ক্যাম্পে প্রায় ২০০-র উপরে এবং ভ্রাম্যমাণ ক্যাম্পে ৫০-এর উপরে রোগী আসতেন। প্রতিদিন সংখ্যাটা বেড়ে যাচ্ছিল। দিনের শেষে ডাঃ অংশুমান মিত্র আমাদের সবাইকে নিয়ে বসতেন সারাদিনের অভিজ্ঞতা বিনিময় ও পরের দিনের পরিকল্পনা করতে। ফার্মাসিতে স্নাতক পাঞ্জাবের এক মেয়ে আন্দোলনে এসেছিলেন। মেয়েটি আমাদের সঙ্গে কাজ করতে শুরু করেন। আরও দু’জন যুবক একইভাবে আমাদের কাজের সঙ্গে যুক্ত হয়ে যান।

After reaching Singhu, we began working with patients. I was at the main camp and Swapan-da took the responsibility of the more important mobile camp. From 10 in the morning to 6 in the evening, we would continuously see patients: over 200 in the main camp and more than 50 in the mobile camp. At the end of the day, Dr Angshuman Mitra would lead the discussion with us to share the day’s experience and plan for the following day. A young girl from Punjab, a pharmacy graduate, had come to the movement. She joined our team. Two more young men too joined in the same way.

মূলত সর্দি-কাশি, গ্যাসট্রাইটিস, হাঁপানি, জ্বর, প্রস্রাবে ইনফেকশন, ফাংগাল ইনফেকশন, আর্থ্রাইটিস, অ্যালার্জিক কনজাংটিভাইটিস, অনিদ্রা, কাটা-ছেঁড়ার আঘাত ইত্যাদি সমস্যা নিয়ে রোগীরা আসতেন। তার সাথে বেশ কিছু উচ্চ রক্তচাপ, ডায়াবেটিস মেলিটাস, ইসকিমিক হার্ট ডিজিজ-এর রোগী, যাঁরা মূলত তাঁদের ওষুধ ফুরিয়ে যাওয়ায় সেটা পেতে আসতেন। এ ছাড়া বেশ কিছু মাঝবয়সী ও যুবক কৃষক আসতেন ওপিয়াম নেশার উইদড্রয়াল লক্ষণ নিয়ে। এঁরা খুব কষ্ট পেলেও আন্দোলন ছেড়ে যেতে রাজি ছিলেন না। তবে পরিচ্ছন্নতার ব্যবস্থা এত ভাল যে, ডায়েরিয়ার রোগী ছিল খুব কম।

A majority of the patients suffered from cough and cold, gastritis, asthma, fever, urinary infections, arthritis, allergic conjunctivitis, insomnia, or minor cuts and bruises. Besides, there were quite a few people with hypertension, diabetes mellitus, or ischemic heart, who had run out of their regular medicines and came to get them. Also, there were quite a few middle-aged and young farmers with opium withdrawal symptoms. They suffered immensely, but refused to leave the front. Significantly, the level of cleanliness was so high that hardy anyone suffered from diarrhoea.

করোনা নিয়ে বলতে গেলে কৃষকরা বলতেন, মোদি সরকার করোনা ভাইরাসের থেকে ভয়ানক। তারা মনে করেন করোনা তাদের কিছু ক্ষতি করতে পারবে না। এই আন্দোলনে প্রচুর বয়স্ক মানুষ এসেছেন। মহিলা আন্দোলনকারীর সংখ্যাও কম নয়। একজন ৬২ বছর বয়সী মহিলার চিকিৎসা আমরা করেছি যিনি হাই ব্লাড সুগার ও প্রেসারের রোগী এবং পায়ের ক্ষতস্থানে ব্যাণ্ডেজ বেঁধে আন্দোলনের ময়দানে এসেছেন এবং এই ঠাণ্ডায় খোলা আকাশের নিচে দিন কাটাচ্ছেন।

When we discussed the Coronavirus, the famers say the Modi government is more dangerous than the virus. They believe Corona can do them no harm. Lots of elderly people are part of this movement. And there are many women protesters too. I treated a 62-year-old woman who has high blood sugar and pressure. She has come to the protest site with a bandaged infected leg. And she has been sleeping under the open sky in this severe cold.

অপপ্রচার হচ্ছে যে এই আন্দোলন মূলত ধনী কৃষকদের আন্দোলন। কিন্তু কথা বলে দেখেছি, শতকরা ৮০-৯০ ভাগ কৃষকই ক্ষুদ্র এবং মধ্য চাষি, যাঁদের জমির পরিমাণ গড়ে ১০ বিঘার নিচে। খুব কম জনেরই একশো বিঘার বেশি জমি আছে। আবার এই অপপ্রচারও আছে যে এটা খালিস্তানিদের আন্দোলন। কিন্তু এখানে তেমন দাবির চিহ্ন পর্যন্ত পাইনি। বরং কয়েক জায়গায় পোস্টারে লেখা দেখেছি: আমরা খালিস্তান চাই না, কৃষি আইনের রদ চাই’।

There is a false campaign that this is an agitation by rich farmers. However, 80 to 90% of the people we talked to were small or middle farmers, whose average land holding won’t be more than three acres. There were only a few who had over 30 acres of land. Another falsehood that is being spread is that the agitation belongs to Khalistanis. We have seen no sign of pro-Khalstani people. On the contrary, we have seen several posters saying, “We don’t want Khalistan, we just want the farm bills are repealed.”

সিংঘুতে কৃষকরা অসংখ্য ট্রাক্টর আর ট্রাকে করে প্রায় ১৫ কিমি রাস্তা জুড়ে বসে আছেন। ট্রাক্টরের ট্রলি আর ট্রাকের ছাদ পলিথিনে মুড়ে তাদের অস্থায়ী থাকার ব্যবস্থা তারা করে নিয়েছেন। কেবল পাঞ্জাব আর হরিয়ানার কৃষকরা শুধু নন, এখানে উত্তরপ্রদেশ, হিমাচলপ্রদেশ, মধ্যপ্রদেশ, গুজরাট, পশ্চিমবঙ্গ থেকে আসা আন্দোলনকারীরা আছেন এবং দিনে দিনে অন্যান্য রাজ্য থেকে আসা মানুষের সংখ্যা বাড়ছে।

At the Singhu border, farmers have occupied 15 kilometres of highway on innumerable tractors and trucks. Covering the tops of tractors and trollies with polythene sheets, they have made their temporary homes. And they are not from the Punjab alone, they have come from Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, West Bengal, and their number has been growing every day.

এখানে কৃষকরা পর্যাপ্ত খাদ্যসামগ্রীর ব্যবস্থা করেছে বিভিন্ন লঙ্গরখানার মাধ্যমে। আন্দোলনে আসা যে কেউ নিখরচায় পেট ভরে খেতে পারে। এখানে রাস্তার ধারে ধারে অস্থায়ী শৌচাগারের ব্যবস্থা তারা করেছে যাতে স্বাস্থ্য ও পরিচ্ছন্নতা বজায় থাকে। তারা জামা-কাপড় কেচে নেওয়ার ব্যবস্থাও করে নিয়েছে অনেকগুলো ওয়াশিং মেসিন জোগাড় করে। তারা স্বেচ্ছাসেবী হিসাবে বাকিদের জামাকাপড় কেচে দিচ্ছেন। কিছু কৃষক স্বেচ্ছাসেবী প্রতিদিনের তৈরি হওয়া আবর্জনা পরিষ্কারের দায়িত্ব পালন করছেন। আবার দেখলাম কিছু কৃষক নিখরচায় অন্যদের চুল-দাড়ি কাটার দায়িত্ব পালন করছেন। কয়েকজন যুবক বিনামূল্যে ইচ্ছুক কৃষকদের হাতে ট্যাটু একে দিচ্ছে, তাতে চে গুয়েভারার ছবিও দেখেছি। সন্ধ্যার পরে মাঝরাত পর্যন্ত যখন মূল মঞ্চের ভাষণ স্থগিত থাকে তখন বিভিন্ন গ্রুপে কাঠের আগুন জ্বালিয়ে বাদ্যযন্ত্র নিয়ে প্রতিবাদী গান বা লোকসংগীত গাইছেন কৃষকরা।

The farmers have brought in sufficient food that are being distributed through langars. Anyone who is a part of the movement can eat at no cost. Hygiene has been taken care of through temporary toilets on the roadside. Even clothes are being washed in a large number of washing machines. There are volunteers who have been washing clothes of others. Some volunteers are removing garbage daily, while some others are giving others haircuts and shaves free of cost. Some young men were doing tattoos on the arms of farmers, and I’ve seen pictures of Che Guevara too as tattoos. From evening to midnight, when there are no speeches on the main podium, groups assemble around campfires to sing songs of rebellion or folk songs with the accompaniment of instruments.

শিখদের গুরুদোয়ারার বড় ভূমিকা দেখলাম এখানে। একটা বড় সংখ্যক লঙ্গরখানা গুরুদোয়ারার পরিচালনায় চলছে। প্রত্যেকেই আলাদা আলাদা দায়িত্ব নিয়ে একটা দীর্ঘমেয়াদি আন্দোলনের প্রস্তুতি নিয়েছেন। তাদের প্রত্যেকের প্রত্যয় যে জীবন গেলেও যাবে কিন্তু দাবি আদায় তারা করবেনই। ব্যক্তিবাদী স্বার্থের দ্বন্দ্ব, দায়িত্বহীনতা আর সুবিধাবাদের পরিবেশে বড় হয়ে আগে আমি এমন পরিবেশ দেখিনি যেখানে একতা আছে, বীরত্ব আছে, ভ্রাতৃত্ববোধ আছে। এই আন্দোলন আমাকে নতুন জিনিস শেখাল। নতুন দিশা দিল।

Gurudwaras have played a major role (in this movement), running a large number of community kitchens. Every individual here has taken up different responsibilities following a blueprint for a sustained movement. Every one of them believe they will achieve their goals, even if it came at the cost of their life. While growing up in an environment of conflict of narrow interests, irresponsibility, and opportunism, I never came across a situation of such unity, valour, and fraternity. This movement has taught me many a new lesson, has shown me new possibilities.

আমরা চিকিৎসকরা মূলত টেন্টে রাত কাটাতাম রাত্রিকালীন চিকিৎসা পরিষেবা বজায় রাখতে। এখানে আমাদের ছাড়াও আরও কিছু মেডিকেল ক্যাম্প ছিল, কিন্তু সেগুলো মূলত হেলথ স্টাফরা চালাত। সেই ক্যাম্পগুলিতে বিভিন্ন শহর থেকে ডাক্তাররা কখনও সকালে এসে রাতে আবার ফিরে যেতেন। একমাত্র আমাদের ক্যাম্পেই দিন-রাত সবসময় ডাক্তার পাওয়া যেত। প্রতিদিন রাত্রে আমরা বেশ কিছু ইমার্জেন্সি রোগী দেখেছি। ফলে দিনে দিনে আমাদের প্রয়োজনীয়তা ওখানে বেড়ে গেছে। ৩-৪ কিমি দূর থেকেও খোঁজ করে রোগী এসেছে আমাদের কাছে। আমাদের পর্যাপ্ত ওষুধ না থাকলেও আমরাই ওখানে মূল চিকিৎসাটা দিচ্ছি। আমাদের লেখা ওষুধ অন্যান্য ক্যাম্প থেকেও দিয়ে দিচ্ছে। অনেক ক্যাম্প ও সংস্থা খোঁজ নিয়ে নিজে থেকে আমাদের ক্যাম্পের জন্য প্রতিদিন ওষুধ দিয়ে যেতেন। রোগীরা সুস্থ হয়ে পরের দিন আমাদেরকে কৃতজ্ঞতাসূচক নমস্কার করে গেছেন।

We, the doctors, mostly spent the night in tents, so that medical facilities could be provided at night too. There were other medical camps too, but they were mostly run by paramedics. At some of those, doctors used to come in the morning and leave after the day’s work. Only we offered 24 X 7 healthcare facilities. Every night, we had some emergency patients. Consequently, our demand increased. Patients even came from three to four kilometres away. Although we didn’t have an adequate stock of medicines, we were the principal provider of medical care. Medicines prescribed by us were given by other medical camps too. Several organisations and medical camps sought us out and augmented our stock of medicines. Many a patient visited our camp after recovery to thank us.

এর আগে বেশ কিছু মেডিকেল ক্যাম্প আমি করেছি কিন্তু সিংঘুর এই ক্যাম্প সম্পূর্ণ আলাদা। এখানে কৃষকদের যে মমত্ব, তেজস্বিতা, কষ্টসহিষ্ণুতা, একতা দেখে এলাম তা মনকে নাড়া দেয়।

Earlier, I participated in a fairly large number of medical camps, but this camp is Singhu is entirely different. The empathy, valour, fortitude, and unity I saw in these camps was mind-numbing.

 

                                                            - ডাঃ কল্যাণব্রত ঘোষ /  Dr. Kalyanbrata Ghose

Profanity in the Age of Globalisation

 

The World-War-II movie Guns of Navarone (1961) had an ensemble cast with some of the greatest stars: Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn, David Niven, Anthony Quale, and a very young Harrison Ford, Ford played a cameo in the beginning of the film as an angry Australian pilot who had just lost some fellow pilots in a failed air attack to destroy two strategically placed massive cannons in Navarone (a fictional island on the Aegean Sea). To explain why the attack had been a stupid idea, Ford says something like, ‘The bloody guns are in a bloody cave which can’t be bloody seen from a bloody aircraft in the bloody sky because it’s bloody hidden by a bloody ledge which is bloody big and we don’t have a bloody bomb to do bloody anything to it.’ ... A sentence with a dozen bloodies, give and take a few!

If film were made today, what word would Harrison Ford use instead of “bloody”? Well, no prize for guessing, and we’ll come back to the high-frequency word soon.

We watched The Guns of Navarone when we were in college where no one possibly loved movies more than Tushar did. And among my close friends, none was possibly loved as much as Tushar was. He was and still is a genuinely uncomplicated person. As a young man, he could perhaps have been described accurately by either of the two adjectives that were hardly used then: cool in English, and बिंदास in Hindi. How cool / bindaas was he?

Once, from our university we went on an excursion to Chittaranjan Locomotive Works or CLW, the first loco factory set up in independent India by her now-much-maligned first prime minister. The town around the factory too is called Chittaranjan, which happened to be Tushar’s hometown then. I may be wrong, but I think during the two days we spent there, he didn’t deny himself the company of friends by wasting his time to visit parents. However, he did introduce his family to us. Well, in a way: as we were crossing CLW’s sprawling head-office complex, Tushar pointed at the building and said, ‘Friends, have a close look. My old man pushes pen in there!’ His exact words in Bangla were: ঐ বাড়িটা দ্যাখ, ওখানে আমার বাবা কলম পেষে!

Once, in the beginning of a vacation, when the boarders were going home, Tushar went to the railway station to see off a prospective girlfriend. As the train whistled and was about to start, the girl said casually, ‘Tushar-da, come home sometime.’ (In our time, some girls would address their senior boys with the suffix -da which stands for older brother in Bangla, although they (the girls) didn’t necessarily consider them (the boys) as brothers. And vice versa, needless to say.)

It was a mistake for her. Before she could complete the sentence, Tushar had boarded the train. He returned from North Bengal after three days.

Possibly because he had to spend a major part of his meagre allowance on films, tea, and Charminars, Tushar couldn't afford haircuts. He would get haircuts twice a year when he went home and his mom could no longer suffer the mess that his head was. Consequently, in the rest of the year, Tushar’s shock of curly hair used to end up to about six inches above his nut; he could be recognised from a mile.

The time he saved by not studying he devoted to more esoteric activities like playing cards and watching films. He was a serious movie buff, who would watch every film that was shown in Chitra and Bichitra, the two cinemas in our small university town. Bichitra was a truly classical small-town theatre where we didn’t have the privilege to accompany girls because “ladies” were seated on the balcony. (What a shame!) We would see the screen through a fog of cigarette / bidi smoke and for the front stalls, there were rickety old wooden benches from where enthusiastic viewers would whistle when a heroine (rarely) showed her cleavage or when she was locked with the hero for a kiss that would be aborted by the censors. Only Hollywood actors had the privilege of kissing in Indian cinemas in the 1970s. (In 1969, a committee headed by GD Khosla had decided that Indians had grown enough to kiss, it took many years to implement the guidelines.)

If Tushar took a fancy to a film, he would watch it multiple times. He would also vividly replay it in words for the less fortunate who hadn’t seen it. Being present at the “first-day-first-show” was an article of faith for him. He wouldn’t miss it, for love or money or exams.

For almost 40 years, we friends lost touch with Tushar completely. Almost every time we met and talked about the glorious days in campus, we would grieve that Tushar had been lost. But thanks to the Internet and painstaking research done by two of us, he has been rediscovered recently and fortunately, as the bard with the bald pate said long ago, time hasn’t been able to wither his shock of hair, like it had failed to wither Cleopatra’s beauty earlier.

For me at least, rediscovery of Tushar was almost the only good thing that has happened in the fucking year that 2020 has turned out to be. (Gentle Reader, if you are upset with the f-word, please brace yourself! There will be more.)

*

The human mind works in curious ways. Tushar rushed into my mind only because three days ago, I watched, first time in my life, a first-day-first-show. On Netflix. And it reminded me of the first-day-first-show guy in our hostel.

AK vs. AK, released on 26 December, is a taut thriller that tells an unusual story about a film director Anurag Kashyap, who is a superb actor too, and a film star, played with equal aplomb by Anil Kapoor. It is not a great film, but you can surely watch it. You’ll have two hours of good time.

The following day, my wife and I tried to watch The Gangs of Wasseypur by the same director, but we couldn’t because there was far too much of violence in it for our timid souls; we decided to give up after an hour or so.

Two films by Anurag Kashyap, one new and one old, the latter being the first Hindi film made it to the Cannes Film Festival, although we couldn’t sit through it. The common thread between the two was that in both, in every second sentence somebody used the word fuck. The Hindi equivalent of mother fucker – which in any case is a hybrid word made of English and Hindi – was used almost as extensively (and printed in English subtitle), as articles or prepositions. (If you are not sure of your English grammar, it just shows your sanity. You don’t have to Google for article and preposition; you’ve got the drift, haven’t you?)

The word fuck seems to have united the world.

This morning, when I got up, I was thinking about how cuss words in English has changed from the time of the Guns of Navarone to the Gangs of Wasseypur. My wife was awake and I shared my two-penny linguistic insight with her.

It was still dark then, the time was 5:30. My wife, the ever-curious person with an academic bent of mind, asked, ‘What is the Hindi word for mother fucker?’

I said, ‘No! No, Darling, please don't ask me to say it the first thing in the morning, Not at 5:30.’

Bengaluru / 30 Dec. 2020