NB: The spirit of these lines conveys the purpose of my blog. Freedom of the mind and the striving toward truth and wisdom are the underpinning of human life. In a time when the ruthless pursuit of power and mindless rhetoric is in danger of destroying the integrity of social life, co-operation and even speech,… Read More Where The Mind Is Without Fear
If biology was the soil of fascism, history and aesthetics were the manure.. Percy Shelley called poets the “unacknowledged legislators of the world.” No poet sought acknowledgment more enthusiastically than Ezra Pound. No poet legislated so ambitiously or disastrously, either. Pound was the impresario of Modernism. He stripped the Victorian padding from the verse of… Read More ‘The Poets of Rapallo’ Review: Ezra Pound’s Fascist Paradise
NB: An excellent review of an excellent book. Purushottam Agrawal has done us a public service. DS Kabir, the famous religious poet of Varanasi, lived from roughly 1440 CE to 1518 CE. He first became well-known outside of India in 1915 when Rabindranath Tagore published an English translation of 100 songs, or bhajans, attributed to Kabir. Tagore’s translation… Read More Book review: Kabir and the Question of Modernity
The Waterboys: This is the sea These things you keep You better throw them awayYou wanna turn your backOn your careless daysOnce you were tetheredNow you are freeOnce you were tetheredNow you are freeWell that was the river!This is the sea Now if you’re coming undoneMaybe been alone too longOr just you’ve been suffering fromA… Read More This Is the Sea
I cannot say that I know you well But you can’t lie to me with all these books that you sellI’m not trying to follow you to the end of the worldI’m just trying to leave something behind Words have come from men and mouseOh, but I can’t help thinking that I have heard the… Read More Sean Rowe: To Leave Something Behind
Brian Eno: Spinning Away Up on a hill, as the day dissolvesWith my pencil turning moments into lineHigh above in the violet skyA silent silver plane – it draws a golden chain One by one, all the stars appearAs the great winds of the planet spiral inSpinning away, like the night sky at ArlesIn the… Read More Brian Eno: Spinning Away / Gulzar: आहिस्ता चल ज़िन्दगी / Eliza Shaddad: Waters
The moment when, after many years of hard work and a long voyage you stand in the centre of your room, house, half-acre, square mile, island, country, knowing at last how you got there, and say, I own this, is the same moment when the trees unloose their soft arms from around you, the… Read More Margaret Atwood: The Moment
In a strongly-worded statement, more than 170 Gujarat cultural personalities, activists and academics have strongly protested against “threats” issued against Gujarati writers in the Gujarat Sahitya Academi journal “Shabdsrushti” through an anonymous writeup under the titled “No, This Is Not a Poem, It Is Misuse of a ‘Poem’ for Anarchy…” Supposedly an editorial, published, ironically on page… Read More Sahitya Akademi's so-called editorial 'death knell' for Gujarati writers' free expression / Litterateurs demand withdrawal of Gujarat Sahitya Akademi editorial
ना भूलना तुम ना भूलना तुम,2021 की पहली अप्रैल की सुबह, या उसके पहले की कोई सुबह, वसंत ऋतु की मंद ख़ुशबुएँ, जब, एक नहीं, करोड़ों आंखें एक साथ खुलीं थीं। और सबने अशुभ का कोई मंज़र देखा था! मन में कुछ खौफ़ सा लगा था। ना भूलना तुम, कि तुम्हारी खिड़की की चौखट… Read More ना भूलना तुम : By Dr Raju Sharma, ex IAS
NB: Thank you Parulben for reminding us of the humanity and decency of the Indian people. No matter how much abuse and how many threats are hurled at you, remember that you speak and write for all suffering people. We are with you. Charan-sparsh. DS दया धर्म का मूल है पाप मूल अभिमान, तुलसी दया… Read More Gujarati Poet Parul Khakkar Blames 'Naked King' for Corpses Floating in the Ganga
After the truth-shower 