Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts

Sunday, February 7, 2021

Poetry of Protest -4

Every beautiful poem is an act of resistance. —Mahmoud Darwish

Literature is about recording what is forgotten, but also about living and recreating the life that surrounds us. Continuing from the series of the Poetry of Protest - 1, Poetry of Protest - 2, and Poetry of Protest - 3, we will read a compilation of the resistance poems. Why? We are living in a consumerism and post-truth era without a memory, which accepts, without much resistance, ideological interpretations of the history, as dictated by the regime and enforced by its media. The solidarity of the protest can only be built by a form of literature that is emotionally compelling, contributes to the combating of loneliness, and makes the reader less terrified of themselves and the political powers which surround them.  Here is the curated list of poems with spirit of the protest:
  1. First they came..--- Martin Niemöller 
  2. Unadikum ( I Call on You ) ---Tawfiq Zayyad
  3. The Will of Life --- Abu al-Qasim al-Shabi.
  4. Grass ---Carl Sandberg
  5. I am the People ---Ahmed Fouad Nigm
  6. The Times They Are a-Changin' --- Bob Dylan
  7. Let them not say ---Jane Hirshfield
  8. Pity the nation ---Lawrence Ferlinghetti
  9. Write me down I am an Indian Ajmal Khan
  10. Pity the nation --Khalil Gibran
  11. Write down! I am an Arab ---Mahmoud Darwish
  12. Dreams --- Langston Hughes
  13. Still, I Rise ---Maya Angelou
  14. Two Poems of Resistance ---Ayat al-Qormezi
  15. Strange Fruits--- Abel Meeropol
  16. ख़्वाब मरते नहीं --- अहमद फ़राज़
  17. एकला चलो रे। --- रबिन्द्रनाथ टैगोर,
  18. आज बाज़ार में पा-ब-जौला चलो --- फ़ैज़ अहमद फ़ैज़
  19. खेत में दबाये गये दाने की तरह --- भवानीप्रसाद मिश्र
  20.  होने लगी है जिस्म में जुंबिश तो देखिये --- दुष्यंत कुमार
  21. कोसल में विचारों की कमी है! --- श्रीकांत वर्मा
  22. उनका डर --- गोरख पांडेय
  23. दस्तूर --- हबीब जालिब
  24. कविता पर रोक --- शहरोज़
  25. बोल कि लब आज़ाद हैं तेरे --- फ़ैज़ अहमद फ़ैज़
  26. ये दाग-दाग उजाला --- फ़ैज़ अहमद फ़ैज़
  27. हम देखेंगे --- फ़ैज़ अहमद फ़ैज़
  28. हम लड़ेंगे --- पाश
  29. भूख के एहसास को शेरो-सुख़न तक ले चलो --- अदम गोंडवी
  30. वेद में जिनका हवाला हाशिये पर भी नहीं --- अदम गोंडवी
  31. जो अपराधी नहीं होंगे, मारे जाएंगे...--- राजेश जोशी
  32. बच्चों का दूध --- रामधारी सिंह "दिनकर"
  33. आग जलनी चाहिए --- दुष्यन्त कुमार
  34. अब क़लम से इज़ारबंद ही डाल --- हबीब जालिब
  35. हम कागज़ नहीं दिखाएंगे --- वरुण ग्रोवर
  36.  मैं भी काफ़िर, तू भी क़ाफ़िर --- सलमान हैदर

Friday, October 19, 2012

Poetry of Protest - 3

When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson

Continuing from the series of Poetry of Protest Part 1 and Part 2, we are looking more in the power of protest. Protest is a sign of repression to overlook voice of love, reason and critical criticism. Looking for the identity, dignity, autonomy and culture in current scenario across globe, the inertia of the tradition can only be resisted by individuals of great integrity and confidence. Out of disobedience one starts being an individual.

We live in a arbit society where pregnancies, marriages and divorces of D-type celebrities became the national news but there comes a threshold where the public's right to be informed on the matters like naxalism and corruption takes back seats.With the loss of confidence, the capacity of outrage goes. We are living in the ages where even speaking against Sachin Tandulkar, Shivaji Maharaja and Dr. Ambedkar is considered sin leave aside deemed demigods. The one sided movement of striking a balance between freedom of speech and respecting cultural sensitivities has been a waste effort. History of liberty has preceded repressive culture and will survive them.

Most well-meaning citizens are alienated from the horrible plight of the exploitation, displacement and dispossession region. Even our outraged is selective as eloquently put by Shivam Vij - The Muslims are outraged by Satanic Verses and the Hindus by MF Husain's paintings and the Dalits by an Ambedkar cartoon and in each case we end up with censorship rather than freedom. We choose whose freedom we want to support. We are selective in our support and in our outrage.

How much of our past must we abandon? How much of present is worth carrying forward ? And where is our golden age lying.. in the past or in future.. surely not present with its complex realities. Not everyone can theoretically understand the complex reality but few has undeniable ability to put this in lyrics. To be logical is never meant to be right. That is why we all love poetry as this is full of emotion even playing with words for this. Only poets can write with an invisible, polite, but absolute aura that appeal to our irrational mind. Spirit of poets transcends the fabric of time, spreads through their best and worst times of the civilization. And they will always present to create an unanswerable dilemma for the powerful elders of a community. What people cannot ask and talk with each other, they will google secretly. They will inquire into the origins of power with an audacity of hope.

No repressed individual can be creative. I may sound radical but Pussy Riot's punk prayer or the rap of Afro-American is sign of pure protest poetry against their social and political regime. Even the time of bollywood's pop patriotism is gone with upcoming of new generation. We will track down every bit of words written by Gorakh Pandey, Baba Nagarjun, Muktibodh, Gaddar, Nirala and Dhoomil against our state because great literature rarely goes into oblivion.

1- Poets of Protest : This series delves into the soul of the Middle East with intimate profiles of poets who seek to interpret and inspire.

2- The poetry of revolution : Tunisia's uprisings were started neither by political action nor a military coup, but by a regime of banners and chants.

3- Only people who are very intelligent and very unhappy can write good poems. Poet's ability to shut off their part of the mind even while the world is in turn-moil. This mean that poet had no more connection with the present. The poet seek solace with in the past or future like a ghost.Such a heavy price for a piece of art. Only the purest poet like dervish allow poems in their heart at the time of their revolution. - Orhan Pamuk through Poet 'KA' in Snow.

Sometimes, I crib too much and behave like cynic. Yet, somehow I always feel inside that a voice of protest is more essential than being indifferent and ignorant to the whole scenario. Thanks to Annie Zaidi for quoting a great anecdote supporting my gut feeling from an article written by one of my favorite journalist Johann Hari :  "In 1966, the specialists at the Pentagon went to US President Lyndon Johnson – a thug prone to threatening to “crush” entire elected governments – with a plan to end the Vietnam War: nuke the country. They “proved”, using their computer modeling, that a nuclear attack would “save lives.” It was a plan that might well have appealed to him. But Johnson pointed out the window, towards the hoardes of protesters, and said: “I have one more problem for your computer. Will you feed into it how long it will take 500,000 angry Americans to climb the White House wall out there and lynch their President?” He knew that there would be a cost – in protest and democratic revolt – that made that cruelty too great. In 1970, the same plan was presented to Richard Nixon – and we now know from the declassified documents that the biggest protests ever against the war made him decide he couldn't do it. Those protesters went home from those protests believing they had failed – but they had succeeded in preventing a nuclear war. They thought they were impotent, just as so many of us do – but they really had power beyond their dreams to stop a nightmare."

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Ten Issues - 12

1- Why We Have More Sympathy for Baby Jessica Than for Darfur by Dan Ariely. VIDEO
Focusing on the struggles of an individual appeals to our emotions and makes us care. As the numbers of people suffering get bigger, our cognition, calculation, and thoughtfulness are activated—and we care less ; A NGO on this concept is Rangde;

2- The danger of Being good : - The miracle of individual choice may be what is keeping us safe as a society. Some people just choose to be good, no matter what. This is the story of what happens to them

3- Freedom of speech and expression and the law of sedition in India: Text of keynote address delivered by Colin Gonsalves at the inauguration of Persistence Resistance 2011, New Delhi

4- Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright talks bluntly about politics and diplomacy, making the case that women's issues deserve a place at the center of foreign policy. Far from being a "soft" issue, she says, women's issues are often the very hardest ones, dealing directly with life and death. A frank and funny Q & A with Pat Mitchell from the Paley Center.

5- Jugalbandi: Hindustani music is our music By Namita Devidayal : Despite the modern claims to lineage, little is known of the Subcontinent’s classical music forms – beyond the centuries of cross-community collaboration that were required.

6-Jugalbandi: Divided scores By Yousuf Saeed : Though there was a general decline in classical music in Pakistan after Partition, there are many uplifting stories of how musical traditions have been kept alive and even enriched.

7- Poetry of Resistance, recited by Sudhanva Deshpande :



8- Indie and the Indian Middle Class by Arjun on PFC.

9- The Opening : If I was ever asked to host a Bollywood Awards night, here is how I would open it - BY Great Bong.
"Some people call this the “Oscar night for India”. I disagree. To quote a great man, we here dare to go beyond the Oscars. Tell me sir, would the Oscars have the Best Actress dancing an item number—-can you imagine Helen Mirren being made to dance if she wants an Oscar? Can you think of Robert De Niro fighting backstage and calling an angry press-conference because Al Pacino won an award? Can you imagine the award being taken away from Hillary Swank and given to Meryl Streep, just because maybe she is the brand ambassador of the event’s sponsors or because Hillary Swank came late to the show?Can you imagine Keanu Reeves winning The Best Actor Award every year? Can you imagine a movie like “Expendables” getting twelve nominations? No."
10- A Big Think Interview With the British author and activist Raj Patel.
Quote of the Day : Any concession to majoritarianism corrodes a democratic order. It creates two classes of citizens: those who belong to the definitive majority become ‘organic’ or ‘natural’ citizens, while those who fall outside this category have to be ‘naturalized’ through tolerance. Not only does constitutional majoritarianism create discontent and disaffection amongst minorities (reduced as they are to second-class citizenship), it allows religious extremists to set the political agenda because they can use the constitution as warrant for their never-ending quest to realize the perfect Buddhist or Islamic or Hindu state. --- Mukul Kesavan

Friday, February 18, 2011

Poetry of Protest - 2


Tyrants always recognize the explosive potential of literature. An apparently harmless piece of text with simple words have power to make a common people realize his/her rights and dignity. I remember this year 2010 for mine introduction to Faiz Ahmed Faiz's poems. The book Dast-e-saba (The breeze’s hand) begins with a short introduction by Faiz himself, a small polemic on the responsibility of the artist. ‘The poet’s work is not only perception and observation, but also struggle and effort,’ Faiz writes :
A full comprehension of this ocean of Life through the live and active ‘drops’ of his environment depends upon the poet’s depth of perception. To be able to show this ocean to others depends upon his control over his art; and his ability to set in motion some new currents in the ocean depends upon the fire in his blood and the zeal of his passion. Success in all three tasks demands continuous toil and struggle.
One even as a writer also needs to give real direction to the country’s future—rather than posing neutral as a bystander. Poems and words are written to promote the values of equality, freedom of speech and human rights. Poetry is not any partisan propaganda. A person belonging to any political spectrum of nationalists, secularists, liberals, and leftists is moved by the power of poetry.

1- Resistance Songs of IPTA: A Revolutionary Legacy :- Sumangala Damodarane is collecting, archiving, reviving and documenting IPTA protest music. Members of this progressive artists association had written, composed and sung songs in many Indian languages.



2- Jugalbandi: Indian Ocean’s common minimum programme :- Indian Ocean member give us insight of the act of balancing politics and music in India’s best-known progressive band.

3- Amardeep Singh who teaches post-colonial literature at Lehigh University, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania has made notes on the role played by Arabic poetry in the uprisings.

Protest poetry and music sometimes rises to the surface during popular uprisings, crystallizing popular sentiments -- one thinks of Victor Jara in Chile, Nazim Hikmet in Turkey, Faiz Ahmed Faiz in Pakistan, or Woody Guthrie in the United States. At times like these, the right poetry and song doesn't merely describe how people are feeling; it can actually act as an intensifier that guides a protest movement, helping it spread and solidify.

4- The Poetry of Revolt : Elliott Colla ,an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University tracks about the actual poetry that has played a prominent role in the outset of the events at Egypt.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Poetry of Protest - 1

I am remembering the scene in the movie "Dead Poet's Society" where Prof. John Keating was inspiring his student with the beauty of poetry : We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" Answer: that you are here; that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?

While most prefer to be didactic and dry in order to make a large statement at the expense of beauty, it is only one side of the coin. There is a passion, emotions, connectivity and power contained in the poems and songs of the people. Poems are sometimes frivolous and pretentious but are written with the Streams of the subconsciousness. The personal turmoil with the experience and observation of grimed reality make poems full of universal appeal. Free versus with the words flowed create a typhoon in the minds of freedom loving people.

Poetry is to create awareness, to create the desire for dreams, social justice, gender equality and to stand up for the downtrodden. To be a poet is dare to give voice to the silent victims witnessing endless suppression, discrimination and violence. To people like Neruda and Faiz, art is for the life and not just for art’s sake. Poems were never meant to be retained but often they end up to recited and remembered without even the efforts of the academia. As they are sing and enjoyed by the people, they created meanings more than if they can do on the paper.

Men are agents of self interest with a will to do good for others. No doubt people always began in good faith against power but insensibly, commitment by commitment, when not aware of dangers of owning power, individuals will become entangled in a web of lies, falsehoods, deceits and perjuries, until they lost their souls to the power. It is necessary to understand the larger ways that discourse supports power and also the larger movements for/against power in the reference of the culture. In the next part of this essay, we will move towards examples of protest and poetry in the real word.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Status Updates

Life is seldom dull for the dissident like me. With too much energy combined with weak concentration forming restlessness is the disease thriving in me. So the seasons of either extreme energy or laziness surrounds my aura. I assume that mine cultural, social, economic and national background takes away the liberty to define myself. I will always be bounded by my social network, no matter what happens in the future. This identity question is really big and complex.

I always think my past and say: Here lives a man amongst us who will stand up and question thyself " Who will right the wrong?" ; There was a man who dared to inspire change or spoke his hearts out while hurting the beliefs of his friends and strangers.

Blog has become a part of my identity now. I love to write but unable to write or read these days. These days, I love my status updates on facebook. Entertainment is huge component of Facebook but its thinking component is much less than in blogging. Twitter is much shallow and works only for those having veil of mystery or stardom. Hence, I don't tweet.

If everyone had a job they loved, entertainment as a concept wouldn’t have been born. Without comparison one doesn't loose own soul in the rat race. Also, no reason to hell bent and prove an identity to society. Few lines to reflect on my attitude towards job is enough.

Today, I must confess that I am scared of the uncertainties the future holds. There is a little bit of hope as the future doesn't fit in the containers of the past. I will end this post with a poem :

Men look to the East for the dawning things,
For the light of a raising sun;
But they look to the West, to the crimson West,
For the things that are done, are done."
from "East And West".
-Douglas Malloch (1877 - 1938)

Friday, August 29, 2008

Unofficial Nursery Rhymes

I celebrated my 23rd birthday in mine native village with joy. It was not big celebrations and bumps but entirely new experience. I was able to recall my favorite rhymns of childhood days on birthday.
1
Tantan tantan ghanti baajee ,bache gaye school
masterjee ne sawal poocha, bache gaye bhool
master jee ko gussa aaya, jama diya rule
bachoon ko bhi gussa aaya ,choed diya school;

2
Tam tamatar tam
tamatar khayen hum
angrez ka bachcha kya jaane
angrezi jaanein hum

3
Nana nana bhookh lagi hai
khalo beta moongfali
moongfali mein dana nahi
hum tumare nana nahi
nana gaye delhi,wahan se laye billi
billi ke do bachhe ,hum hain sache;

4
Motu seth sadak pe let
gadi aaye phat gaya pet
gadi ka no. 88,gadi pahunche india gate
india gate pe khade sipai,motu seth ke hue pitai.

5
Ram naam ke kothare mein ho raha ttha match
ram ne maara chakka,hanuman ne liya catch.