Bread pakorey ki kasam

If seeing this ^^^ picture, your eyes twinkled, lips curved into a wide grin, your mouth began to water and it flashed back the awesome memories of your alma mater, please stand up !

And to those who find the above sentence a gross exaggeration, and cynical, I don’t blame you. For you are an alien to this experience.

To the first group, know you are a Delhiite and more specifically went to DU as a student. And you don’t even need to be explained what DU stands for. But for the latter, btw, it stands for Delhi University .

What fish n chips is to London, or hamburger is to Mc Donalds, this luscious snack is to Delhi. This is the  finger food we all relished ( I wonder if they still do) in cramped Delhi University cafetarias, without realising its awesomeness.

Being away from Delhi now for over two decades, the gold test for me to check whoever claims “I am from Delhi.” is the mention of the clue word “Bread Pakora”. If instead of a wide eyed expression screaming ‘wierdo’, the return expression is an instant wholesome grin, you know the claim is authentic. You don’t even need to double check them.

To give you another evidence of my cynical attachment to a bread pakora, it was only for the ‘Bread pakore ki kasam’ tag line, that got me watch, Band Baja Baraat twice.

In the good old simple days of limited pocket money, and even more limited options in the DU cafes, this large sized, yummy snack with a hot cup of chai came in handy and filling in the lunch hour, for an affordable Rs 5/-

Just as in some other part of the world, mustard compliments hotdogs, our austere bread pakora came proudly partnered to even more austere yet yummy Kaddu Ketchup (Pumpkin ketchup).  And the two stayed married to each other, no matter how much the arrogant branded ketchups belittled it , on TV ads of our days:
“Thora ketcup try karo?”
“Ketchup hota kaddoo bhara”
“Is mein kaddoo nahin zara,
Raseele tamataron se tayyar,
Volfarm .”
( If I still remember it correctly) .

Whenever I get into my “Ayy mere pyaare watan, tujh pe dil qurban” mode, all I do is take two slices of bread, spread one with hot chilli sauce, other with green mint coriander chutney, sandwich them with mashed potatoes, or even cottage cheese, cut them in two triangles,  coat each of them in a chick pea batter, and fry them. And with a steaming cup of tea, I transport myself back to the DU student days.

Find it weird? No worries, most of my family too, quietly radiates that subtle expression of “Whats so great about bread pakora?”.

But I have learnt to not take notice of them, and not even take any offense.
They  know not what they are missing !

Believe it or not, I find it the awesomest finger food, for it carries with it a flavour of my past memories too.

Bread pakorey ki kasam !

Domestic Violence and helplessness

Here are three stories from my experience, which I personally saw growing with time.

They all had two things in common.One, that they were all  classical examples of domestic abuse, and secondly, that I was helpless in being of any help to them.

Ahmed was a 55 years old Pakistani man living in the neighbourhood. We did not know his wife for months, till when he once asked my husband if I could see her, because she was pregnant and had some complaints. Zubeida, his wife came to visit me as a patient.

With a toddler in her lap, she seemed way younger than her husband. After several visits it was revealed that she was his second wife and almost 25 years younger to him and he had married her 3 years ago. Ahmed had lived in US in his youth and married a local there. They had 3 kids and were together for 12 years after which they got divorced. He moved to the Middle East and ran a restaurant there. Now decided to marry Zubeida, from his clan, who had been a widow with three young children. So parents married her off to Ahmed, a well off businessman, while her three children, 6, 4 and 1, ( when she married) were being taken care by her parents. By the second marriage Zubeida had a 2 year old boy and was now pregnant again.

On being asked, that I never saw her in the neighbourhood, she revealed that when her husband went to work, he put a lock outside the house. And that she was instructed to not talk to anyone in the neighbourhood and tell details of their life. She wasn’t allowed to have a domestic help either.

She confided that she missed her little kids who were in Pakistan. She barely talked to them once a month because her husband didn’t like when she cried while talking to them on phone. She hadn’t seen them since she came  there, three years ago. Her husband insisted that now she should be content with the kids that she is having from him.

On being informed that this was ‘abusive’, she justified that her husband had suffered a lot at the hands of that American woman, who claimed half of his property at divorce, and took away the custody of the kids. And hence, his trust on women has been eroded.
“He always provided me with good clothes, and if I did not cook, he brought food from his restaurant.”

She said her parents were happy that despite having been widowed with three kids, she was lucky to have found a nice husband. So they do not like when she complains that she misses her older kids. She also did not want to be Thankless to God for the same.
After she delivered, I never heard from her until she was pregnant again for the third time.

Misbah (a local ), was a doctor herself.  She had married a Mutawwah (a mullah) , as his second wife, making all the justifications and necessary quotations from the religion for her act. And also narrating the virtues of marrying a religious person. Despite all the warnings from all of us at work, she went ahead.

For six months, it was sheer honeymoon for her, and she was the most obedient a wife could be. If he asked her to quit her work in the middle to see him, she would throw a sick leave and go. If he demanded her to cook something in the middle of the night, she would comply happily, for she thought she had to win his heart, over the first wife.

It was heartbreaking to see a bold friend of ours lose all her personality all of a sudden. News that she was pregnant transcended her to the seventh sky.

Six months into her pregnancy, she was devastated to discover her husband married a third time. On protesting, her husband stopped visiting her. She again resorted back to the same vicious cycle of pleasing him to draw his attention in competition with the other two wives. And the demands to please him kept multiplying exponentially. The extent his demands were such that if she talked on telephone for longer than his liking, he would leave and go to one other wife.

The complaint that, “she wasn’t paying attention to me”.

And so dutiful was he, that he never shared a penny from his own pocket with our friend, and possibly with the other two wives too, who were all working women.

We cried ‘he’s abusive’, but she wasn’t ready to accept it.

Her simple argument, “He never hits me, and that it is my duty to please my husband”.
We were left helpless.

Saira was a Indian nurse, who had come to work in the gulf. From the first month of the marriage, she handed over every penny of her salary to her husband. They were to save money to buy a land back home. Even a small demand of a dress, would need her to beg him for hours before he complied. And when they did buy the piece of land it was in his name.

For Saira, it was “Okay, because he is the man of the house. “

However, 12 years after their marriage, her husband fell in love with her own best friend, and they got married secretly. When Saira came to know, she was pregnant with her second child. From then on, she refused to hand him the salary, and this is where her physical abuse began.

Putting a brave front, she refused to comply. So his next demand was that she quit the job. She almost left the job, until we all colleagues intervened and convinced her not to.

She did ultimately, but the cycle of physical violence kept on unabated. Our cries to the people of authority were of no avail, for it was justified to have more than one wife and she was unreasonable, in being angry about it. Hence, his resorting to physical violence was justified.

Saira was unwilling to take any step to walk out on him because despite all the miseries, she still “loved him”.

Saira’s family, too, was of the opinion, “Men are all like this, women have to bear it always. “

These are just a handful of stories, from the barrage of incidences of domestic violence I have come across during my work experience.

For most women, if they were not being hit, they were not being abused. Emotional, financial or any other form of violence except physical was no abuse.

Unfortunately, in most of the cases it was the ignorance or denial on the part of sufferer, or the cover given to it through religious or cultural practices, or lack of the necessary infrastructure to lodge a complaint, that one felt helpless and miserable seeing these women continue to suffer.

And to tell you the truth, with them, I suffered too.

PS: The names of the women have been changed.

Next Blog to follow soon: Myths and Facts about Domestic Violence

Alf Leila O’Leila ~Um Kulthoom

The opening lines of this 45 minute song are:

Ya Habeebi,
My sweetheart.
Illeil wi samah, wi ingomo iw amaro, amaro wi saharo.
The night and its sky, its stars, its moon, moon and keeping awake all night.
Winta wana, ya habeebi ana, ya hayati ana.
You and me my sweetheart, my life.

-And the closing lines:

Ya habeebi yalla in3eish fi 3yoon illeil, . Winool lilshams ta3ali, ta3ali ba3di sana, mosh abli sana.
My sweetheart let us live in the eyes of the night and tell the sun come over, come after one year not before.
Fi leilate hob hilwa, bi alfi leila iw Leila, 
In a sweet night of love, in one thousand and one nights.
Bikolli il3omr, howa il3omri eih ghair Leila zayyi illeila.
They say it is the life. What is life, but a night like tonight, like tonight.

Fortunatley I grew up listening to Umm Kulthoom  and the tales of her live performances from my Professor father. I saw my father 90% times surrounded by books, but whenever he played Umm Kulsoom’s audios on the deck, in his leisure time, it was hard to envision he was the same man. I feel the poverty of expression to describe my feelings…

He would often exclaim that he got three things from his stay in Cairo in the early sixties—his PhD, a knowledge of Arabic, in the flawless Egyptian accent and love for Umm Kulsoom.

In the  1950s and 60s her concerts were broadcast once a week  on Radio.

“On Thursday nights, the streets of Cairo would empty as people gathered around radio sets to hear the great singer.”  I heard my father repeat this a countless times said with a twinkle in his eyes.

And infact, in honour of those broadcasts, Radio Egypt still broadcasts her songs every first Thursday at 10 pm.

It is hard in words to describe her charisma.  But listening to her enchanting Enta Omri,  Alf Leila o Leila and other songs over and over,  it wasn’t hard to imagine the euphoria that was created in her concerts.

Umm Kulthum was, indeed, a master at casting a spell over her audiences.

Maker of a documentary on her, ‘A Voice Like Egypt ’ Virginia Danielson says “Umm Kulthum’s concerts were famous for the spontaneous cheers that would break out whenever her performance seemed to close the gap between poetry and emotion. Poetry is a deeply revered art form in the Middle East.”

She gives an example. “When you hear Umm Kulthum sing, “I’m afraid your heart belongs to somebody else,” in the song “Ana Fe Entezarak,” she nails that anguish.  And the way she treats the word ‘somebody else,’ which is ‘inse’en,’ is just heartrending. You can hear the feeling of the poem come through in the way that she sings it.”

Her music had a unique quality called ‘tarab’ ( best translated as enchantment).

“Tarab is a concept of enchantment,” Danielson says. “It’s usually associated with vocal music, although instrumental music can produce the same effect, in which the listener is completely enveloped in the sound and the meaning in a broad experiential sense, and is just completely carried away by the performance.”

Part of tarab is the idea that listeners are as important as singers; that there’s a powerful, spiritual exchange between them that is crucial to the performance.

“But what it refers to is the experience of really being carried away by the music. People would tell preposterous stories about getting up and leaving the house and not knowing where they were going, and just all kinds of experiences of completely forgetting your troubles, completely being outside yourself, having been transported by the experience.”

Bob Dylan remarked; “She’s great. She really is. Really great.”

She was referred to as the Lady by  Charles de Gaulle and  Salvadore Dali, Jean Paul Satre, Bono were among  her fans.

Lastly, do envy me for having been nourished on this music since very young .

Erasing psychological borders

Published in The News @AmanKiAsha on September 2, 2011

Panchee nadiya aur pawan ke jhonke, koi sarhad inhen na roke;
Sarhad to insanon ke liye hai, socho tumne aur meine kya paya insaan ho ke
Birds, rivers & gusts of wind, no borders inhibit, : Borders are for us, think what have we gained being Humans ?

This couplet by Javed Akhtar from a Bollywood blockbuster entered my ears and shook my soul. Wow! Javed Akhtar knows how I feel each time I go to the Indian consulate in Pakistan to apply for visas for my family to visit my parents in New Delhi.

“In January 1990, a girl in her mid-twenties in New Delhi ties the knot with a Pakistani man in his late twenties. Happy, but quite unsure how the things in her life would unfold after that. She wasn’t a poor small-town girl getting married to a well-off cousin in Karachi in compliance with her parents’ decision. She was a typical city girl, who made it to a premier medical school in Delhi and was full of patriotic fervour for her homeland. Her parents did not become a hurdle, but advised that she decide it with full insight, and not regret later. It took her four painful and paranoid years to come to this decision. The young man across the border, putting aside his ego in the face of repeated refusals for years, convinced her that they could make it.”

Twenty years on, I can confidently say that we have made it. Our life together hasn’t been all tulips and roses of course. We’ve had our share of ups and downs, in addition to the usual hurdles any couple faces. Both of us being passionately patriotic about our respective homelands, it hasn’t been easy. What helped us was the erasing of psychological borders, knowing that humanity on both sides of the border has the same needs and aspirations. We promised to uphold sanity in our heads and not spew patriotic venom against each other. Not that outsiders spared us. Any bitter comment against the other side by a “patriotic acquaintance” from either side affected me more than my husband.
At times I would be reduced to tears after such taunts, to be comforted by my husband with a “mitti pao” attitude. It is not easy when someone passes a snide remark about your homeland. Any news of a bomb blast or riots in my city, would have me sitting paranoid, glued to the TV, wondering about the safety of my parents and siblings.

In kindergarten our children faced questions from curious friends – like, did we have fights at home during a cricket match between India and Pakistan? My son would come home crying that his friends teased him about having an Indian mother, saying, “Your mom is a traitor!” It took him some years to feel confident that his mom wasn’t a traitor.
But the only time I really, if ever, regretted my decision was when I had to queue up outside the visa window at the consulate of a country I called my homeland. Miserable is an understatement of how I felt when the man behind the counter looked at my children, asking for details, as if I was taking little terrorist recruits with me to my beloved city.

And then on our return to Pakistan, my husband would be pulled aside by the airport security, questioning him about the frequency of his visits across the border. One has to live it to feel it.

My siblings and I grew up with our eyes open to the world issues, with parents who taught international politics at a university.
We were trained to look beyond our boundaries and feel for the suffering of others be it in Palestine, apartheid in South Africa, or Gen Zia’s martial Law in Pakistan. I salute my parents for raising us as “human” beings with a wide horizon.
Some attribute my “Indian roots” to my comments on news blogs or facebook regarding political matters in Pakistan. Yes, I am proud of my roots. But I also have a husband and two kids who are passionately patriotic Pakistanis. They love both places. And so do I. I claim that I own both countries, and love both too. Karachi is mine as much as Delhi is.

We know there is good and bad on both sides. We don’t indulge in mutual blame games. We have erased the psychological borders at home and we respect our political borders. And we love this feeling.
What if the one and half billion across both the borders could also erase the psychological borders? After all, people on both sides of the border are made of the same flesh and bones, we share the same genetic pool. I wonder if I will live to see that day.

Dr Ilmana Fasih is a gynaecologist and health activist of Indian origin, married to a Pakistani. Contact her via amankiasha@janggroup.com.pk
Friday, September 02, 2011

That the truth has a tongue…~a poem

Just a minute long poem narrates the decades of pain and suffering of innocent kids who have no reason to bear this.

All your armies ..
all your fighters ..
all your tanks ..
and all your soldiers ..
against a boy ..
holding a stone ..
standing there ..
all alone ..
in his eyes ..
I see the sun ..
in his smile ..
I see the moon ..
and I wonder ..
I only wonder ..
who is weak ? ..
and who is strong ? ..
who is right ? ..
and who is wrong ? ..
and I wish ..
I only wish ..
that the truth ..
has a tongue :

The Paradox of Our Time ~Dr Bob Moorehead

A beautiful piece of  ‘food for thought’  which has served for years as a constant reminder to me to introspect my life and values. Whenever I feel I begin to digress from my purpose of life, I look back at this writing. Not sure if I have really found myself steadfast on it.

Finally, I decided to post it in my blog and share with others.

“The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy less.

We have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense; more knowledge, but less judgment; more experts, yet more problems; more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life. We’ve added years to life not life to years. We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We’ve done larger things, but not better things.

We’ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We’ve conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We’ve learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; big men and small character; steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce; fancier houses but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete.

Remember,
*spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.

*to say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

*to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn’t cost a cent.

*to say “I love you” to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.

*to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.

Give time to love, give time to speak, and give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”

Author:  Dr. Bob Moorehead is former pastor of Seattle’s Overlake Christian Church. He retired in 1998 after 29 years in that post. The essay appeared in ‘Words Aptly Spoken,’  Dr. Moorehead’s 1995 collection of prayers, homilies, and monologues used in his sermons and radio broadcasts.
However, it has many a times attributed in e-rumours to be written by George Carlin, a stand up comedian known for his foul mouth and four-lettered words. He himeslf denied having written this.

“O God, to those who have hunger, give bread, and to us who have bread, give the hunger for justice.” ~ Prayer from Latin America

A PLEDGE:
Let us make this Ramadan,
special,
by making our Iftars,
simple,
So that we may,
share
with the hungry and the poor
some food
and loads of love.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT:

“Eating alone is a disappointment.
But not eating matter more,
is hollow and green,
has thorns like a chain of fish hooks,
trailing from the heart,
clawing at your insides.
Hunger feels like pincers,
like the bite of crabs;
it burns, burns,
and has no fur.
Let us sit down soon to eat
with all those who haven’t eaten;
let us spread great tablecloths,
put salt in lakes of the world,
set up planetary bakeries,
tables with strawberries in snow,
and a plate like the moon itself
from which we can all eat.
For now I ask no more than the justice of eating.”
~ Pablo Neruda, Chilean Poet

“A hundred years from now
it will not matter
what your bank account was,
the sort of house you lived in,
or the kind of clothes you wore,
but the world may be much different
because you were important
in the life of a hungry child.”
~ Author Unknown

“To a man with an empty stomach food is God” — Gandhi

Dreaming of a world without hatred

The day for me, yesterday, began with the news of Mumbai blasts. Being an Indian origin who migrated after having married a Pakistani 20 years ago, first thing that occurred to me on hearing the blasts was that again the Indo-Pak peace talks shall be stalled and the same cascade of blame game, public statements from both sides, mudslinging, demanding ‘do more’ shall start. All it will serve to do is to reset the peace talks from the scratch. Spurts of cortisol laden with anxiety were rushing through my veins. As the mound of dead in the blasts were piling up, so was my fear in me, that a statement would come blaming Pakistan directly or implying of some group trained there. I knew it would be a sleepless night for me, following every minute of the TV coverage.

Later in the evening, Mumbai incident instantly vanished. There was an instant focus on the venomous words wagged by a rabid tongue. What was tragic was the cascade of events that took place, not just on land but on the walls of various Face Book friends.

It was not just the streets and the vehicles which were torched in anger, but many of the FB friends came out in the open, on their walls, in agreement with these insane words and splattered their share of fuel to the fire, against a whole community.

Within a couple of hours, one could see virtual borders drawn between the various ethnic groups, on a borderless virtual world of Face Book.

The frenzy of mindless hate did not spare me either. As I heard the statement, there was a severe convulsion of the ethnic Urdu speaking aka Muhajir in me. As if all of a sudden a sleeping immigrant woke up overpowering the ‘me’ in me, who till a moment ago took pride in rising above all kinds of differences. I never felt so much rage in me as at that moment. The hate in me wanted to avenge him.
I could sense the positivity drained out of me and replaced by an intense negative feeling of hate and loathing for this man. I would be lying if I would say that my mind did not wander trying to attempt hate for the community to which this mad man belonged. But thankfully, I still had intact memories of wonderful friends and great personalities from the same community and they kept my hateful sentiments in check. However hateful thoughts of this man kept jolting my head. I wanted him and all the ‘virtual’ friends on FB, who agreed with him, to be taught a ‘real’ lesson.
As if commenting on their walls wasn’t enough, I wanted to burn down their walls. In a couple of hours there was so much of energy drained out of me that instead of having spent this night in insomnia ( which is generally the rule when anything like the Mumbai blasts occurs) that I lay listless, and did not realise when was I lost into sleep. It was a restless sleep with visions of fire and blood splattered all over , on streets, on the FB walls. For a change these images did not make me sick. It did not make me feel good either, but it certainly wasn’t a sick feeling.

As I woke up in the morning, I reflected on my thoughts. I did not feel myself. This certainly was not me,.The monster of hate had engulfed me, last night.
After ages, I wept like a child. I cried how 25 years of my upbringing by staunchly secular parents and the rest 20 years of my own strong conviction in humanity as one were undone in a fraction of a second by the blurting of thoughtless statements by an insane man. I could see clearly now that it was a racist slur by a singular man not a community. I was grateful to my conscience, that the ‘me’ in me , who is blind to any color or creed, is taking control of me again.

I now realise exactly of what we read in history, of how passions go out of control, when incited with hateful words.

I also know now, first hand, how the feeling of intense loathing weakens a person physically and mentally in contrast to the strength of soul one gets in loving the whole humanity.

I also know now, first hand, how much of a sense of right vs wrong is blurred when one is overwhelmed with hatred.

I know now that my dream of a world without borders and a world without wars, on which I grew up, shall only be realised if we dream of a world without hatred.

I know exactly what do Pakistanis need, they need to shun hatred of all sorts.

Ilmana Fasih
July 14, 2011

Mbube~~Music Without Borders

This is the journey of an enchanting African doo-wop song ‘The lion sleeps tonight’ and it’s singer.
The original title of the song was “Mbube,” (pronounced EEM-boo-beh) which means “Lion”. It was sung with a haunting Zulu refrain that sounded, to English-speaking people, like “wimoweh.”
“Mbube” was written in the 1920s by Solomon Linda ( Linda was his tribe’s name), a South African singer of Zulu origin. He worked for the Gallo Record Company as a cleaner and record packer, performed with a choir, The Evening Birds.
“Mbube” was a big hit in what is now Swaziland, sold nearly 100,000 copies in the 1940s.
Linda had written the song based on a boyhood experience chasing lions that were stalking the family’s cattle.
He recorded the tune in 1939 with his choir, the Evening Birds. It was so popular that Zulu choral music became known as “Mbube Music”.
For his performance of “Mbube”, Solomon Linda was paid a fee very small fee. Gallo Records of South Africa reaped all the royalties of the record sales in South Africa and Great Britain. Unaware of the implications, Linda sold the rights to Gallo Record Company for 10 shillings (less than $US 2) soon after the recording was made.
Despite the popularity and wide use of the song, Linda died impoverished during 1962 of renal failure. It was not until 18 years later that a tombstone was constructed at his gravesite.
Then, in the mid-nineties, the song popular as ‘The lion sleeps tonight’ became a pop “supernova” (in the words of South African writer Rian Malan) when licensed to Walt Disney for use in the film The Lion King, its spin-off TV series and live musical. The song earned $15 million for its use in the movie The Lion King alone.
With the support of many activists including the writer Rian Milan a lawsuit was filed on behalf of the impoverished descendants of Solomon Linda, to get back the right s for the song . By the British laws then in effect ( in the time Linda sold the rights) , those rights should have reverted to Linda’s heirs 25 years after his death during 1962.
After an arduous battle, the ownership of “Mbube” reverted to Linda’s heirs 25 years after his death, in 2006.

The original song ‘Mbube’ by Solomon Linda sung in 1939

Current version sung by Ladysmith Black Mumbazo

Lyrics:

The lion sleeps tonight.

Lala kahle[Sleep well]
In the jungle, the mighty jungle
The lion sleeps tonight
In the jungle, the mighty jungle
The lion sleeps tonight

(Chorus)
Imbube
Fcuk
Ingonyama ilele[The lion sleeps]
Thula[Hush]

Near the village, the peaceful village
The lion sleeps tonight
Near the village, the peaceful village
The lion sleeps tonight

(Chorus)

Ingonyama ilele(The lion sleeps)
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/l/lion_king/the_lion_sleeps_tonight.html ]
Hush my baby, don’t fear my darling
The lion sleeps tonight
Hush my baby, don’t fear my darling
The lion sleeps tonight

He, ha helelemama[He, ha helelemama]
Ohi’mbube[lion]

(Chorus)

Ixesha lifikile[Time has come]
Lala[Sleep]
Lala kahle[Sleep well]

Near the village, the peaceful village
The lion sleeps tonight
Near the village, the peaceful village
The lion sleeps tonight

(Chorus)

My little darling
Don’t fear my little darling
My little darling
Don’t fear my little darling

Ingonyama ilele[The lion sleeps]
(Repeat to fade)

SOURCE: http://www.weeklybugle.com/music/mbube.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbube_(genre)

The Violin

The bow of my thoughts,
Glides hard
on the strings
Within the chest.
Triggers a convulsion
Fatal fibrillations ensue.
‘In arrest’ go
The pulsations of peace.
The notes scatter
helter skelter
Vexing with cramps
Of violent agony.
Music, is it?
Or cacophony perhaps?
Even I can’t decipher
From the violin
Of my heart.