Some Beautiful Young Women (Kalidasa)

Some beautiful young
women fully fulfilled after
making love, still feel the

rushes rising in their thighs
and reaching up their groins.
These women dip

themselves in oils
and massage themselves,
sitting in the morning sun.

They let off the surges
still persisting after having
made love.

Note: Original is in Sanskrit. This translation
is based on a prose translation of Coming of Winter,
Verse 17 in The Ritusamhara of Kalidasa.

Be Gentle and Slow (Kabir)

Be gentle and slow, O my mind
Everything happens slowly

A gardener might squander
A hundred buckets of water


But the plants will bear
Fruit, only in the season.

Note: The original is in Hindi

(via sulekha)

Krishna Appears Darker (Mirabai)

I hear a note from a
flute coming down the
river. O my enchanted
heart! what doubts the flute
player has not yet
calmed in your mind?


In dark trousers near the
dark Jamuna waters,
Krishna appears darker
than ever before.
A single note from his
flute makes me lose my
mind. I stumble and ask
to be free of these
torments of mine.

Note: The original song is in Hindi.

(via sulekha)

To Be A Woman (Blaga Dimitrova)

It hurts to be a woman.
It pains when she becomes
A girl, a beloved, a mother.

But the most unbearable
suffering on the earth is
of a woman who does not
know these sufferings.

Note: This is based on another English translation
of a Bulgarian Poem by Blaga Dimitrova here

~Ravi
(via sulekha)

Nostalgia (Fernando Pessoa)

Life, an experiential journey taken involuntarily
the spirit travels feeling the world
sitting in my chair, contemplating
I see the world vicariously

I’ve lived without ever having lived
I’ve thought without ever having thought
I’ve danced without ever having danced
taking stillborn adventures calmly

I am sick of what I never had
or likely will ever have
I am sick of gods
always just about to appear

My body bears the wounds
of battles never fought
my muscles are weary
of efforts never wrought

Great unknown lassitude
engulfs me today
I suppress my helpless tears
born of my sick soul

I look at the sky
dull, dumb and empty
as it never ever existed
or will never be there

I sleep when I think
I lie down when I walk
I suffer feeling nothing
my suffering is for nothing

My nostalgia is for nothing
like the sky above
that I do not see
but gaze at impersonally.
***

Note: This is based on Fernando Pessoa’s prose in ‘Livro do Desassossego’
translated from Portuguese into English by Margaret Jull Costa,
p 74-75, Serpent's Tail, London, 1991.

~Ravi
(via sulekha)

Watching the Beautiful Moon He Mused

Near the mountains
far off the city, the Zen
master lived a
humble life in a
plain hut.

A thief sneaked in
when he was away one day.
He searched and searched
but found nothing of value.

Seeing the master returning,
in panic he was fleeing.
"Wait," he heard
"A long way you came,
you will not go empty
handed."

Undressing himself he
gave the thief his clothes
and sat on the floor naked.
Watching the beautiful
moon he mused:
'Poor fella, I wish
I could give him the moon.'

Note: This is a rendering of a story
in Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, p 27, Tuttle
Publishing, Boston, 1998.

~Ravi
(via sulekha)

The Marriage of the Bourgeois

He plays the part of a bridegroom
She to lose his head
They’ll live under the same roof
Until their house falls
Until their house falls

He is a discreet employee
She puts starch on his collars
They’ll live under the same roof
Until they explode the nest
Until they explode the nest

He plays the part of a restless virile man
She makes the children in heaps
They’ll live under the same roof
Until the fountain goes dry
Until the fountain goes dry

He is a full-time employee
She learns how to make candles
They’ll live under the same roof
Until they burn down each other
Until they burn down each other

He has a secret affair
She says she won’t be unfaithful
They’ll live under the same roof
Until they marry their offspring
Until they marry their offspring

He talks of potassium cyanide
She dreams of poisons
They’ll live under the same roof
Until one of them decides
Until one of the decides

He has an old project
She has a mountain of outlets
They’ll live under the same roof
Until the days come to an end
Until the days come to an end

Sometimes he shows her affection
She undresses herself in the dark
They’ll live under the same roof
Until a brief time in the future
Until a brief time in the future

She warms up the grandson’s porridge
He has amassed a fortune
They’ll live under the same roof
Until they are united in death
Until they are united in death

~Ravi
(via sulekha)

OUR SENSE OF CRISIS IN THE AIR

“There’s a sense of crisis in the air over the notion that reason itself is in jeopardy.”
~Deepak Chopra
***

Have no reason
Don’t be rational
Don’t use your brain
Do what the holy books say

Pray to Jesus
Who died for you
Pray to his Father
Who fathered him

Pray to Mary
Who allowed Father
To take away her virginity
In immaculate conception

Call a cow your mother
Become like her a coward
Drink her urine
(as some Hindus do)
To become healthy as a bull

All this religiosity
All this spirituality
Will make you holy
And you’ll go to heaven

But if you get sick
Don’t get medicine
Don’t go to a doc
He uses science-inventions

Don’t drive a car
Don’t fly in a plane
Don’t use your PC
All made by science-inventions

Ride a donkey
Send mail par les pigeons
Live in a cave
Like those who brought you God.

(via sulekha)

WHO IS GOD?

God is omnipotent
yet he can't do anything
he can't stop the Darfur genocide
he can't stop the war in Iraq

God is omniscient
yet he knows nothing
science knows how the world works
science knows why man wants God

God is omnipresent
yet he is nowhere
out of nowhere he comes
into nowhere he goes

God is timeless
yes, he's stupid
he cannot read
his wrist watch

(via sulekha)

Shiva's New Wife

A Love Poem

A middle aged American woman
fully strange and wholly crazy,
is getting Indianised
seeing old Indian movies and
loving Indian love songs.
Throwing away her thongs,
she now wears a silk
floral sari six yards long,
hiding well her bulging
behind on her stump like egs.

She got into Indian spirituality.
Shiva's lingam-worship she liked.
She bought a statue of Shiva's son,
that cute boy with an elephant head
whose favourite pets were mice and rats.

She thinks in her new Indian head
she could be the beautiful Parvati,
wife of Shiva, mother of Ganesha.
So to be in a loving family she worships
Shiva's lingam and loves her son, Ganesha.
She places on his lingam fresh red roses daily
and prays something in whispers closing her eyes.
(What she wishes you can well guess!)
She offers ladoos - Indian sweets -to Ganesha daily
to keep her son smiling for food for his favourite pets.

She had a cat, no man, a companion for umpteenth years
but the spinster cat committed suicide jumping out of window
thinking if no tomcat in this life, she would find in another.
Ganesha smiled at her cat's death going to some cat-heaven
and acquired a little white mouse with beady eyes and tiny whiskers
that came through the city's sewage pipe to find his master in the house.

Now the little rascal relishes ladoos, dances around lingam of Shiva.
It still does not see Parvati eye to eye but seems to like her well.
It does not chew her Kamasutra books nor her spiritual Vedic books,
nor does it chew that book on Kabala containing deep secrets of the world
and doesn't jump on quantum health books, nor on how to know your God.
It loves living a happy life making happy his master Ganesha and
Ganesha's father's new beautiful wife in a six yards long silk floral sari.

It's happy Christmas for Shiva and his lingam.
It's happy Christmas for Ganesha, his son.
It's happy Christmas for the beady-eyed white little rascal with tiny whiskers
and it's happy Christmas for Parvati, Shiva's new crazy Indianised American wife.

(via sulekha)

HOW TO BE A NEW AGE GURU

Take some tantra-mantra stuff
take some karma dharma stuff
from Ancient Indian writings
and claim the stuff to be

Original, your very own and
write books in gobbledygook
for the illiterate Westerners, mentioning
quantum and physics here and there.

And since they like money
tell them spirituality brings in money
and since they like sex, invariably,
tell them Kamasutra is good, spiritually.

But always talk of love, love, love,
consciousness and compassion,
God, souls, beauty and kindness
and searching self in meditation.

Those who read, recruit even more
and famous you'll become overnight
as a new age guru of wisdom
and mucho dinero you'll make.

(via sulekha)

TENDER IS THE NIGHT

"Tender is the Night."
Tender is she
in a see through
red gown
long black hair
white thighs
red glossed lips
big soft mounds
drinking rum with coke
waiting for his client's
knock
on her door
to welcome him
in her warm self
to give him warmth
of soft spots
till he's done
with the milky flow
of Eros.

Note: The first line is from the 30th Chorus of Jack Kerouac
in Mexico City Blues, p 30, Grove Press, NY, 1959.

(via sulekha)

THERE IS NO GOD, Psalm 14 in Holy Bible

Psalm 14:1:

The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.”. They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.

"There is no God!"
say the fools to themselves
(from Psalm 14 in holy Bible)

"There is God!"
say the wise to the world

though there is no proof of it
they are wise by Bible

but the scientists think
other wise about them

as they try proving God's existence
applying laws of physics to Him

if their God made the universe
He made the laws of science as well

so they should be using God
to prove the laws of science

and not using science
to prove His existence

how strange they only speculate
and their God proves nothing for them

Note: original poem by the author is here

DIAPHANOUS (Ahmad Naseem Qasimi)

Urdu Poetry from Pakistan in Translation


Screws and Turns of Body and Soul

How diaphanous was your
body when you passed
by me yesterday!

I saw the calmness of a
lake spread all over your
face, and when I turned my
glances to your heart,

I saw the
upheavals of hell,
as if struck by an
earthquake.

Note: The original Urdu poem of
Ahmad Nadeem Qasimi here

(via sulekha)

SMITTEN BY HIS LOVE

Translation of a song in Baabul, an Indian Hindi movie

Smitten by his love,
where can she go
to tell her sufferings?

She got drenched in
colors of his love,
calling him darling

repeatedly.
She merged with him.
She became a shadow

of her unfaithful lover.
Everywhere she looked for the
roads leading him home.

Everyday she cried out his
name, she couldn't still
set straight his ways.

Smitten by his love,
where can she go
to tell her sufferings?

Note: See the original Hindi lyrics
with another English translation here

(via sulekha)

NEIGHBORS, MY LOVER IS LEAVING

Urdu Poetry from Pakistan in Translation
Neighbors, my lover is leaving

What do I do now, O Lord

He doesn't stay, he's ready to go
What do I do now, O Lord

In my cold heart, a bulbul is rising
Is seeing forests in the wilderness
What do I do now, O Lord

Now Bulleh Shah without his lover
Is stranded at neither bank of the river
What does he do now, O Lord

Note: The original Urdu poem
of Bulleh Shah is here

(via sulekha)

LOVE AND LUST (Amjad Islam Amjad)

Urdu Poetry from Pakistan in Translation

O evening, be my witness

When lips smolder under
the sweetness of kisses,
when moon melts in
the warmth of breaths
and when her hidden
treasures restlessly
open under the
softness of hands,
no difference remains
between love and lust.
-surely for the moment -
When bodies talk,
even rivers stop flowing.
I tell no lies.
O evening, be my witness.

Note: The original Urdu poem of
Amjad Islam Amjad from here

(via sulekha)

The List of ungodly fools and other statistics

A must see video!
With some revealing statistics.

In a study by univ. of Minnesota, more than 2000 people were asked which of their fellow citizens lacked the proper "vision of American Society"

More than blacks, gays, immigrants , lesbians or even muslims...atheists are viewed as the least American(according to the survey)

Christians make upto 75% of the US population
Christians make upto 75% of the prison population
Federal Bureau of Prisons, 1997

Atheists make upto 10% of the world population
Atheists only make up 0.2% of the prison population
Federal Bureau of Prisons, 1997

No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots. This is one nation under God.

George Bush

The list of fools who said, "There is no God":

Isaac Asimov
Noam chomsky
Francis crick
Marie curie
Richard Dawkins
Daniel Dennet
Thomas Edison
Stephen Could
Steven Pinker
Karl Popper
Carl Sagan
Michael Shermer
James watson
E.O. Wilson

Marlon Brando
Jodie Foster
Seth Green
Angelina Jolie
Bruce Lee
Dave Matthews
Ian McKellen
Julianne Moore
Jack Nicholson
Penn and Teller
Christopher Reeve
Gene Roddenberry
Steven Soderbergh
Susan B. Anthony
Lance Armstrong
Warren Buffet
Bill Gates
Ernest Hemmingway
James Randi
Charles Schulz
Pat Tillman
( who went into the army, instead of NFL)
Mark Twain

It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring

Carl sagan

CAUSES

And when our blind eyes were opened we realized we lost...

Because we could find the answer to anything in the world in Vedas, the ancient Hindu texts
Because we thought Vedas had words of God and could not be wrong
Because we surmised man, intelligence, consciousness exist because God exists
Because we were unaware scientists always ignored us or never read the books we read
Because we started calling them arrogant and bigots and they came after us
Because we think nothing new, only our speculations
Because we could not prove anything we claim to be true
Because we each think we are a one-eyed-king among the blind and the rest are all blind
Because we hardly knew we were no match to the men of science
Because we never liked science, only irrationality and spirituality

And we lost --
Because irrationality, blind beliefs, religions and God are the things of the past
Because science holds the keys to the present, past and the future.


Note: The original poem by the author is here