Cannery Row

Canned by Neha

" CANNERY ROW in Monterey, California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and the scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses..."

"How can the poem and the stink and the grating noise - the quality of light, the one, the habit and the dream- be set down alive? ", asks author John Steinbeck after a brief introduction to the beautiful poetic prose that is Cannery Row. The story takes the reader through the streets of Cannery row, its people : Doc - the marine biologist , the fountain of philosophy, art and science who has done something nice for everyone at Cannery Row and for whom everyone at Cannery Row want's to do something nice , Lee Chong and his grocery store - the lifeline of Cannery Row's paraphernalia, Mack - the leader of a small group of men ( call them bums or call them free spirits) who have in common no family, no money and no ambitions beyond food, drink and contentment, Dora - the owner of the bear flag restaurant ( which is not a restaurant as you'd find!) , the male Gopher waiting to welcome his dream lady Gopher at his perfect residence on the vacant lot on Cannery Row and myriad of other incredibly interesting and quirky characters.

I love Cannery Row. For beginners, I am enchanted by my copy of the book which I picked from an old used book store I discovered. The store has three floors filled with books of all sizes, colors, shapes and languages. As I entered on a Sunday afternoon , the sleepy fan was making its usual rounds while its slow moving sound brought home a familiar comfort of tropical kind. And there it was - Cannery Row waiting for me to pick it up. The copy I found ( or rather which found me) was published in 1963 , 18 years after the book's first publication in 1945. The pages are yellow and it smells musty ...a bit like Cannery Row itself I like to think. The story of Cannery Row is a dream. Yet, it is so real. It is comical. Yet, it is deeply philosophical ( from beer milkshakes to moral, physical and aesthetic effect of Model T Ford on the American generations to beards to fortune to misfortune to surprise to frogs and rattlesnakes). The words sing and paint at the same time - a treat for an art lover .

The story has parallel themes with Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men ( which was written in 1937 and which I confess I also deeply love!). The misadventures of men of Of Mice and Men are of a different kind yet they evoke similar emotions as the men of Cannery Row. They have no family and share a deep camaraderie. They want a li'l place of their own where they can belong. While for Lennie and Milton ( in Of Mice and Men), it remains a distant dream which lives in their heart, Mack and the boys of Cannery Row are lucky in having made their home at the Palace Flophouse. Such must have also been the camaraderie between Steinbeck and his friend Ed Ricketts, the marine biologist on whom the Doc's character is based and to whom Steinbeck Dedicated the Cannery Row saying " For Ed Ricketts, who knows why or should". I love the Doc. Who doesn't. He's kind, eccentric and mysterious. I love when he reads the Black Marigold's , a 11th century love poem called Caurapañcāśikā written by an Indian poet, translated from Sanskrit by E Powy's Matherrs. A poem which only makes him more mysterious.

In a journal entry in 1938, Steinbeck wrote " In every bit of honest writing in the world there is a base theme. Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love. There are shorter means, many of them. There is writing promoting social change, writing punishing injustice, writing in celebration of heroism, but always that base theme. Try to understand each other. " And so it is with Cannery Row. It is honest and compassionate. Read it !

Notes: Read the Black Marigold translation here http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/bilhana/index.htm

चाँद और कवि

रात यों कहने लगा मुझसे गगन का चाँद,
आदमी भी क्या अनोखा जीव है!
उलझनें अपनी बनाकर आप ही फँसता,
और फिर बेचैन हो जगता, न सोता है।

जानता है तू कि मैं कितना पुराना हूँ?
मैं चुका हूँ देख मनु को जनमते-मरते
और लाखों बार तुझ-से पागलों को भी
चाँदनी में बैठ स्वप्नों पर सही करते।

आदमी का स्वप्न? है वह बुलबुला जल का
आज उठता और कल फिर फूट जाता है
किन्तु, फिर भी धन्य ठहरा आदमी ही तो?
बुलबुलों से खेलता, कविता बनाता है।

मैं न बोला किन्तु मेरी रागिनी बोली,
देख फिर से चाँद! मुझको जानता है तू?
स्वप्न मेरे बुलबुले हैं? है यही पानी?
आग को भी क्या नहीं पहचानता है तू?

मैं न वह जो स्वप्न पर केवल सही करते,
आग में उसको गला लोहा बनाता हूँ,
और उस पर नींव रखता हूँ नये घर की,
इस तरह दीवार फौलादी उठाता हूँ।

मनु नहीं, मनु-पुत्र है यह सामने, जिसकी
कल्पना की जीभ में भी धार होती है,
वाण ही होते विचारों के नहीं केवल,
स्वप्न के भी हाथ में तलवार होती है।

स्वर्ग के सम्राट को जाकर खबर कर दे-
रोज ही आकाश चढ़ते जा रहे हैं वे,
रोकिये, जैसे बने इन स्वप्नवालों को,
स्वर्ग की ही ओर बढ़ते आ रहे हैं वे।

- Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar'

Yaar tha Gulzar tha

Wilderness by Neha

yaar tha gulzar tha bad-e-saba thi main na tha
layaq-e-pa-bos-e-jan kya hina thi main na tha

hath kyon bandhe mere chala agar chori hua
ye sarapa shokhi-e-rang-e-hina thi main na tha

main ne pucha kya hua wo ap ka husn-o-shabab
hans k bola wo sanam shan-e-Khuda thi main na tha

main sisakta rah gaya aur mar gaye farahad-o-qais
kya unhin donon k hisse mein qaza thi main na tha

Bahadur Shah Zafar

Urdu Word Key : Gulzar= garden, saba = morning, qaza = judgement

Waiting for the barbarians

Waiting by Bondseye

( See image information below )

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are due here today.

Why isn't anything happening in the senate?

Why do the senators sit there without legislating?

Because the barbarians are coming today.

What laws can the senators make now?

Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.

Why did our emperor get up so early,

and why is he sitting at the city's main gate

on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?

Because the barbarians are coming today

and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.

He has even prepared a scroll to give him,

replete with titles, with imposing names.

Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today

wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?

Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,

and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?

Why are they carrying elegant canes

beautifully worked in silver and gold?

Because the barbarians are coming today

and things like that dazzle the barbarians.

Why don't our distinguished orators come forward as usual

to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

Because the barbarians are coming today

and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking.

Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?

(How serious people's faces have become.)

Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,

everyone going home so lost in thought?

Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.

And some who have just returned from the border say

there are no barbarians any longer.

And now, what's going to happen to us without barbarians?

They were, those people, a kind of solution

- Constantine Cavafy

Image Information : This image is from http://www.flickr.com/photos/bondomania/482223348/sizes/m/

Genius

Starry Night Over the Rhone by Vincent Van Gogh

Genius, like gold and precious stones,
is chiefly prized because of its rarity.

Geniuses are people who dash of weird, wild,
incomprehensible poems with astonishing facility,
and get booming drunk and sleep in the gutter.

Genius elevates its possessor to ineffable spheres
far above the vulgar world and fills his soul
with regal contempt for the gross and sordid things of earth.

It is probably on account of this
that people who have genius
do not pay their board, as a general thing.

Geniuses are very singular.

If you see a young man who has frowsy hair
and distraught look, and affects eccentricity in dress,
you may set him down for a genius.

If he sings about the degeneracy of a world
which courts vulgar opulence
and neglects brains,
he is undoubtedly a genius.

If he is too proud to accept assistance,
and spurns it with a lordly air
at the very same time
that he knows he can't make a living to save his life,
he is most certainly a genius.

If he hangs on and sticks to poetry,
notwithstanding sawing wood comes handier to him,
he is a true genius.

If he throws away every opportunity in life
and crushes the affection and the patience of his friends
and then protests in sickly rhymes of his hard lot,
and finally persists,
in spite of the sound advice of persons who have got sense
but not any genius,
persists in going up some infamous back alley
dying in rags and dirt,
he is beyond all question a genius.

But above all things,
to deftly throw the incoherent ravings of insanity into verse
and then rush off and get booming drunk,
is the surest of all the different signs
of genius.

- Mark Twain

The Walk

" walkers by tricky ™"

( see image information below)

My eyes already touch the sunny hill.
going far ahead of the road I have begun.
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has inner light, even from a distance-

and charges us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it,
we already are; a gesture waves us on
answering our own wave...
but what we feel is the wind in our faces.

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Image information : This image is from http://www.flickr.com/photos/sovietuk/2134028404/in/photostream/

The calming thought of all

" Birdwalk by Neha"

That coursing on whate'er men's speculations,
Amid the changing schools, theologies, philosophies,
Amid the bawling presentations new and old,
The round earth's silent vital laws, facts, modes continue.

- Walt Whitman

Credits : "The Calming Thought of All." New York Herald 27 May 1888: 12. Reprinted in the "Sands at Seventy" annex to Leaves of Grass (1888). ( Source: The Walt Whitman Archive , ID per.00124 )

इस पार, उस पार

Frontier by Neha

1

इस पार, प्रिये मधु है तुम हो, उस पार न जाने क्या होगा!

यह चाँद उदित होकर नभ में कुछ ताप मिटाता जीवन का, लहरालहरा यह शाखाएँ कुछ शोक भुला देती मन का, कल मुर्झानेवाली कलियाँ हँसकर कहती हैं मगन रहो, बुलबुल तरु की फुनगी पर से संदेश सुनाती यौवन का, तुम देकर मदिरा के प्याले मेरा मन बहला देती हो, उस पार मुझे बहलाने का उपचार न जाने क्या होगा! इस पार, प्रिये मधु है तुम हो, उस पार न जाने क्या होगा!

2

जग में रस की नदियाँ बहती, रसना दो बूंदें पाती है, जीवन की झिलमिलसी झाँकी नयनों के आगे आती है, स्वरतालमयी वीणा बजती, मिलती है बस झंकार मुझे, मेरे सुमनों की गंध कहीं यह वायु उड़ा ले जाती है; ऐसा सुनता, उस पार, प्रिये, ये साधन भी छिन जाएँगे; तब मानव की चेतनता का आधार न जाने क्या होगा! इस पार, प्रिये मधु है तुम हो, उस पार न जाने क्या होगा!

3

प्याला है पर पी पाएँगे, है ज्ञात नहीं इतना हमको, इस पार नियति ने भेजा है, असमर्थबना कितना हमको, कहने वाले, पर कहते है, हम कर्मों में स्वाधीन सदा, करने वालों की परवशता है ज्ञात किसे, जितनी हमको? कह तो सकते हैं, कहकर ही कुछ दिल हलका कर लेते हैं, उस पार अभागे मानव का अधिकार न जाने क्या होगा! इस पार, प्रिये मधु है तुम हो, उस पार न जाने क्या होगा!

4

कुछ भी न किया था जब उसका, उसने पथ में काँटे बोये, वे भार दिए धर कंधों पर, जो रो-रोकर हमने ढोए; महलों के सपनों के भीतर जर्जर खँडहर का सत्य भरा, उर में ऐसी हलचल भर दी, दो रात न हम सुख से सोए; अब तो हम अपने जीवन भर उस क्रूर कठिन को कोस चुके; उस पार नियति का मानव से व्यवहार न जाने क्या होगा! इस पार, प्रिये मधु है तुम हो, उस पार न जाने क्या होगा!

5

संसृति के जीवन में, सुभगे ऐसी भी घड़ियाँ आएँगी, जब दिनकर की तमहर किरणे तम के अन्दर छिप जाएँगी, जब निज प्रियतम का शव, रजनी तम की चादर से ढक देगी, तब रवि-शशि-पोषित यह पृथ्वी कितने दिन खैर मनाएगी! जब इस लंबे-चौड़े जग का अस्तित्व न रहने पाएगा, तब हम दोनो का नन्हा-सा संसार न जाने क्या होगा! इस पार, प्रिये मधु है तुम हो, उस पार न जाने क्या होगा!

6

ऐसा चिर पतझड़ आएगा कोयल न कुहुक फिर पाएगी, बुलबुल न अंधेरे में गागा जीवन की ज्योति जगाएगी, अगणित मृदु-नव पल्लव के स्वर ‘मरमर’ न सुने फिर जाएँगे, अलि-अवली कलि-दल पर गुंजन करने के हेतु न आएगी, जब इतनी रसमय ध्वनियों का अवसान, प्रिये, हो जाएगा, तब शुष्क हमारे कंठों का उद्गार न जाने क्या होगा! इस पार, प्रिये मधु है तुम हो, उस पार न जाने क्या होगा!

7

सुन काल प्रबल का गुरु-गर्जन निर्झरिणी भूलेगी नर्तन, निर्झर भूलेगा निज ‘टलमल’, सरिता अपना ‘कलकल’ गायन, वह गायक-नायक सिन्धु कहीं, चुप हो छिप जाना चाहेगा, मुँह खोल खड़े रह जाएँगे गंधर्व, अप्सरा, किन्नरगण; संगीत सजीव हुआ जिनमें, जब मौन वही हो जाएँगे, तब, प्राण, तुम्हारी तंत्री का जड़ तार न जाने क्या होगा! इस पार, प्रिये मधु है तुम हो, उस पार न जाने क्या होगा!

8

उतरे इन आखों के आगे जो हार चमेली ने पहने, वह छीन रहा, देखो, माली, सुकुमार लताओं के गहने, दो दिन में खींची जाएगी ऊषा की साड़ी सिन्दूरी, पट इन्द्रधनुष का सतरंगा पाएगा कितने दिन रहने; जब मूर्तिमती सत्ताओं की शोभा-सुषमा लुट जाएगी, तब कवि के कल्पित स्वप्नों का श्रृंगार न जाने क्या होगा! इस पार, प्रिये मधु है तुम हो, उस पार न जाने क्या होगा!

9

दृग देख जहाँ तक पाते हैं, तम का सागर लहराता है, फिर भी उस पार खड़ा कोई हम सब को खींच बुलाता है; मैं आज चला तुम आओगी कल, परसों सब संगीसाथी, दुनिया रोती-धोती रहती, जिसको जाना है, जाता है; मेरा तो होता मन डगडग, तट पर ही के हलकोरों से! जब मैं एकाकी पहुँचूँगा मँझधार, न जाने क्या होगा! इस पार, प्रिये मधु है तुम हो, उस पार न जाने क्या होगा!

- Harivansh Rai Bachchan

We are many

The House of Many Colors by D-Kav

( see image information below)

Of the many men whom I am, whom we are,
I cannot settle on a single one.
They are lost to me under the cover of clothing
They have departed for another city.

When everything seems to be set
to show me off as a man of intelligence,
the fool I keep concealed on my person
takes over my talk and occupies my mouth.

On other occasions, I am dozing in the midst
of people of some distinction,
and when I summon my courageous self,
a coward completely unknown to me
swaddles my poor skeleton
in a thousand tiny reservations.

When a stately home bursts into flames,
instead of the fireman I summon,
an arsonist bursts on the scene,
and he is I. There is nothing I can do.
What must I do to distinguish myself?
How can I put myself together?

All the books I read
lionize dazzling hero figures,
brimming with self-assurance.
I die with envy of them;
and, in films where bullets fly on the wind,
I am left in envy of the cowboys,
left admiring even the horses.

But when I call upon my DASHING BEING,
out comes the same OLD LAZY SELF,
and so I never know just WHO I AM,
nor how many I am, nor WHO WE WILL BE BEING.
I would like to be able to touch a bell
and call up my real self, the truly me,
because if I really need my proper self,
I must not allow myself to disappear.

While I am writing, I am far away;
and when I come back, I have already left.
I should like to see if the same thing happens
to other people as it does to me,
to see if as many people are as I am,
and if they seem the same way to themselves.
When this problem has been thoroughly explored,
I am going to school myself so well in things
that, when I try to explain my problems,
I shall speak, not of self, but of geography.

- Pablo Neruda

Image Information : This image is from http://www.flickr.com/photos/d-kav/4182436263/

The Essence of Mind

" I have lots of things to teach you now, in case we ever meet, concerning the message that was transmitted to me under a pine tree in North Carolina on a cold winter moonlit night. It said that Nothing Ever Happened, so don’t worry. It’s all like a dream. Everything is ecstasy, inside. We just don’t know it because of our thinking-minds. But in our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever. Close your eyes, let your hands and nerve-ends drop, stop breathing for 3 seconds, listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot, which was taught in immense milky way soft cloud innumerable worlds long ago and not even at all. It is all one vast awakened thing. I call it the golden eternity. It is perfect. We were never really born, we will never really die. It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea of a personal self, other selves, many selves everywhere: Self is only an idea, a mortal idea. That which passes into everything is one thing. It’s a dream already ended. There’s nothing to be afraid of and nothing to be glad about. I know this from staring at mountains months on end. They never show any expression, they are like empty space. Do you think the emptiness of space will ever crumble away? Mountains will crumble, but the emptiness of space, which is the one universal essence of mind, the vast awakenerhood, empty and awake, will never crumble away because it was never born."

- Jack Kerouac ( in a letter written to his first wife, Edie in 1957 , thanks to my friend AK for this as also for introducing me to Kerouac's writings which I so love)

There is a way

A Thousand Steps by Neha

The intellect says: "The six directions are limits: there is no way out."
Love says: "There is a way. I have traveled it thousands of times."
The intellect saw a market and started to haggle;
Love saw thousands of markets beyond that market.

- Rumi

(Translated by Andrew Harvey from A Year of Rumi )

Glitter in the air

Glitter Glue by incurable_hippie

( See image information below)

Have you ever fed a lover with just your hands?

Close your eyes and trust it, just trust it

Have you ever thrown a fist full of glitter in the air?

Have you ever looked fear in the face

And said I just don't care?

It's only half past the point of no return

The tip of the iceberg, the sun before the burn

The thunder before lightning, the breath before the phrase

Have you ever felt this way?

Have you ever hated yourself for staring at the phone?

Your whole life waiting on the ring to prove you're not alone

Have you ever been touched so gently you had to cry?

Have you ever invited a stranger to come inside?

It's only half past the point of oblivion

The hourglass on the table, the walk before the run

The breath before the kiss and the fear before the flames

Have you ever felt this way?

There you are, sitting in the garden

Clutching my coffee, calling me sugar

You called me sugar

Have you ever wished for an endless night?

Lassoed the moon and the stars and pulled that rope tight

Have you ever held your breath and asked yourself

Will it ever get better than tonight? Tonight

Performed by Pink, Album:Funhouse,Songwriters: Billy Mann; Alecia Moore ( Pink!)

I absolutely loved the awe-inspiring breathless performance of this song by Pink at this year's Grammy Awards ..here's to lots of pixie dust!

- Watch the Grammy Performance at : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LK189OhrfK4&feature=rec-LGOUT-exp_fresh+div-1r-2-HM

- Listen to the album version at : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_1apBILe34

- Image Information : This image is from http://www.flickr.com/photos/hippie/2476631686/sizes/s/

मैंने मन में ठानी है

मैंने शांति नहीं जानी है !
त्रुटि कुछ है मेरे अन्दर भी ,
त्रुटि कुछ है मेरे बाहर भी ,
दोनों को त्रुटि हीन बनाने की मैंने मन में ठानी है !
मैंने शांति नहीं मानी है !

आयु बिता दी यत्नों में लग ,
उसी जगह मैं , उसी जगह जग ,
कभी - कभी सोचा करता अब , क्या मैंने की नादानी है !
मैंने शांति नहीं जानी है !

पर निराश होऊं किस कारण ,
क्या पर्याप्त नहीं आशवासन ?
दुनिया से मानी , अपने से मैंने हार नहीं मानी है !
मैंने शांति नहीं जानी है

- Harivansh Rai Bachchan

The way we were

"Hey, everybody's talkin' about the good old days, right
Everybody, the good old days, the good old days
Well, let's talk about the good old days
Come to think of it as, as bad as we think they are
these will become the good old days for our children, hum
Why don't we , ah
Try to remember that kind of September
When life was slow and oh, so mellow, hum
Try to remember, and if you remember then follow
Oh, why does it seem the past is always better
We look back and think
The winters were warmer
The grass was greener
The skies were bluer
And smiles were bright"

Can it be that it was all so simple then
Or has time rewritten every line
And if we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me
Would we
Could we

Memories, like the corners of my mind
Misty watercolor memories
Of the way we were
Scattered pictures of the smiles we left behind
Smiles we gave to one another
For the way we were

Oh, can it be that it was all so simple then
Or has time rewritten every line
And if we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me
Would we
Could we

Memories, may be beautiful and yet
What's too painful to remember
We simply choose to forget
So it's the laughter we will remember
Whenever we remember
The Way We Were...
Remember, the way we were

- Gladys Knight and the Pips

- Listen to this lovely song on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Awg_dBS_-bU

Free mind

"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; none but ourselves can free our minds."

- Bob Marley

Dive Today

Tomorrow you'll be brave, you say? Fool! Dive today
From the cliff of what you know into what you can't know.
You fear the rocks? Better men than you have died on them;
Dying on Love's rocks is nobler than a life of death.

- Rumi ( Translation by Andrew Harvey)

To a stranger

ASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,

You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a dream,)

I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,

All is recall'd as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,

You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me,

I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours only nor left my body mine only,

You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass, you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,

I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone,

I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,

I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

- Walt Whitman

Food for thought..

And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence.

-Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)