Goodbye

I havent had much to say..or more accurately, the time to say it recently. The blog was an interesting experience but I think it is time to say ‘ciao’. Thanks for all those who have interacted positively.

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Esoteric music

I was debating with myself whether to translate the track above or not, but then decided not to because all meaning is lost in translation. Its an amazing rendition of part of an epic poem by the 18th Century Sufi Mystic Waris Shah in the Punjabi language. The epic is called Heer-Ranjha and on the surface it is a love story but it has deep esoteric meaning about man’s relation with the divine Beloved.

Punjabi is often considered quite a coarse language but this poem is anything but. Sure, it has an earthy quality to the language but this adds to its allure and indicates passion rather than coarseness. The rich metaphors are difficult to translate which is why I leave it for you to enjoy.

The singer is Shafqat Amanat Ali Khan who has been classically trained and comes from a musical family, the patron of which used to be the Mughal Emperor Akbar. I like his vocals because he is a specialist of mellismatic singing (singing one syllable in a number of notes). Mellismatic singing used to be practised in secret religious rites in the Ancient world and used to send people into an altered state. This is very much the case with Qawaalli, and I have personally witnessed people going into a state of ‘haal’ whilst listening to qawalli because of the mixture of meaning and mellismatic singing.

A contemporary of Waris Shah was Bulleh Shah, who was known to have mastered his ego, and famously said that dogs were superior to himself because of their loyalty to their master.

Heres some ‘kalaam’ of Bulleh Shah for you to enjoy. Again, it uses the metaphor of Ranjha and is untranslatable. Happy listening!

 

Pullens Estate

Theres an old Victorian development in South-east London that was saved from demolition by squatters in the 1980s known as the Pullens Estate. The squatters were mostly highly educated, liberal artistic folk whose tenancies were legalised and many went on to buy their properties from the Council at heavily discounted rates under the Government’s “Right-to-Buy” initiative under Thatcher. The area has now undergone a dramatic process of gentrification.

However, the area still boasts a food co-op where food is sold at the cost of purchase (plus costs for electricity etc) and is ethically sourced.Everyone working there volunteers their time for free. In the same building there is also an Anarchist library/archive and music store, in addition to a noticeboard of possible squats. The estate is amazing and I had to do a documentary of some of it for my MSc.

Inside/Out from LSE Cities Programme 07-08 on Vimeo.

 

Sara Baartman

I found this video quite fascinating in a strange way…this is recent history.

 

Lebanese Elections

Aside from being home to some of the hottest women on the planet, something else… its election time in Lebanon and these elections may influence politics in the middle east and by association, the rest of the world in the not too distant future.

The article on the BBC’s website about the elections is, for once, balanced and informative. Like, for example, I never would have thought that Hezbollah would have had support from Christians in Lebanon (mostly descendents of Chrisitan Crusaders who settled there) but the article features Antoine, an architecture student, “I am Christian and I don’t relate to Hezbollah on religious or ideological level, but I would vote for them because I like many other aspects like the resistance, fighting Israel as well as social issues that they are better at tackling.”

Also, Christian Parties seem to have allied themselves with Hezbollah. But what I find most interesting is that Rima, a girl who was awarded a scholarship to Harvard by an American organisation has voted for the American backed coalition. Would she have done so if she hadnt been awarded the scholarship by this organisation? And how comes people are getting free flights home to vote? The full aticle can be read HERE

 

Church bells

English tradition dictates that Sunday be a day of rest and I wake up relatively late on Sunday mornings. My alarm clock is the sound of the church bell at around 10am. But I dont mind them in the least because here I am living in West London and I get to hear something that the Americans would say is very quaint.

The bells remind me of the countryside so I feel a great sense of catharsis out of it. And I even like the fact that the bells do not start at exactly 10am every sunday because the sense of exact time not being all that important is something rather alien to London.

Long may the bells continue.

 

Parkour Event

Theres an event in London tomorrow that is not to be missed. See HERE

 

UrbanLondon

A new website project called UrbanLondon, which aims to give details of events (free and otherwise) in London and will feature interesting articles about this city.

 

The One

In the age of central locking this is redundant but I love the concept. The modern equivalent I suppose is if you’re carrying something light but bulky and the girl offering to carry it in her bag for you.

 

Bank Holiday Event

If people are looking for something to do in London next weekend this LINK takes you to an event which seems to be pretty good. Unfortunately I’m going to be away