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cere-mon-ials · 1 month ago

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2024 in what made me happy: a misc list

the broadcast schedules of cdrama. this year, for the first time, i finished a cdrama because i saw one gif set of wu jinyang telling wang xingyue that he was handsome in the pouring rain. after the double, i watched and loved love like the galaxy, watched and loved amidst a snowstorm of love. then, i began watching and loving blossom as it aired new episodes every single day. i love what this has done to my drama-watching routines because it's not as fickle as a binge drop and it's not as sedate as weekly drops.

no, but weekly drops too. especially, only murders in the building and running to reddit to see what all the hot new theories are. and, culinary class wars — that was a good month.

i refused to listen to podcasts, and it made some small room to listen to other, more useful, voices. i didn’t finish books i cared little for. i closed tabs and deleted bookmarks more often. i didn't attend any weddings, in an attempt to recover from the weddings i did attend in 2023 and the 2025 invitations currently dinging on my whatsapp.

got a job, hated it, found some courage to turn back on the excellent pay, and left it. got another job soon enough, one that now keeps me on my toes but isn't painful on my heels.

my mother's saree collection, and to the first year of my life when i got to wear them on the reg.

learning chinese and refining my urdu. i can now recall maybe 15 chinese characters without fumbling and read a faiz poem slowly, with a pencil and in a quiet room. it's great because it's so difficult.

saife hassan, whose direction of zard patton ka bunn has (a) seized me back into pakistani drama (b) given me meenu and nofil's tender, sweet romance (c) brought back feelings that i thought dead and wouldn't want to articulate in this space.

the ambition in as byatt's possession, which crept into my dreams to remind me that i am slacking and in cixin liu's three-body problem, which crept into my nightmares to remind me that the grand architecture held in the entirety of my imagination is a speck in the universe. i can't tell you if i loved or even enjoyed either book but i don't think it matters. i have reserved the remaining two books of liu's trilogy for 2025.

steaming white rice with a spoonful of ghee and a smattering of salt, the most delicious appetizer to any meal.

last year, after avoiding them because they were always priced higher, i began buying poetry books. this growing bedside stack has been my solace and i love reaching for a random page to find something i needed to read in that moment. i began this year with my dearest heaney and i intend to end it with cavafy.

the discipline of a simple skincare routine, which i am not always good at keeping up with and my skin isn't all that better either but i am trying.

syd & carmy & richie & tina & marcus & chef terry & everyone else in the bear.

the soundtrack of lovely runner kept me company on some of the longest commutes and shut out loud arguments in the ladies compartment. the soundtrack of love like the galaxy felt like the soundtrack of my life for about three months this year. the soundtrack of the last samurai came out of nowhere to aid me during difficult work sessions. i am always in search of appropriate times to blast the soundtrack of gully boy, the weeknd's my dear melancholy, and frou frou's details. there's no lack of appropriate times to blast a rahman album.

driving, i guess. i resisted for as long as i could because i am a public transportation person but i do not live in a city that is conducive for it. i do feel a strange sense of accomplishment at learning this skill.

the classics that i missed when they were being defined as such: i loved moonstruck's ridiculous commitment to being perfect because of its loudness and not despite it. sandra and keanu really did something special with speed (i know!!!) and i was beyond thrilled to experience that kind of textured action filmmaking. michael clayton and the pelican brief were wonderful watches as smaller, quieter, revelatory films where stars get to be actors. lee mi-sook in an affair changed me at a molecular level.

i fell in love all over again with short films and documentaries: loved sean wang's silly and heartfelt nǎi nai & wài pó, loved maryam takafory's touching irani bag. i rewatched amit dutta's nainsukh a full decade after i first watched it in college and i am yet to figure out how he did it.

monsoons, which i didn't get to experience this year but about which i read a miscellaneous ton in search of a doctoral thesis topic for whenever i choose the take the plunge. i am never not thinking about those winds and those rains from my childhood and the limited future i can imagine for myself.

my k-pop listening has suffered because my favourites are serving in the military but i held on thanks to the loving embrace of enhypen. i watched their online concerts with utmost pleasure. best performances: enhypen. best album: ateez's golden hour, part 2. best music video: stray kids' chk chk boom.

hozier singing i think i'll take my whiskey neat / my coffee black and my bed at three / you're too sweet for me.

so much hozier, london grammar, rahman, the hindi cinema by the decade playlists on spotify, and terrible tiktok music that unfortunately sound fab in the car music system.

my loved ones and all of you, who are better than me in every way that counts.

#goodbye to a year that answered more than it questioned #notes #2024 in review

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mehreenkhan · 1 year ago

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Hey. Can you please elaborate the meaning of your bio "bawajud e dil .... "

In the workplace of existence, the asset of the tulip is its scar;

The lightning of the harvest of comfort is the hot blood of the farmer

From bud to full bloom, it appears as the petal of contentment

Despite its collected heart, the dream of the rose is scattered.

How would the sorrow of impatience be endured by us?

The wound shows weakness in earnest and the flame has a straw in its teeth.

Bawajud-e-dil-jami khawab-e-gul pareshan hai

Is taken from the second verse of Colossus of Urdu literature — Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib’s Persian poem “کارگاہ ہستی میں ” where he describes the fate of the bud. [The following explanation is taken from various sources and none of it is mine.]

There are different explanations for the second verse and it is critical to read all of these to develop your own understanding of the verse.

Sarfraz K. Niazi from Ghalib.org explicates the verse as

The bud seems composed. Despite this composure, the rose is destined to a disturbed dream as it eventually withers away.

Syed Noman-ul-Haq from Dawn describes it like this:

A bud has all its petals closed up, held tight together, fully collected. Naturally, its dream is to bloom, to become a flower. But then, there is a cosmic paradox waiting to manifest itself: as soon as the bud opens up to bloom, it loses its collectedness; now its petals have lost the firm embrace of one another, thrown thereby into disconcert. What was togetherness has, in the fulfilment of the dream, turned into a scatter. Winds will further scatter the split-open bud — now a flower — by blowing away its petals, and bees and worms will invade its integrity to destruction. Recall ‘The Sick Rose’ of William Blake here: “O Rose, thou art sick ...”

As Francis Pritchett brings to our knowledge:

That is, as long as the bud openly shows its attainment of the 'provision of contentment'-- that is, its remaining happy through contentment-- how can this be known to happen? When this is the case, then the rose has, instead of 'heart-composure', 'anxiety'. And thus the bud has been used as a simile, and from that the aspect of 'heart-collectedness' is manifest. In the same way, the scattering of the petals of the opened rose makes manifest the aspect of 'disturbed'. And the rose's silence and prostration in fatigue show the state of sleep/dream. In short, since all these three states befall the rose, then despite its 'heart-collectedness', the sleep/dream of the rose remains disordered/scattered. And the cause of this disorder is that it broods, 'let's see whether in this realm of disaster the 'provision of contentment' is possible or not'.

Josh:

In barg there is an īhām . The reason is that it means 'leaf', and also 'wealth, treasure' [toshah]. In connection with the rose, barg meaning 'leaf' is the most obvious meaning. But here he has taken the remote meaning.

“What I really love about this verse is the second line. It stuck in my mind the first time I ever heard it. It has that great sense of 'mood', and so much flowingness and resonance! You don't even need the first line, in order to enjoy the second one very fully. In fact it's almost better without the first line, for then you're left to imagine for yourself the nature of the rose's restlessness in its sleep/dream. Then it's a line full of mystery, with a powerful ominousness that evokes for us our own similar fate.”

It is impossible to explicate Ghalib's poetry in a single post as he enjoys setting up fine, lucid metaphorical equations, and then subvert them or tangle them up. You can read a more detailed analysis here.

#mirza ghalib #explication #urdu poetry #desiblr #poetry blog #urdu literature

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beheworthy · 1 year ago

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do you have any songs that remind you of fosterson?

i have many songs that i associate with them but they're all in my language. there's so much gifset-worthy beautiful hindi/urdu poetry in them that i. just. can't. share. with y'all!!!! :/

i don't listen to english songs that much. but the title of one of my fics comes from taylor swift's song 'exile'.

here are 3 songs from my collection. all vids have english translation, tho i don't think hindi/urdu poetry can be aptly translated.

1. Laal Ishq, meaning 'red love' (red symbolising passion here) - i think i've shared this before but this is the most important thorjane song for me. i'll just copy paste what i said to Vi (@uniiiquehecrt ) when i shared it with her:

youtube

It starts with the sound of bells in a temple, giving it a spiritual touch. The man talks about how he collided with the woman (their separate worlds collided) and now he's changed forever. She changed his old ways. But since they are from different opposing worlds, no one will let them be together. He will do whatever he can to be with her/sneak moments with her. Run away, hide, destroy everything.

This song is based on Romeo Juliet, hence the ref to the line 'call me but love'. Patty Jenkins saw Thor Jane as Romeo Juliet. So, there's that connection. And the singer's vocals are simply out of this world, even if you don't understand the language.

2. O Bedardeya, meaning calling the other person 'heartless/merciless':

youtube

(not the best translation)

the breakup song where the guy says how much she hurt him, how heartless she is, how it ruined him. he asks her to hurt him some more. and demands her to do him justice this one time if she ever did love him.

really cathartic. here's the vid, btw, because it's worth looking at how angry the guy is at her. this doesn't have the extended verse where he says she should tell everyone how horrible he was because he wants to hear it and hate himself some more.

3. Hasi, meaning 'smile' - the female pov song:

youtube

she talks abt having nothing and no one and how he gave her everything. the line of the song for me roughly translates to - he gave her everything by giving everything of his up in his mad love for her.

#i feel like nobody is going to understand what i'm saying here #answers #anonymous #thor #thor odinson #jane foster #thor x jane #marvel #otp playlist #ram leela #tu jhoothi main makkaar #hamari adhuri kahani #arijit's voice is what love sounds like btw

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rap-bull · 1 year ago

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THE JOURNEY OF JAUN ELIA.

Jaun Elia: Life History and Famous Poetry

Life History: Syed Sibt-e-Ashgar Naqvi, known by his pen name Jaun Elia, was a renowned Pakistani Urdu-language poet, philosopher, biographer, and scholar. He was born on December 14, 1931, in Amroha, British India. Jaun Elia belonged to a family of scholars and intellectuals; his father, Allama Shafiq Hasan Elia, was a scholar of Persian and Urdu, and his brother, Rais Amrohvi, was a well-known psychoanalyst and philosopher.

Jaun Elia's academic journey took him to various institutions, including the University of Karachi, where he earned his Master's degree in Urdu literature. He later pursued postgraduate studies at the University of London and earned a second Master's degree.

Despite his academic achievements, Jaun Elia led a tumultuous personal life marked by financial difficulties, failed relationships, and struggles with addiction. His unconventional lifestyle and disregard for societal norms were reflected in his poetry, which often explored themes of love, existentialism, and the complexities of human relationships.

Jaun Elia's love for languages and literature extended beyond Urdu. He was well-versed in Persian, Arabic, English, and various regional languages, which enriched the linguistic diversity of his poetry.

Famous Poetry: Jaun Elia's poetry is characterized by its depth, intellectualism, and a unique blend of classical and modern elements. His verses often showcased a fusion of traditional ghazal forms with a modern, free-verse style. Here are some notable aspects of his poetry:

Intellectual Depth: Jaun Elia's poetry reflects a deep engagement with philosophical and existential themes. His verses are marked by intellectual rigor, exploring the complexities of life, love, and the human condition.

Love and Despair: A significant portion of Jaun Elia's poetry revolves around themes of unrequited love, heartbreak, and the melancholy of separation. His verses express the intensity of emotions, blending classical poetic motifs with a contemporary sensibility.

Satire and Wit: Known for his sharp wit and satirical observations, Jaun Elia's poetry often critiqued societal norms, conventions, and hypocrisies. His verses were a medium through which he conveyed social commentary and his own philosophical reflections.

Versatility in Forms: While rooted in the classical tradition of Urdu poetry, Jaun Elia experimented with various forms, including ghazal, nazm, and free verse. His poetry reflects a fusion of traditional and modern styles.

Legacy: Jaun Elia's influence extends far beyond his lifetime. Despite facing challenges during his life, his poetry has gained immense popularity posthumously. His literary contributions continue to be celebrated, and his verses resonate with readers who appreciate the depth and intellectual richness of Urdu poetry.

Jaun Elia passed away on November 8, 2002, leaving behind a legacy of profound and evocative poetry that continues to captivate and inspire lovers of Urdu literature.

Poetry collections of jaun elia

Sukhan Meri Udasee Hai Zakham-e-Umeed Mubada Tumharey Aur Mere Darmiyan Daricha Haye Kheyal Qitaat Inshaye aur Mazaameen Farnood Is Rang Ke Tufaan Shayad firaaq

Elia was not just a poet but was also an editor and a translator, especially of old Sufi, Mutazili and Ismaili treatises.

Masih-i-Baghdad Hallaj, Jometria, Tawasin, usman Isaghoji, Rahaish-o-Kushaish, Hasan bin Sabah Farnod, Tajrid, Masail-i-Tajrid, Rasail Ikhwan al Safa

#jaun elia #poetry #poet #famous poet #legend

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wishesofeternity · 2 years ago

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Zeb-un-Nisa, Aurangzeb’s eldest daughter, is born in Daulatabad in 1638 when Aurangzeb is governor of the Deccan. While Daulatabad fort dominates the horizon from a hilltop, Aurangzeb is building a new capital at Khadki town, stronghold of Jahangir’s old nemesis, Malik Ambar the ‘rebel of black fortune’. Malik Ambar is now long dead, having never allowed the Mughals to claim the Deccan while he lived. Zeb-un-Nisa, daughter of the Persian noblewoman Dilras Banu Begum, grows up in this provincial capital, far from the intrigues of the Mughal court. In the Deccan, the supremacy of her father is unchallenged and Zeb-un-Nisa is given a rigorous education under the supervision of Hafiza Mariam, a scholar from a Khurasani family. Zeb-un-Nisa is an excellent student and excels in the Arabic and Persian languages. Her father is so delighted when she recites the entire Quran from memory as a child that he gifts her 30,000 gold mohurs. In her erudition and her quick wit she is very like her aunt, Shahzaadi Jahanara, whom her father respects above all the other women of the court. When she is fifteen years old, she visits Shahjahanabad with Aurangzeb’s zenana as they return from the doomed Kandahar campaign. She is enchanted with the sparkling new city, the elegant women with their refined tehzeeb, their every gesture studied and full of grace. In the travelling court of her father, in these wildering years, it is a more pragmatic and pared down zenana but in 1658, when Zeb-un-Nisa is twenty years old, Aurangzeb deposes Shah Jahan and his household moves to Shahjahanabad.

Dilras Banu Begum, the somewhat haughty senior wife of Aurangzeb, is now dead. Even Aurangzeb, when giving marital advice to a grandson, will later admit that ‘in the season of youth’, he ‘too had this relation with a wife who had extreme imperiousness’. Since the other wives of Aurangzeb have less illustrious backgrounds, the senior women of the royal zenana are Roshanara and her eldest niece, Zeb-un-Nisa.

For twenty years Zeb-un-Nisa will be one of the most influential women of the zenana at Shahjahanabad. Her particular area of interest is poetry and literature. She collects valuable manuscripts and books and her library is one of the most extensive in the country. When Aurangzeb begins to retrench imperial patronage towards music and poetry, it is the royal women, the shahzaadas, the noblemen and then, later still, the wealthy middle class of Shahjahanabad who will continue the patronage of the arts. The governor of Shahjahanabad, Aqil Khan, is himself a poet and writes under the pen name Razi. Indeed, despite Aurangzeb’s later disfavour, Shahjahanabad fairly pulses with music. It tumbles from the kothis of the courtesans, the women thoroughly trained singers themselves, who bring Delhi Qawwali singing to mainstream attention. It vaults out of the large mansions of the newly wealthy, who prefer the lighter Khayaal and Thumri styles. In the gloaming of a tropical evening, it throbs out of the immense havelis of the princes and the noblemen, in the tenuous hold that Dhrupad still has amongst the elite of the Mughal court. And the poets keep gathering at Shahjahanabad, despite Aurangzeb’s dismissal of them as ‘idle flatterers’. They come from very far, like Abd-al-Qader Bidel, whose family is Chagatai Turkic but whose poetry so defines a phase of Shahjahanabadi poetry that he becomes Abd-al-Qader Dehlvi. Some will come from the Deccan, like Wali Dakhni, and some are born in the narrow, winding galis (lanes) of Shahjahanabad itself. They will write in Persian, in Urdu, in Braj and later in Rekhti. They will write in obscure philosophical quatrains, in flamboyant ghazals or in erotic riti styles but many will glow with the high-voltage mysticism of Sufi thought, for the ghosts of Shahjahanabad’s Sufi saints will enchant all the poets of the city.

Zeb-un-Nisa, like Jahanara who returns to court as padshah begum in 1666, is instrumental in supporting the work of writers and poets through her patronage. She supports the scholar Mulla Safiuddin Adbeli when he translates the Arabic Tafsir-i-Kabir (Great Commentary) into Persian and he dedicates the book to the shahzaadi—Zeb-ut-Tafasir. She also sponsors the Hajj pilgrimage of Muhammad Safi Qazwini. Qazwini will write an extraordinary account of his voyage, the Pilgrims’ Confidant, unique in its genre and magnificently illustrated and will dedicate it to Zeb-un-Nisa. For a few years, the courts of Jahanara and Zeb-un-Nisa will nurture this eclectic maelstrom of a culture, which has much more in common with Babur and Humayun’s camaraderie of artists than it has with Aurangzeb’s increasingly austere one. When Aurangzeb bans opium and alcohol, the easy complicity that the noblemen and padshahs shared in the ghusal khaana or the Deewan-e-khaas while drinking wine, is now forbidden. The imperial women, however, continue to drink wine, often made from grapes in their own gardens, flavoured with spices.

In 1669, Zeb-un-Nisa attends the lavish marriage ceremony of her cousin, Jaani Begum, to her brother, Muhammad Azam, at the haveli of Jahanara. There will be other weddings too: her sister Zubdat-un-Nisa will marry Dara Shikoh’s youngest son Siphir Shikoh and Mehr-un-Nisa will marry Murad Baksh’s son Izad Baksh. But for Aurangzeb’s oldest daughters, there are no more cousins to marry. There is an understanding, also, that these oldest daughters, like their aunts, possess a powerful charisma as Timurid shahzaadis and must be kept within the controlling orbit of the imperial zenana. The decades pass and still Aurangzeb rules, as resolute and restless as a young man. His sons, meanwhile, are growing old and impatient. Muhammad Akbar is Zeb-un-Nisa’s youngest brother and she is particularly close to him, as their mother Dilras Banu died soon after giving birth to him, when Zeb-un-Nisa was nineteen. The other sons are middle-aged men, and there have been skirmishes, the shahzaadas jostling for power, always subdued immediately by their unforgiving father. In 1681, when Muhammad Akbar decides to challenge his father, with the support of a Rajput alliance including the Rathors of Jodhpur, Zeb-un-Nisa is in a particularly vulnerable position.

In 1681, Jahanara dies. The imperial zenana has glowed with her ambition and talent for more than half a century. If the shahzaadas are uncertain about the future leadership of the Mughal empire, then the stakes are almost as high in the imperial zenana. Zeb-un-Nisa believes she may become the next padshah begum. She is a woman of letters, like Jahanara, with the same Sufi inclinations too. She is the eldest of the Timurid shahzaadis and presides over an astonishingly talented salon. It is time, surely, for a shahzaada to ascend the Peacock Throne as Aurangzeb is already an old man, sixty-three years old. So Zeb-un-Nisa sides with the young prince Muhammad Akbar, hoping to ensure her legacy in the next court.

But Aurangzeb is able to defeat Muhammad Akbar, using a mixture of duplicity and treachery. In the process, he discovers letters which incriminate Zeb-un-Nisa, demonstrating her ardent support for her brother. ‘What belongs to you is as good as mine,’ Muhammad Akbar writes in a letter to Zeb-un-Nisa, ‘and whatever I own is at your disposal.’ And in another letter he writes: ‘The dismissal or appointment of the sons-in-law of Daulat and Sagar Mal is at your discretion. I have dismissed them at your bidding. I consider your orders in all affairs as sacred like the Quran and Traditions of the Prophet, and obedience to them is proper.’ Muhammad Akbar is exiled to Persia, and Zeb-un-Nisa is imprisoned at the Salimgarh fort in Delhi. Her pension of four lakhs rupees a year is discontinued and her property is seized.

Very soon after this rebellion, Aurangzeb leaves Shahjahanabad for the Deccan with an entourage of tens of thousands, all of his sons and his zenana. He will never return to Shahjahanabad, which will slowly be leached of all of its nobility, craftsmen, soldiers and traders. Zeb-un-Nisa will live more than twenty years imprisoned in Salimgarh fort. She will grow old here as Shahjahanabad empties of its people and becomes a shadow of its former self. But the poets and the singers do not desert Shahjahanabad, their fortunes and their hearts are too inextricably linked to the great city, to this paradise on earth. Other patrons take over the role of the nobility, humbler people, so that a critical poet will later write:

Those who once rode elephants now go barefooted; (while) those who longed for parched grains once are today owners of property mansions, elephants and banners, (and now) the rank of the lions has gone to the jackals.

Not only do the poets remain but their poetry becomes saturated with the haunted longing and nostalgia which becomes the calling card of all the great poets of Delhi. This city of beauty and splendour, abandoned and then desecrated, and then bloodied, will inspire reams of poetry on the twin themes of grief and remembrance. In the future, one of these poets will court eternity when he writes:

Dil ki basti bhi Sheher Dilli hai;

Jo bhi guzra usi ne loota

As for Zeb-un-Nisa, she waits for Muhammad Akbar to claim the Peacock Throne but he dies, in 1703, outlived by his father. From her lonely prison on the Yamuna, the shahzaadi can see Shah Jahan’s magnificent fort. The Qila-e-Mubaarak remains locked up for decades and the dust and ghosts move in. The bats make their home in the crenelated awnings and sleep as the relentless sun arcs through the lattice windows. Bees cluster drunkenly around the fruit trees in the Hayat Baksh, the overripe fruit crushed on the marble walkways like blood. Moss skims over the canals and the pools, though the waterfall still whispers its secrets to itself in the teh khana (underground chamber) as Zeb-un-Nisa waits. Zeb-un-Nisa writes poetry while she waits for a deliverance that will never come. She is a poet of some repute, and writes under the pseudonym Makhvi, the Concealed One. This is a popular pseudonym, however, and it is difficult to establish which lines are truly written by the shahzaadi but it is likely that the following wistful and delicate lines are hers, written in the grim solitude of Salimgarh fort:

Were an artist to choose me for his model—

How could he draw the form of a sigh?

She dies in 1702, unforgiven by Aurangzeb, and is buried in the Tees Hazari Garden, gifted to her by Jahanara.

- Ira Mukhoty, “Daughters of the Sun: Empresses, Queens and Begums of the Mughal Empire”

#history #historicwomendaily #indian history #india tag #mughal empire #mughal era #Zeb-un-Nissa #mine #queue

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