This aarti should be sung everyday by men who want to become rich and desirable like the honorable chief minister of Tamil Nadu, M. Karunanidhi, and also by women who want their husbands to be rich and desirable like the great leader. He is also known as Kalaignar, meaning scholar of arts, maybe because he is good at the art of making money.

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Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)

Ab ke bichhde to shayad kabhi khwabon mein mile,
Jis tarah tale hue cockroach Jaldiram’s namkeen mein mile.

(If we parted this time, we would probably find each other in dreams,
The way fried cockroaches are found in Jaldiram’s namkeen.)

Obviously, the above parody is not composed by Sylvia Plath. She certainly never tasted Jaldiram’s snacks. I am the one who gorges on export-quality (read expired-quality) packet after packet of bhujia and navrattan mix. I just thought of putting some original stuff before writing about the translation.

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For the past few days, every news channel has been talking about the Middle East. At first, I thought this was related to the directions on a compass, but then I googled and read about the history in making. The moment of enlightenment for me was when I came across the word—Domino. It was like a ‘Eureka!’ moment. Not that I understood the topic entirely, but I got the gist of the matter, if you know what I mean. I discovered that the Middle East was a company that supplied frozen pizzas and oil all over the world.

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In the Cipher 1982
by Jean Michel Basquiat

Continued from the previous post:

And then suddenly, tabhi achanak, I received a phone call from my friend....

While I was still recovering from the mishaps of the day, she enthusiastically detailed her family’s fabulous outing to the museum and the park. After she finished describing their fantastic lunch at Olive Garden, she asked, “Do you have any plans for the evening?”

“No,” I replied, thinking she was inviting me for some activity.

“We will be at your place within ten minutes. Happy and Lucky don’t want to go home yet, and besides, we want to give you a break from your blogging-shlogging.”

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