Hindi Webring

Today morning I was looking for new Hindi fonts. I like Susha, it is really easy to use but there are some signs like the "half R" that I can't seem to get. So I was looking for new fonts and discovered a group called webrings, where they have list of blogs in Hindi. Really great. Result, I have started even a Hindi blog on Kalpana - Jo Na Keh Saka.

I am still without a good Hindi font. Perhaps the problem is with my Italian keyboard and probably people working on Hindi fonts make them for English keyboards. Since keyboards don't cost much and next week I am going to be in London, so I will see if I can find a new keyboard to bring home and then try it for writing in Hindi.

Took some pictures of Marco and Brando today. They have come out really nice.

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Perceived insults to religions

It is so depressing to look at Indian news and every other week find some news about a group of Indians who feel that their religion has been insulted by this or that film or that song or that dress.

Hindus in USA seem to be particularly sensitive persons, getting offended very easily because some body has used a Gita shlok inappropriately or has dared to put a Ganesh picture on a pair of jeans. Remove it or else .. they threaten. This is their assertiveness, they say, we need to protect our religion. I think that it is only a sign of their own insecurity. Ganesh ji or Gita don't need protection of these fundoos.

I had thought that Christians were above it but the Catholic protests over the film "Sins" or the Sikh protests against "Jo Bole So Nihaal", all seem equally pointless. Bengalis protest against someone daring to show their Subhash babu as married and want the film to be withdrawn from cinemas. Shiv Sena persons are already well known for their attack at attempts to "corrupt the Bhartiya sanskriti". The saddest thing is that Government seems to cave in every time, in front of any such protest. I wish someone would tell all these moral police to go to hell and if they don't listen, put them in jail.

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In the park, I was eating some shahtoots when Brando pulled me away. The branch in my hand slipped and went up, showering a rain of dark shatoots on my head, leaving purple marks on my shirt. It reminded me of eating jamuns at Badri Vishal pitti's house in Hyderabad. Thinking of Hydrabad made me think of Mr. Rock and his wife, our neighbours in N.Rajendra Nagar. Their twin sons, Jeremy and Stephan. Mrs. Rock's nephew had come from Secundrabad. In the evening we would sit together on the wall in front of our home and chat for hours. He was working at a car workshop in Sindhi house. After the Rocks left for Australia, he too went away. Can't remember his name or his face!

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Live radios from Delhi

I love going to work on my bicycle. While on my bicycle, I simply love looking at people in the cars, stuck in the traffic, waiting with impatient faces, perpetually angry at the world for not moving fast enough.

Part of the way to my workplace is through Ghisello park along the Navile canale. In the park, watching children with their parents or grand-parents makes me feel warm and gooey inside. The ducks with shining green necks, the steel-gray of the water in the canal, the canopy of tall trees with green leaves, transparent with sunlight filtering through, everything looks lovely.

As I work, it is good to listen to Hindi music on internet but sometimes, I wish there was a live radio-station from New Delhi that I could listen to. There are other live radios with Indian music but I want a live station from Delhi.

Italy has hundreds of web-based radios. Any radio worth its salt has an internet version. Why can't the Indian radios do that? Why is website of All India radio without live broadcast for last 2 years or so? I wonder if Delhi B still has Forces' Request with old songs from 1950s and 1960s?

I would love to hear a radio talking about traffic between Maalcha marg and Moolchand or about some accident near ITO, or the procession blocking Patel Nagar, while I sit in my office, look out at San Luca on the top of the verdant hill and imagine that going out, I can get out at Shanker Road, walk towards J block, pass behind Manav Sthali school ...

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Tourist-guide in Bologna

Last year was really good. Writing the book, working on the web page, months of writing and creating without feeling tired, all the online courses exhibitions, etc. on the AIFO web page.. Then suddenly one day, the energy seemed to disappear. The days pass meaningless. Lost in translation, don't know what that means exactly, but it sounds right.

Suddenly this desire to write is back. Not the crazy energy that poured out all the time. More tired energy. Wonder, how long it would last. Had a look at new blog pages at Blogger.com, where Mukul has his blog. I like the colours of Mukul's blog. But how many blogs are there about confused thoughts, random thoughts, wandering thoughts, fragments, confusion.. So many persons not knowing how to express themselves and to whom!

Pam left back for London yesterday. It was real fun to have her here in Bologna. I was her tourist guide, taking her around.

It is so good to have someone who is interested in arts and history, and who does not get bored if you talk about museums, paintings and the histories of churches. Most people do not want a real tourist guide, they just want someone to point the "important" things that are worth visiting so that when they go back, they can say that they saw them and show the pictures to prove it. To have guests who are more interested in shopping malls leaves me frustrated. Pam was not like that!

She is a wonderful person. I went to meet Prof. Pampiglione with her, in his 7th floor apartment that has wonderful views of the skyline of Bologna. They were together in Mozambique thirty years ago.

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Clouds, Triveni Kala Sangam and Farhat

I love the clouds. And the vibrant greens and dark browns of trees against the gray sky. It makes me feel like singing. And it brings back memories of long walks with Rini didi in the Janaki Devi college grounds, of the concerts of Pandit Jasraj and Bhim Sen Joshi, of the chudela dance...

Suddenly I am thinking of the first time, I heard Mehndi Hassan. His song Awargi. His voice soft and smooth like velvet. In the Triveni Kala Sangam library in Mandi House. Pinki had taken me there. Black vinyl records. The first time of hearing Prabha Atre sing, Tan man dhan tope varun. The first time of hearing Farida Khannum.

Last year when Farhat had come home for dinner, I had made her listen to Farida Khannum. She had taken the urdu book given to me by Nabeeha so many years ago and had read aloud some poems. 

She was sitting on the sofa, her face glowing with poetry. It is already one week since she died. Not even six weeks from the day they had diagnosed the tumour. This time, I hope to go home to see the kids before the next dose of chemotherapy, she had written in her last message...

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