Satis Shroff's Zeitgeistlyrik: GLACIAL WHISPERS (Collected Poems)
Sunday, 14 September 2014
Fotoessay: Onion Cake Festival at the Fire Brigade House (Satis Shroff, Freiburg-Kappel)
http://www.chefkoch.de/rezepte/864841192000406/Badischer-Zwiebelkuchen.html
Spätestens wenn der Federweißer wieder angeboten wird, beginnt die Zeit für Zwiebelkuchen. Zwiebelkuchen kann man gleich in großen Mengen auf Backblechen zubereiten, oder nach einem Rezept für weniger Personen in einer Springform. Wem die normalen Haushaltszwiebeln zu scharf sind, der sollte Zwiebelkuchen mal mit den milderen Gemüsezwiebeln zubereiten. Wer keine Küchenmaschine besitzt, um die doch recht großen Mengen an Zwiebeln zu hobeln, der kann auch die Brotmaschine dafür benutzen. Aber bitte nur mit Fingerschutz arbeiten. Damit Zwiebelkuchen bekömmlicher wird ist es unbedingt erforderlich, dass man ihm etwas Kümmel, ob als Ganzes oder gemahlen zufügt. Zwiebelkuchen gibt es mit verschiedenen Belägen wie Speckwürfeln, gekochten Schinken, rohen Schinken oder Creme Fraiche.
Friday, 12 September 2014
THE SPLENDOR OF SYLT (Satis Shroff)
North Sea Lyrik:
THE SPLENDOR OF SYLT
You hear the waves
As they splash onto the shore.
You haven't opened your eyes,
But you discern the cries of sea gulls,
As you slowly let the sunlight
Into your eyes.
Ah, the reassuring rays caress your face,
As you proceed to the balcony,
Stretch yourself
And let out cha-cha-cha,
Pa-pa-pa sounds between your teeth,
That you've learned
While singing in your choir.
A seagull with a fish in its beak
Flutters by.
All white and airborne,
Twinkling on a blue sky.
Out in the horizon,
A turquoise blue trawler chugs by.
* * *
Habitat for Wild (Satis Shroff)
The flora and fauna
have a hard time
In winter.
The white mantle
Of snow covers
The branches, buds and barks.
The owl loves winter
As it takes in all
Beings that move,
With its keen sight.
The woodpecker knows
Where the larvae and insects
Are hiding.
It's Spring,
The landscape gardeners
Have chopped all the trees.
Now the spur is bare,
No more can I see
The deer that came
To greet me,
To chill in the peace
Of the undergrowth,
And partake
Of the wild elderberries.
Man needs new dwellings again,
Alas, the habitat shrinks some more.
When the deer eat vegetables
In Frau Sumser's garden,
She cries,
'Inform the official hunter.
They have to be shot.'
The deer are unwelcome guests
In her precious garden.
Now and then
A russet fox,
With a bushy tail,
Comes stealthily by.
Hope the hunter doesn't get a hint.
His duty is to keep wild away,
From human domiciles.
If he doesn't shoot,
He's a bad hunter.
If he does,
He's a bad guy.
And so the habitat dwindles,
For the wild.
* * *
Lost Friendships (Satis Shroff)
When old friends
Go asunder,
What remains
Are memories,
Of moments
In tranquility.
When world tremble
And words shiver,
When lips vibrate
And nothing comes out
Of your larynx.
Just the uneasy
Breath from your nostrils.
The silence and solitude
That prevails,
When friendships
Have lost their meanings.
Encounters,
Wiedersehen,
Become embarassing.
And words become superfluous.
The old wounds bleed again,
Causing pain,
That come like sea waves,
Incessantly,
Stab and go.
* * *
TIME AND TIDE (Satis Shroff)
It's early in the morning,
On a cold wintry day.
The horizon,
A crimson and orange haze.
The sea looks blue, far away,
But a muddy brown near you.
A solitary figure in a black overcoat,
Throat wrapped with a long muffler,
Stands like a black stork,
Staring at the sand below his feet.
Is he watching
The crustaceans,
Creeping on the shore?
Or is he thinking about a friendship?
Suddenly the frothy white waves
Drench his feet.
Too late.
Time and tide
Don't wait for your thoughts.
He walks on,
With furtive glances
Thrown at the sea.
* * *
SEA SHELLS ON THE SHORE (Satis Shroff)
How beautiful life is,
With you
And me.
Like little children,
Gathering lovely sedimentary stones,
Washed and chiseled by time,
And by the waves
In the North Sea.
Cockles and mussels in their unique
Facets and colors,
Caught between dark sea weeds,
Trapped between the man-made Buhnes,
Far from the dunes.
Alas, the fascinating life forms
That lived inside the carbonate
Mussels and shells,
Have long lost their homes;
Either eaten by the gulls
Or other winged fishers.
What remains are the crushed
Cockles and shells
Of salt water mollusc,
When human boots tread on them.
And children and grown ups
Collect them.
Conversation pieces,
In afternoons with coffee, cakes and scones.
'Look what I found on the shore!'
* * *
SPRING ON THE SEA (Satis Shroff)
The birds twitter,
The sun shines.
The crocuses are everywhere,
Upon well-laid lawns.
You can smell Spring,
When it gets warm.
The wet air climbs up
And with it the scents
Of grass and spring flowers,
Dancing gaily in the North Sea wind.
You bend down often,
While walking along the beach,
To admire a strand snail or a dead sea horse,
Heart mussels, American sword mussels,
Oysters or sea urchins,
Shells with chunks and fissures.
The silver seagulls flying low,
With long wings spread,
Argus eyes foraging for food.
Geese searching for mollusc morsels
In the sandy dunes.
Now and then you see
The black oyster fishers,
White tailed bearing wing stripes,
Dive in the green-bluish water,
Swooping down like kamekazi planes,
With breathless precision.
Out they come from the sea
With fidgety fishes
Between their sharp, orange beaks.
They're experienced
At cracking stubborn molluscs,
Till the adductors give way.
The gulls known as Lachmöwe,
Search for edibles in garbage depots,
And even behind ploughing tractors.
* * *
THE CANVAS OF NATURE (Satis Shroff)
The colors on the canvas of Nature melt:
Blue skies,
Yellow fields,
The grey of the wintry waves,
When the sunlight is hidden,
Behind a veil of fog.
You're overwhelmed
By your feelings,
Moments of euphoria,
Streams of consciousness
In the melancholic North Sea environs.
Intimate, gleeful moments,
When you see a big orange crab,
Stranded on the beach.
Entangled in dark sea weed,
Or Seetang as we call it in German.
The next big waves arrive,
With short intervals,
Sweep over the stones and sea shells on the beach.
The crab has disappeared,
Claimed by the sea.
What a delight.
A seagull lies on the shore,
Amid the flotsam and jetsam,
Blown by the last storm,
In List to the north of Sylt.
Another seagull circles the prey
From the sky,
Comes down and perches near the dead gull,
Picks and pulls its entrails.
To think that life began,
In the primordial ocean.
The relationship between humans
And the sea,
When man began to venture,
Towards the unknown.
Fired by the desire
To search for the unknown,
Limits of the peaks and seas,
With bigger and bigger boats and ships,
The ear of colonialism began.
But such voyages had to be backed
With money and things it can buy,
By rulers who smelt and wanted more
Riches and spices from the Indies,
West or East.
* * *
TALE OF DESTRUCTION (Satis Shroff)
Tell the tale you clouds and gulls,
Despite the happiness and hope,
Spread by the sunlight
In early Spring.
Tell your tale of destruction
Carried by the gales and storms,
That bore names.
The wooden stairs and platforms
Lie now strewn upon the shore,
Blown to smithereens.
Plastic products everywhere,
Among a people that care.
A water desert,
That has been left behind,
As a warning,
Till the next big gale.
* * *
THE GOLDEN SUN (Satis Shroff)
Through the cloudy veil
Appears the golden sun,
Changing the silvery North Sea
To a golden and crimson horizon.
The waves adorned with rich teints
Of yellow, orange blue and brown hues.
A fascinating play of colors,
Unfolding before your eyes.
Even the man-made Buhnen glow.
As you trudge on the beach sand,
To avoid wetting your shows,
By the ever coming frothy waves,
As they peter out near you.
You're thankful for everything
That you've been given or attained
In lifespan.
Like a moment of revelation,
An epiphany,
Or when you've had a near-death experience.
Thankful for who and what you are,
Towards your parents, teachers and mentors,
Who've moved you towards your goal.
In this spectacular theatre called life.
Ah, when Heaven and Earth unite,
The air, land and water.
Chandrama the moon appears
Like a sickle in the vast blue sky,
Bidding farewell to Surya,
The Sun God,
Who has metamorphosed into Agni,
The fiery Goddess that swallows all,
With her purifying flames.
This is the revelation of an epiphany,
A spectacle bathed in scarlet,
Orange, yellow, greenish-blue light.
Ah, how must it have been,
When the world was created?
* * *
THE NORTH SEA (Satis Shroff)
The sea fascinates the artist in you,
It's dramatic setting,
With its ceaseless waves.
Strong winds are pushing
Curly clouds in the vast sky,
The heavy waves roll,
In the bluish-grey seascape,
Emitting a long line of spray,
Above the white froth.
* * *
A HYMN TO THE SPLENDOR (Satis Shroff)
The sea is calm and a fair moon
Stealthily appears in the sky,
Behind the northern clouds.
The red cliff of Kampen glimmers
Under the light of the dying sun.
And the waves take on yellow, orange, scarlet hues.
The tides still roar decently,
Cease, recede, only to come again.
A sweet Frisian nocturnal air,
Mingles with the smell of salt and fish,
Gets whipped up by the wind.
The golden light hangs,
Like a hymn to the splendor
Of this world.
* * *
THE EBB AND FLOW OF REFUGEES (Satis Shroff)
The waves shimmer like silvery fishes,
The sand is bleached by the moonlight,
As you walk holding hands,
Barefeet along the shore.
The waves have left pebbles,
Sea shells, sea weed and crustaceans,
Flotsam and jetsam,
On the sea shore.
And the ebb and flow of refugees,
In the distance of the Mediterranean Sea,
Who've struggled in their countries,
But were obliged to flee
From their human foes.
Taken to the open sea,
Which remains full of dangers,
Whimsical and unpredictable.
The longing for European shores,
Where milk and honey flow.
A forlorn hope that ends,
For many in the bottom of the sea.
* * *
INVISIBLE THRESHOLD (Satis Shroff)
Did I boast of fleeting things,
Of illusions in these earthly confines?
How vain we are,
When we don't realize,
That our very existence
Is an earthly maya.
Intangible shadows we grasp with our hands,
When we know we have to leave
For our eternal home.
When we cross the invisible threshold,
We don't need visas and passports,
Green and blue cards.
As we wander through the twilight
Sans bodies,
To be one with the cosmos.
* * *
A MAGICAL MOMENT (Satis Shroff)
The North Sea grey-green in the from afar,
Gets frothy as the waves approach the shore.
The splendor of colored clouds covering the immense sky.
It's inspired fear to mortals,
It's a revelation to those with hearts,
As seagulls glide over the horizon,
To land near the red cliff of Sylt.
A magical moment of forlornness,
Amid the beauty and vastness,
Of the sky and the waves.
As the glowing ball call the sun sinks,
It radiates sparkling hues,
Across the sky and waves.
The royal blue of the sky,
Is reflected upon the sea.
In the higher reaches,
It mellows to a brilliant yellow and orange,
As the fiery sun becomes scarlet.
Tuesday, 21 January 2014
Between Prometheus and Surgery (Satis Shroff)
Zeitgeistlyrik: Between Prometheus and Plastic Surgery (Satis Shroff)
Tags: children of nepal, satisshroff, hinduism, helping nepal, buddhism, freiburg, nepal, disabilities, twistinge, nächstenliebe, christianity, compassion, love, burns, plastic surgery, deformities, zeitgeistlyrik, devotion
This time Satis Shroff tells you a story in verse of a western hospital manager who is trying to win over a Nepalese priest (bahun) to her medical, evidenced-based line of thinking. The priest, on the other hand, talks about his religious point of view that has been handed down the generations and written in the vedic scriptures. Will the two meet and agree?
BETWEEN PROMETHEUS AND PLASTIC SURGERY (Satis Shroff, Freiburg)
Preacher: Break your bread with the hungry,
Speak a word with the dumb,
Sing with the sad,
Share your house with the lonely.
Fire is important to us.
I have come to ignite a fire,
Within us,
A fire that’ll remain burning.
But an open fire is dangerous,
For small children in Nepal.
Today we have a guest from Nepal.
A woman who has a big heart,
For the children of Nepal.
Christa: Namaskar!
I greet the Godliness in you.
I’ve worked twelve years in Nepal,
As a hospital manager.
The role of a woman,
Is different in rural Nepal.
The women and children have to work hard.
I went to many Nepalese farmers
And their families.
In the farmsteads there’s always an open fire,
Which is the central point.
Children creep on their fours to the fire,
Fascinated,
Attracted,
By the licking flames.
Bahun: What to you is fire,
Is Agni in our eyes.
Agni is the God of Fire.
We need Agni’s presence,
In Vedic rituals.
It is also a sacricifical fire.
The Nepalese home fire
Has to burn all the time.
Wedding celebrations and nuptial knots
Are tied around the open fire,
When the priest recites vedic prayers
Give butter to Agni to make it bigger.
The funeral rites,
At the burning ghats on riversides,
Are performed with fire.
Ever step in life
Is manifested by rituals around Agni.
Fire is one of the most ancient
Sacred objects of Hindu worship.
Even today it plays
An honourable role
In sacrifices.
The Nepali kitchen-fire was always open.
Christa: People come with burns and deformities,
Hare-lips, polydactylia,
Injuries and infected wounds
From the decade-long krieg
In the Himalayas.
Maoists versus the royal forces.
12,000 surgical operations were performed
On 9000 patients in ten years.
The wounded Maoist patients
Couldn’t be quartered
Near injured soldiers or policemen.
A clash of ideologies,
A struggle for rights,
Repression against freedom,
Leftists against rightists.
Today, there’s a 50 bed hospital,
Built with the help of other nations.
In my western world,
It was Prometheus who stole fire from Heaven.
We are thankful to him for the precious flames.
The Nepalese houses are built traditionally,
But they have no chimneys.
The dwellings are full of smoke,
Emanating from the open fire.
Smoke gets in the eyes of the Ama,
The children’s bronchioles are clogged.
This leads to heavy lung damage:
Chronic pulmonary inflammation,
Cases of choking,
Massive blood circulation problems.
Year after year 500 patients came,
With burns caused by open open hearth fires.
Most of the victims are small children,
Who’ve fallen into the fire,
Or have crabbled to the hearth.
Small innocent hands
That clutch the fury of the fire.
There’s nobody to mind them.
Keine Aufsichtspflicht.
There are no qualified healers in the hamlets.
This leads to disabilities
For the rest of their lives.
I have seen so much misery and poverty.
The modern kerosene cookers explode,
And women burn themselves,
From the lips to their navels.
Mothers come with their charges
And say: ‘My baby fell into the fire.’
Stones are used outdoors to make a fire,
Or cookers with three legs at home.
Bahun: ‘Your surgeons are doing a good job.’
Christa: Plastic Surgery is good
But it’s important to prevent burns.
We even tried building a bamboo-fence
Around the fire.
It didn’t work.
O Bahun!
Kriya means ‘to do something’ in Sanskrit.
Bahun: Yes, the performing of vedic rituals
At the right time,
As written in the Gita,
To attain a balance.
Christa: Would it not be better,
To prevent a child from burning
Or a mother from suffocating,
By using a new kind of oven?
Bahun: Righteous doing is without interest.
Christa: An oven that banishes the smoke
Out of the kitchen,
To the back of the house.
The origin of evil is thus eliminated.
Finally we made an oven with a chimney,
To be used by the Nepali mother.
The smoke-free oven costs only 8 euros.
For us in the west it’s little money,
But for a farmer it’s an enormous sum.
We gather money for the ‘Die Offenmacherverein’
To finance the smoke-free kitchen oven,
See to it that it’s used in Nepal,
And organise the training
For oven builders.
Bahun: Datta, dayadhvam, damyata
Shanti! Peace be with you.
Peace which passeth understanding.
Christa: Yes, Frieden sei mit Dir.
Glossary:
Gita:the holy scripture of the Hindus called the Bhagavad Gita
Datta: means you give alms to the needy
Dayadhvam: show compassion
Damyata: tells you to practice self-control
Escap: evergy sector assistance & organisations programme
Danida: Danish international development assistance
www.aepc.gov.np
www.nepal-krankenhaus.de
In Nepal: swasthachulo.nepal (ngo)i>
Übersetzte Gedichte: Im Schatten des Himalaya (Satis Shroff)
Wednesday, 1 January 2014
Zeitgeistlyrik: Rituals in the Himalayas (Satis Shroff)
Sunday, 29 April 2012
The Mahabharata is a 1989 film version of the Indian epic, Mahabharata, directed by Peter Brook. Brook's original 1985 stage play was 9 hours long, and toured around the world for four years. In 1989, it was reduced to under 6 hours for television (TV mini series). Later it was also reduced to about 3 hours for theatrical and DVD release. The screenplay was the result of eight years work by Peter Brook, Jean-Claude Carrière and Marie-Hélène Estienne. For the casting an international selection of actors was intentionally chosen, to show that the nature of the Indian epic is the story of all humanity.
Plot
In general terms, the story involves epic incidents between two warring families, the Pandavas(representing the good side) and the Kauravas (representing the bad side). Both sides, being the offspring of kings and gods, fight for dominion. They have both been advised by the god Krishna to live in harmony and abstain from the bloody lust for power. Yet their fights come to threaten the very order of the Universe. The plot is framed as a narrative between the Brahmin sage Vyasa and the Hindu deity Ganesha, and directed towards an unnamed Indian boy who comes to him inquiring about the story of the human race.
Reception
The productions use of an international cast caused heated intercultural debate. Negative criticism came from Indian scholar Pradip Bhattacharya who felt that Brook's interpretation "was not a portrayal of a titanic clash between the forces of good and evil, which is the stuff of the epic... the story of the warring progeny of some rustic landlord".
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)