Monday, November 21, 2011

Translations : Title song for "Neem ka Ped"



Used watch "neem ka ped" religiously with my grand father. The show was about a poor farmer -Budhai, who is a bonded laborer for the village landlord. All his life he has been exploited by the "heartless" landlord but Budhai is as loyal as can be. He plants a neem tree in his courtyard when his son is born. The script dwells on analogies between the tree and Budhai's son . Just as the tree shades his courtyard, Budhai feels his son will rescue him from a life of poverty and bondage. His son gets good education and becomes a high official with the government but only to become another version of the landlord, post independence. This song says it all for so many of us.

In this marketplace of noises,
Who will hear my silence?
He listens to what I say,
But does he know what I feel?

Year after year, its the same,
Every road is a long winding search,
but when I finally get there,
something gets lost.

In this marketplace of noises,
Who will hear my silence?

He is my reflection and I am his shadow,
We live together in the same house,
that someone, who is like me,
...But who am I?

In this marketplace of noises,
Who will hear my silence?

My thoughts,
they were talking too fast, about too many things,
Of love and strangers, passion and fools?
I could see it all, as I lay asleep...

In this marketplace of noises,
Who will hear my silence?

Original Lyrics by Nida Fazli
Translated to English by Minu Agarwal

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Potato Printing- Screw it


I had been wanting to try my hand potato printing for a while. Did lots of it in school, and even "diversified" into other veggies like okra/ladyfinger, lotus root etc. Actually the idea was to do a custom print on a scarf. But could not come with a cut of potato that I liked. They were either too simple or did look good in print. Then I remembered an old trick from school days where I used the head of a screw to stamp flowers. And Wallah! I had a cute little custom print. Here a few tips from today's experience if you would like to try it too.
1. Definitely, definitely test your design, paint color and paint consistency.
2. Practice with your stamp (atleast 4-5 times) before printing on the actual fabric.
3. Keep a rag handy and clean the stamp often.

I did a simple repeat of these grey flowers. I plan to buy another color next week (I only had black and white paint at hand today) and introduce the "custom" look.