First Love

"The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can ever end."

... Benjamin Disraeli

Excessively Conscious

"Ours is an excessively conscious age.
We know so much, we feel so little"

... D H Lawrence

Ask Not

Ask not what sorrows for love I endure
Ask not of parting poisons that make me impure.

I have traveled the world and in the end
Ask not what lover I willingly allure.

Longing for a vision, at his door
Ask not of the tears that I pour.

With my own ears I heard his last night
Ask not of his words, harsh yet demure.

Bite not your upper lip and speak not
Ask not what sweet lips I may secure.

In my mendicant state without you
Ask not of my pain and need for a cure.

On the path of Love, Hafiz, lost & traceless
Ask not of my standing, high and pure.

... Hafiz of Shiraz

Interaction

"I have learned that my relationship with God is an interaction. My prayer is ascending to God, full of adoration for the Beloved Eternal One. At the same time God is descending, answering my prayer and gently meeting me in my heart.

I feel this as an inner wholeness. It is a purification of the self and becoming empty. Meister Eckhart would call it Gelassenheit. It is letting go, a process of dying. Only then there is the experience of real Love and for a moment a mystical unification with divinity is unfolding."

... Contemplations, Kees Voorhoeve

21st Singapore International Film Festival

The 21st Singapore International Film Festival will begin screening in April 2008. Here are some interesting offerings:

My Home, My Heaven
Muhammad EySham Ali/Singapore 2006/14 mins/TBA
Ahmad, a juvenile delinquent, is released from his time in a Boy’s Home. After his return home, Ahmad finds himself at crossroads again despite his efforts to redeem himself from the past. Ahmad is still trying to find his way home.

Road to Mecca
Harman Hussin/Singapore 2007/60 mins/PG
Inspired by the travelogue The Difficult Journey by Ahmad Thomson, Harman Hussin embarks on an overland pilgrimage from Singapore to Mecca. This documentary is about this journey, which was made with little support, but with immense conviction. Witness an unforgettable journey into the heart of the human spirit, through the myriad beauty of countries and cultures along the way.

To Speak
Craig Ower Cambodia/Australia/Singapore 2007/104 mins/PG
Based on a true story, To Speak takes us on a journey into a land haunted by a horrific past, a place where millions struggle daily against desperate poverty. Yet in the midst of this pessimism, lies a voice that will speak hope to its people.Twelve-year-old Ratana lives in an impoverished rural village but refuses to accept that her fate is pre-determined by her circumstances. She dreams of a better life, and of building a new house for her fractured family. But a better future seems impossible until a local development agency suggests a radical plan for achieving her dream. She seizes the opportunity but finds herself on a collision course with her family, the village and even Mother Nature herself. To succeed, Ratana will need to rise above the daily grind of survival and also grapple with the terrible legacy of the Khmer Rouge and the Killing Fields.Shot with a small independent team and budget, the film was initiated by director Craig Ower who conceived the story after repeated visits to the country. Featuring stunning images and heartfelt performances, To Speak is a film that speaks with much heart.

Veil of Dreams
Zaihirat Banu Codelli/Singapore 2007/64 mins/TBA/WORLD PREMIERE
Enter a world where deep-rooted sacred customs meet contemporary athletic aspirations. Football in Iran has gained much popularity among women out of their passion towards the game. Wearing the traditional Islamic veils, they would play it with an atmosphere of unbridled joy and limitless energy. Veil of Dreams documents Iran’s women soccer team as they compete against other international footballers. Meet the women, who dare to push customary limits in pursuit of a simple ambition to take part in a sport where there are no restrictions, but only freedom to express themselves in a game that used to be for men only. Find out how this journey will affect their lives and provide unforgettable memories for these young women.From the rigorous preparations for an overseas trip, from their place of safety out into the open world, these women will go wherever the game takes them.

Along the Way

Haobam Paban Kumar/India 2006/19 mins/PG
Manileima is an independent 35-year old woman, the second wife of a contractor, who lives separately from her alcoholic husband with her mother and son. One day, her son, Bungo, has an accident and is hospitalized. While many people offer her their assistance in the hospital, an unnamed stranger offers the most help. At the same time, this stranger develops a close relationship with her nephew, Geet. While Manileima never meets this stranger while her son is in hospital, she develops an attraction for him through Geet’s stories about his care and affection for Bungo.Finally, Bungo recovers sufficiently to be discharged – and at this point Manileima has to decide what to do about the kind-hearted stranger. Set in Manipur, a North Eastern state of India where decades of insurgency have thrown the society into disarray, this film depicts how unrest has caused many people to cloister off their self-expression and how Manileima, a simple woman, finds a new meaning in her life.

Angels Die In the Soil

Babak Amini/Kurdistan 2007/30 mins/TBA
A young Iraqi Kurdish girl struggles to survive by pillaging remains from the Iran-Iraq war. She meets an American Soldier who is trapped in a terrorist attack and is entrusted with the choice of whether to help him or leave him to die.

Breathing in Mud

James Lee/Malaysia 2007/ 78 mins/PG/INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE
Azman, a photographer, marries the strong and quiet Lina, but their lives change when Lina’s first husband, Meor, returns from Thailand, where he has been taking refuge these past years. The three of them find out that their lives overlap with love and past friendships, bonds that they fear to break and ones that cannot break.

Children of the Prophet
Sudabeh Mortezai/Iran 2007/90 mins/PG
Children of the Prophet offers an intimate insight into the everyday life and the expression of religious practice in contemporary Iran, where the archaic and the post-modern co-exist surprisingly. The film follows four groups of people in Tehran during the Shiite mourning rituals of Moharram, commemorating the death of Imam Hossein, the grandson of Prophet Mohammad. It explores the role of religion in different people’s lives and how traditions are codified, kept alive and transformed to accommodate the needs of modern times.We follow the protagonists closely with unbiased curiosity. It is their perspective, motivation, expression of faith or doubt, sense of humor and voices that make an otherwise enigmatic, and dramatic mass event palpable and familiar. This utterly personal approach offers a rare and often surprising insight into what is usually obscured by politicized Islam hyped by Islamists and Western media alike.

Denias, Singing on the Cloud
John De Rantau/Indonesia 2007/110 mins/NC16
A boy’s deep desire to get an education leads him to traverse fields, mountains and rivers for days to reach a school in the nearest city. Based on a true story, this film tells the tale of Denias (Albert Fakdawer), who is from a small village in Jayawijaya Mountain in Western Papua Island and his determination to leave ignorance behind and fulfill his dream. But the physical challenges of his journey pale in comparison to the discrimination he faces at school for being a lowly peasant. With the help of his two friends, he finds the strength to press on and surmount these obstacles. The real Denias eventually won a scholarship and now attends senior high school in Darwin, Australia.Denias was awarded Best Indonesian Feature at the Jakarta International Film Festival in 2007 as well as Best Children’s Feature Film at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards in the same year. It also won Most Favorite Film at the Indonesian Movie Awards. It has been selected as the official Indonesian entry to the 2008 80th Academy Awards, in the Best Foreign Language Film category.Shot against the rugged beauty of Papua Island, Denias sings of a vision and resolve that rises above ignorance, fear and adversity.

If You Were Me: Anima Vision 2
Ann Dong-hee et al./Korea 2007/93 mins/R21
In 2003, the Human Rights Commission of Korea funded six promising directors to make short films about issues of discrimination. The result was If You Were Me, an insightful collection of works which received critical acclaim. Despite a noticeable lack of commercial success, the commission decided to fund two sequels to the project: If You Were Me 2 and If You Were Me: Anima Vision 2.Comprising of six short films, If You Were Me: Anima Vision 2 is an innovative and heartfelt feature-length animation film. Diverse issues relating to discrimination in all its forms are featured, such as the plight of the disabled wishing to have children (The Third Wish ,dir. ANN Dong-hee, RYU Jung-oo); a working mother’s difficulties in bringing up her child (Baby, dir. LEE Hong-soo, LEE Hong-min), the fate of a homosexual forced to marry a woman by his overbearing parents (Lies, dir. PARK Yong-jae), the challenges today faced by men with aspirations of greatness (Peeling, dir Hong Deok-pyo), the widespread discrimination prevalent in today’s societies (Merry Golasmas, dir Jung Min-Young) ; and the troubles of international marriage faced by migrant women (Shine Shine Shining, dir. GWON Mi-jeong)

In The Name Of God
Shoaib Mansoor/Pakistan 2007/170 mins/NC16
Winner of the Silver Pyramid Award at the 2007 Cairo International Film Festival, In the Name of God has been widely lauded as a revival of the Pakistani film industry. Spanning across three continents, it tells the moving story of one Pakistani family and how the events of 9/11 have changed what it means to be a Pakistani abroad. Mansoor tells the story of two brothers, both accomplished musicians. One is convinced by an extremist imam that his career is immoral, and decides to fight for the mujahideen. Meanwhile, his brother enrolls in an American university to further his music studies, falling in love with an American girl, and ironically falling under suspicion for the sort of activities his brother is involved in, in the aftermath of 9/11. A third subplot, in which the brother's young niece, born and bred in England, is tricked by her father into marrying the extremist brother in an elaborate maneuver to frustrate her romance with her Christian boyfriend.Ambitious both in scope and depth, Mansoor's film is a timely one which resonates with the dilemma Muslims face today, offering an intimate glimpse into the complexities of adaptation and assimilation in the post-9/11 world. It also offers a fascinating glimpse into Pakistan as a nation increasingly pressured to choose between religious anachronism and modernity.

Swift
Abai Kulbai/Kazakhstan 2007/80 mins/NC16
Abai Kulbai’s Strizh (Swift) is a coming-of-age film that draws an intimate portrait of a young girl, Ainur, who struggles with forces beyond her control – a drunken stepfather, a pregnant mother, drugs and violence at school – to find her place in an ice-cold, impersonal, and uncaring Almaty. She wrestles with a myriad of obstacles - schoolmates who tease her at school, an unaffectionate mother who pays more attention to her alcoholic lover, and her best friend who falsely accuses her of something she did not do. Life has tougher lessons in store for Ainur, and the world seems lonelier than ever before.Kublai's debut feature film is shot in the tradition of modern Kazakh cinema, and offers a rare insight into the youngest generation in Almaty- one that is unaware of the Soviet past and in search of its own identity.The film won two awards – the NETPAC Award and the Grand Prize in the Central Asian and Turkic Competition at the Eurasia Int'l Film Festival 2007.

Amina
Khadija Al-Salami/Yemen 2007/75 mins/PG
Amina is a chilling documentary portraying the legal and societal injustices faced by Yemeni women. The film tells the story of Yemenite Amina al-Tuhaif, who at 11 years old was married off to a man many years her senior, and at 14, sentenced to death for the murder of her husband after being tried without legal representation. Scheduled for execution in 2002, when she would be of legal age to hang under Yemen laws, Amina was found to be pregnant after being raped by a prison guard and her execution was pushed to 2005. Khadija Al-Salami, an award-winning filmmaker from Yemen, became aware of Amina's tragic story through newspaper reports and began conducting interviews with the young woman while visiting her in prison. Using first-hand accounts and dramatic reconstruction, the film chronicles Amina's daily prison life, her last-minute reprieves and her persistent appeals to clear her name for a crime she says she did not commit.

The Spiderwick Chronicles

Based on a well-known series of books, the movie involves a soon-to-be divorced mom and her three children who come to live in a creepy old mansion. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory child star Freddie Highmore plays cerebral young animal lover Simon Grace and also as his twin brother, Jared, a sullen kid prone to physical violence after the divorce of his parents. Unable to afford New York life on her own, his mother takes the boys and their teenage sister to live in a rundown country mansion owned by a distant relative tucked away in an asylum. Inevitably, weird things start happening, and Jared uncovers a book that serves as the key to all the strangeness — a guide book to the faerie world, scrupulously researched and handwritten by his great-great-uncle Arthur Spiderwick - who disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

The book has been hidden for 80 years, but almost the second Jared unearths it, creepy creatures start coming after the book, spurred on by an ogre called Mulgarath, who wants to use its secrets to destroy all the other faeries. Before long, Jared and his siblings — plus an alternately helpful house spirit enthusiastically voiced by Martin Short — are fighting more to save their own lives than to protect the book.

In the end, good always triumph over evil. The Spiderwick Chronicles is a fast-moving adventure with more than dynamic glitz to recommend it. It shows us a magical world where humans, goblins, spirits, hobgoblins, ogres, trolls and griffins all live together. It is a small world, but if each respects the other's boundaries, everyone has their own place in this world to call their own.

The Spiderwick Chronicles is an enjoyable adventure fantasy that pushes all the requisite buttons while still managing to throw in a pleasant surprise or two. It is a work of both modest enchantment and enchanting modesty, grounded in a classically Spielbergian realm where childlike wonderment crosses paths with the tough realities of young adulthood.

Les Misérables

This is one musical/book/movie that one can watch and yet watch again - and it is not surprising that it has turned out to be the longest-running West End musical, and still running, despite changed venues. When it was touring Singapore (more than once), I remembered going for the show at least twice a week! And the magic still touches me. And whilst I was writing the previous entry by Victor Hugo, Les Misérables came to mind, yet again. Not only is the story captivating, the musical score is equally arresting.



Les Misérables (translated variously from French as The Miserable Ones, The Wretched, The Poor Ones, The Wretched Poor, The Victims) (1862) is a novel by French author Victor Hugo, and among the best-known novels of the 19th century. It follows the lives and interactions of several French characters over a twenty year period in the early 19th century that includes the Napoleonic wars and subsequent decades. Principally focusing on the struggles of the protagonist—ex-convict Jean Valjean—who seeks to redeem himself, the novel also examines the impact of Valjean's actions for the sake of social commentary. It examines the nature of good, evil, and the law, in a sweeping story that expounds upon the history of France, architecture of Paris, politics, moral philosophy, law, justice, religion, and the types and nature of romantic and familial love. Hugo was inspired by the real-life criminal/policeman François Eugène Vidocq, and split his personalities into the two main characters in his novel. Les Misérables is known to many through its numerous stage and screen adaptations, of which the most famous is the stage musical of the same name, commonly known as "Les Mis" or, more commonly "Les Miz".



The climax of the novel is the crux of the entire plot of Les Misérables. A man regardless of his background can redeem himself and change the course of the remaining years of his life if he adopts the noble virtues of forgiveness and love and makes them his own. Les Misérables is as much Victor Hugo's personal statement on the changing events of France at the time when he saw it as his spiritual outlook on the affairs of man. I would like to interpret Valjean's unrelenting forgiveness of Javert's hatred and hostility towards him as walking the path of the Lord. Faced with the choice of vengeance or forgiveness, Valjean prefers the latter as the only avenue to salvation. It is a tale that holds invaluable lessons of good triumphing over evil in a timeless mode. As these virtues were applicable at the time when Victor lived, they still hold true today.

The effect of an act of kindness or forgiveness can have far-reaching impact and who knows, even change the course of history. When Jean Valjean learned about kindness and forgiveness, it was still not too late in his life to enable him to redeem himself from being a condemned criminal to become one who found peace within himself and with his enemies. This is surely a lesson that we can all learn and follow.

"The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves--say rather, loved in spite of ourselves"
... Jean Valjean in Les Misérables, Victor Hugo

The Genesis of the Butterfly

The dawn is smiling on the dew that covers
The tearful roses; lo, the little lovers
That kiss the buds, and all the flutterings
In jasmine bloom, and privet, of white wings,
That go and come, and fly, and peep and hide,
With muffled music, murmured far and wide.
Ah, the Spring time, when we think of all the lays
That dreamy lovers send to dreamy mays,
Of the fond hearts within a billet bound,
Of all the soft silk paper that pens wound,
The messages of love that mortals write
Filled with intoxication of delight,
Written in April and before the May time
Shredded and flown, playthings for the wind's playtime,
We dream that all white butterflies above,
Who seek through clouds or waters souls to love,
And leave their lady mistress in despair,
To flit to flowers, as kinder and more fair,
Are but torn love-letters, that through the skies
Flutter, and float, and change to butterflies

... Victor Marie Hugo

Ample Make This Bed

Ample make this bed.
Make this bed with awe;
In it wait till judgment break
Excellent and fair.

Be its mattress straight,
Be its pillow round;
Let no sunrise’ yellow noise
Interrupt this ground.

... Time and Eternity, Emily Dickinson
Recited in Sophie's Choice

Sophie's Choice

Sophie's Choice is a novel by William Styron published in 1979 about a young American Southerner, an aspiring writer, who befriends the Jewish Nathan Landau and his beautiful lover Sophie, a Polish (but non-Jewish) survivor of the Nazi concentration camps. An immediate bestseller and the basis of a successful film of the same title, the novel is often considered both Styron's best work and a major novel of the twentieth century. The difficult decision that shapes the character Sophie is sometimes used as an idiom. A "Sophie's Choice" is a tragic choice between two unbearable options.

The 1982 American movie starring Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, and Peter MacNicol was directed by Alan J Pakula. It was Kevin Klein's movie debut. The film won the Academy Award for Best Actress (Meryl Streep) and was nominated for Best Cinematography, Costume Design, Best Music and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium. The film was also ranked #1 in the Roger Ebert's Top Ten List for 1982 and was listed on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies.

Sophie's Choice is narrated by Stingo, a young writer longing to begin/finish his first novel. While Stingo is working on his novel, he is slowly drawn into the lives of lovers Nathan Landau and Sophie Zawistowska, the inhabitants of the apartment above him. Sophie is a beautiful Polish survivor of the concentration camps of World War II and Nathan is Jewish - and a genius. Although Nathan claims to be a Harvard graduate and a cellular biologist, it is revealed later in the story that this is a fabrication. He is actually a paranoid schizophrenic, though almost no one knows, including Sophie and Stingo. This means that although most times he is fine and normal, there are some times that he is jealous, violent, and delusional.

As the story progresses, Sophie tells Stingo of her past, of which she has never before spoken. She tells of her anti-Semitic father, her unwillingness to help him spread his ideas, her arrest for smuggling ham to her mother, who was on her deathbed, and particularly, her brief stint as a stenographer-typist in the personal home of Rudolph Höß, the commander of Auschwitz. She relates her attempts to seduce Höß to ensure that her blonde, blue-eyed, German speaking son be allowed to leave the camp and enter the Lebensborn program, in which he would be raised as a German child. She failed and never learned of her son's fate.

As Nathan's "outbreaks" become more and more violent and abusive, Stingo receives a summons from Nathan's brother Larry. Stingo learns that Nathan is schizophrenic and is not a cellular biologist although "he could have been fantastically brilliant at anything he might have tried out…But he never got his mind in order." Nathan's delusions have led him to believe that Stingo is having an affair with Sophie, and he threatens to kill them both.

Sophie and Stingo flee to Stingo's father's peanut farm in Virginia. While on the way there, Sophie reveals her deepest, darkest secret: the night she arrived at Auschwitz, a sadistic doctor made her choose which child would die immediately by gassing, and which would continue to live, albeit in the camp. Of her two children, Sophie chose to sacrifice her seven year old daughter, Eva, in a heart-rending decision that has left her mourning and filled with a guilt that she has not, or rather cannot, overcome. Also on the journey to his father's peanut farm in Virginia, Stingo proposes marriage to Sophie. She refuses, but he persuades her to think it over. After sharing but a single night together, before they reach the farm, Sophie disappears, leaving only a note that says that she must return to Nathan.

Upon arriving back in Brooklyn, Stingo discovers that both Sophie and Nathan have committed suicide in their room by way of sodium cyanide. Although Stingo is devastated, the last sentence in the novel suggests maybe a shred of optimism:

This was not judgment day, only morning.
Morning: excellent and fair.

The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (original: The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere) is the longest major poem by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge written in 1797–1799 and published in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads (1798). Along with other poems in Lyrical Ballads, it was a signal shift to modern poetry, and the beginnings of British Romantic literature.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner relates the supernatural events experienced by a mariner on a long sea voyage. The Mariner stops a man who is on the way to a wedding ceremony, and begins to recite his story. The Wedding-Guest's reaction turns from bemusement and impatience to fascination as the Mariner's story progresses.

The Mariner's tale begins with his ship descending on their journey; despite initial good fortune, the ship is driven off course by a storm and, driven south, eventually reaches Antarctica. An albatross appears and leads them out of the Antarctic; even as the albatross is praised by the ship's crew, the Mariner shoots the bird down: (with my cross-bow / I shot the albatross). The other sailors are angry with the Mariner, as they thought the albatross brought the South Wind that led them out of the Antarctic: (Ah, wretch, said they / the bird to slay / that made the breeze to blow). However, the sailors change their minds when the weather becomes warmer and the mist disappears: ('Twas right, said they, such birds to slay / that bring the fog and mist). The crime arouses the wrath of supernatural spirits who then pursue the ship "from the land of mist and snow"; the south wind which had initially led them from the land of ice now sends the ship into uncharted waters, where it is becalmed.

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.

Here, however, the sailors change their minds again and blame the Mariner for the torment of their thirst. (Ah! Well a-day! What evil looks / Had I from old and young! / Instead of the cross, the albatross / About my neck was hung) is metaphorically illustrating that the guilt of killing the albatross reflected when it hung around his neck, but in reality, it had plunged into the water. Eventually, in an eerie passage, the ship encounters a ghostly vessel. On board are Death (a skeleton) and the "Night-mare Life-in-Death" (a deathly-pale woman), who are playing dice for the souls of the crew. With a roll of the dice, Death wins the lives of the crew members and Life-in-Death the life of the mariner, a prize she considers more valuable. Her name is a clue as to the mariner's fate; he will endure a fate worse than death as punishment for his killing of the albatross.

One by one all of the crew members die, but the Mariner lives on, seeing for seven days and nights the curse in the eyes of the crew's corpses, whose last expressions remain upon their faces. Eventually, the Mariner's curse is lifted when he sees sea creatures swimming in the water. Despite his cursing them as "slimy things" earlier in the poem, he suddenly sees their true beauty and blesses them (a spring of love gush'd from my heart and I bless'd them unaware); suddenly, as he manages to pray, the albatross falls from his neck and his guilt is partially expiated. The bodies of the crew, possessed by good spirits, rise again and steer the ship back home, where it sinks in a whirlpool, leaving only the Mariner behind. A hermit on the mainland had seen the approaching ship, and had come to meet it with a pilot and the pilot's boy in a boat. When they pull him from the water, they think he is dead, but when he opens his mouth, the pilot has a fit. The hermit prays, and the Mariner picks up the oars to row. The pilot's boy goes crazy and laughs, thinking the mariner is the devil, and says "The Devil knows how to row." As penance for shooting the Albatross, the Mariner is forced to wander the earth and tell his story, and teach a lesson to those he meets:

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.

Taken from Wikipedia

Think Of Me

Think of me, when 'mid joy and gladness
They bark glides smoothly down life's tranquil stream.
When thy life, free from care or sadness,
Is calm and peaceful as a summer dream.

Think of me, though thy path be dreary,
Though care and sorrow may thy life enshroud;
When crushed hopes make the heart grow weary
And life seems darkened by a wintry cloud.

Think of me, let thy heart grow kinder
In summer's sunshine or in winter's gloom,
Think of me, when thy sole reminder
Is but the shadow of my silent tomb.

... Thomas E Spencer

Out Of Africa

Still on medical leave and reeling from bouts of cough and flu, I spent half the day reading and watching another classic - one that sits in comfortably as one of my all-time favourite: Out Of Africa, starring the mega-talented Meryl Streep and Robert Redford.

I first fell in love with Meryl Streep when I saw her in Sophie's Choice. It is unfortnate that in recent years, her role choices have been questionable. Yet, she remains under-rated for the talent which she has. You must watch Sophie's Choice to understand.

"I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills..."

Thus begins the story of a farm that the narrator once owned near Nairobi, Kenya in the twilight years of European colonialism. The book describes events during 1914–1931 concerning European settlers and the native people in the bush country of Kenya (British East Africa), from seaside Mombasa to Nairobi, from Mount Kenya to Kilimanjaro, as told from the lyrical, poetic viewpoint of Danish Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke. The book was continually in print during the 20th Century, reprinted by many publishers.

The farm sits at an altitude of six thousand feet, the farm grows coffee, although only part of its six thousand acres (24 km²) is used for agriculture. The remaining parts of the land are forest and space for the natives - most of whom are from the Kikuyu tribe. In exchange for living on the farm, they work on it a certain number of days per year. There are many other tribal Africans nearby, including the Masai and Somalis such as Farah, the chief servant who helps the narrator run the entire farm. So you can imagine the vast beauty in the cinematography of this film.

The film itself opens in Denmark as an older Karen Blixen (Streep) briefly remembers hunting in Denmark, then the years she spent in Africa (1914–1931). Looming large in her memory is the figure of Denys Finch Hatton (Redford), a local big-game hunter she met when she arrived in Africa to start what she thought would be a dairy farm together with her husband, Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke (Brandauer).

Things turn out differently for her than anticipated, as the blue-blooded but poor Baron has used her money to purchase a coffee plantation instead of a dairy farm. He also shows little inclination to put any work into it, preferring to hunt game instead. While from the beginning, their marriage is depicted as mostly symbiotic (her family has money, while the Baron has a title), Karen does eventually develop feelings for him and is distressed when she learns of his affairs.

To make matters worse, she contracts syphilis from her philandering husband, which at the time was a very dangerous condition, necessitating her return to Denmark for a possible cure.

After she has recovered and returned to Africa, a relationship between her and Denys begins to develop. However, after many unsuccessful attempts at turning their affair into a lasting relationship, she realizes that Denys is as impossible to own or tame as Africa itself.

Karen lives surrounded by fine European furniture and opens a school to teach European reading and customs to the native people, whereas Denys prefers the freedom of the outdoors and leaves the natives to their own customs. His eventual death in a plane crash is foreshadowed in the movie by the tale of Maasai people who would perish in captivity. At his funeral in the Ngong Hills, as Karen prepares to toss a handful of soil into the grave, she hesitates, then turns away from the other Europeans, brushing her hand instead through her hair, in the native custom.

In the film Karen is forced to return to Denmark, following a catastrophic fire that destroys her entire crop of coffee. After more than 20 years, Karen has become an author, a storyteller, writing about her experiences and letters from Africa, and still remembering.

The epitath on Denys Finch Hatton's tomb reads this beautiful poem:

"He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."

... The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Anger And Its Medicine

"Know, O dear readers, that the medicine of a disease is to remove the root cause of that disease. Isa (Jesus Christ) -peace be upon him - was once asked: "What thing is difficult?" He said: "God's wrath." Prophet Yahya (John the Baptist) -peace be upon him - then asked: "What thing takes near the wrath of God?" He said:"Anger". Yahya -peace be upon him - asked him:"What thing grows and increases anger?" Isa -peace be upon him- said:"Pride, prestige, hope for honour and haughtiness"

The causes which cause anger to grow are self-conceit, self-praise, jests and ridicule, argument, treachery, too much greed for too much wealth and name and fame. If these evils are united in a person, his conduct becomes bad and he cannot escape anger.

So these things should be removed by their opposites. Self-praise is to be removed by modesty. Pride is to be removed by one's own origin and birth, greed is to be removed by remaining satisfied with necessary things, and miserliness by charity.

The prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: "A strong man is not he who defeats his adversary by wrestling, but a strong man is he who controls himself at the time of anger."

We are describing below the medicines of anger after one gets angry:
The medicine is a mixture of knowledge and action. The medicine based on knowledge is of six kinds:

(1) The first medicine of knowledge is to think over the rewards of appeasing anger, that have come from the verses of the Quran and the sayings of the Prophet (pbuh). Your hope for getting rewards of appeasing anger will restrain you from taking revenge.

(2) The second kind of medicine based on knowledge is to fear the punishment of God and to think that the punishment of God upon me is greater than my punishment upon him. If I take revenge upon this man for anger, God will take revenge upon me on the Judgement Day.

(3) The third kind of medicine of anger based on knowledge is to take precaution about punishment of enmity and revenge on himself. You feel joy in having your enemy in your presence in his sorrows, You yourself are not free from that danger. You will fear that your enemy might take revenge against you in this world and in the next.

(4) Another kind of medicine based on knowledge is to think about the ugly face of the angry man, which is just like that of the ferocious beast. He who appeases anger looks like a sober and learned man.

(5) The fifth kind of medicine based on knowledge is to think that the devil will advise by saying: " You will be weak if you do not get angry!" Do not listen to him!

(6) The sixth reason is to think: " What reason have I got to get angry? What Allah wishes has occurred!"

Medicine based on action:
When you get angry, say: I seek refuge in God from the accursed evil (A'uzu billaahi min as shaytaan ir rajeem). The prophet (pbuh) ordered us to say thus.

When Ayesha (ra) got angry, he dragged her by the nose and said: " O dear Ayesha, say: O God, you are the Lord of my prophet Muhammad, forgive my sins and remove the anger from my heart and save me from misguidance."

If anger does not go by this means, you will sit down if you are standing, lie down if you are sitting, and come near to earth, as you have been created of earth. Thus make yourself calm like the earth. The cause of wrath is heat and its opposite is to lie down on the ground and to make the body calm and cool.

The prophet (pbuh) said: Anger is a burning coal. Don't you see your eyebrows wide and eyes reddish? So when one of you feels angry, let him sit down if standing, and lie down if sitting.

If still anger does not stop, make ablution with cold water or take a bath, as fire cannot be extinguished without water.

The prophet (pbuh) said : " When one of you gets angry, let him make ablution with water as anger arises out of fire." In another narration, he said:" Anger comes from the devil and the devil is made of fire."

Sayyidina Ali (kw) said:
The prophet did not get angry for any action of the world. When any true matter charmed him, nobody knew it and nobody got up to take revenge for his anger. He got angry only for Truth."

... The Alchemy of Happiness, Imam al-Ghazali Abu Hamid

Life

LIFE, believe, is not a dream
So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain
Foretells a pleasant day.
Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
O why lament its fall?

Rapidly, merrily,
Life's sunny hours flit by,
Gratefully, cheerily,
Enjoy them as they fly!

What though Death at times steps in
And calls our Best away?
What though sorrow seems to win,
O'er hope, a heavy sway?
Yet hope again elastic springs,
Unconquered, though she fell;
Still buoyant are her golden wings,
Still strong to bear us well.
Manfully, fearlessly,
The day of trial bear,
For gloriously, victoriously,
Can courage quell despair!

... Charlotte Bronte

Final Third Of The Night

Our Lord (glorified and exalted be He) descends each night to the earth's sky when there remains the final third of the night, and He says: "Who is saying a prayer to Me that I may answer it? Who is asking something of Me that I may give it him? Who is asking forgiveness of Me that I may forgive him? " And thus He continues till [the light of] dawn shines.

[Bukhari, Muslim, Malik, at-Tirmidhi, Abu Dawud]

Children

For J and J: both of whom recently welcomed joyful additions to their families:

"And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, “Speak to us of Children.”

And he said:
“Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer seeks the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His Might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable."

... The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran

The Grammarian and the Boatman

A grammarian once embarked in a boat. Turning to the boatman with a self-satisfied air he asked him:

‘Have you ever studied grammar?’

‘No,’ replied the boatman.

‘Then half your life has gone to waste,’ the grammarian said.

The boatman thereupon felt very depressed, but he answered him nothing for the moment. Presently the wind tossed the boat into a whirlpool. The boatman shouted to the grammarian:

‘Do you know how to swim?’

‘No’ the grammarian replied, ‘my well-spoken, handsome fellow’.

‘In that case, grammarian,’ the boatman remarked, ‘the whole of your life has gone to waste, for the boat is sinking in these whirlpools.’

You may be the greatest scholar in the world in your time, but consider, my friend, how the world passes away - and time!

... Mathnawi, Mevlana Jalalludin Rumi

The Pitcher

Have you heard about the tragedy of the little pitcher? He heard a thirsty man calling for water from his sick-bed in a corner of a room. The pitcher was so full of compassion for the man that by a supreme effort of will he actually managed to roll to within an inch of the sufferer's hand.

When the man opened his eyes and saw a pitcher beside him, he was full of wonderment and relief. He managed to pick up the jug and held it to his lips. Then he realized that it was empty. With almost the last remains of his strength, the invalid threw the pitcher against a wall, where it smashed into useless pieces of clay...

... The Magic Monastery, Idries Shah

Elephant In The Dark

As our world continues to shrink, we are being brought headlong into often explosive contact with other cultures and religions. Islam continues to be for many a mysterious and misunderstood force, alien to our own cultural values.

Yet, in more ways than expected, Christianity and Islam share common ground. For centuries, spiritual thinkers have been linked to both religions in certain important ideas.

But, like The Elephant in the Dark in Jalalludin Rumi's classic fable contained in his Mathnawi, these ideas are not grasped in full by seizing parts of the whole and arguing for or against their supposed Christian or Islamic derivation.

Herein is the story as told in the Mathnawi:

"Some Hindus had brought an elephant for exhibition and placed it in a dark house. Crowds of people were going into that dark place to see the beat. Finding that ocular inspection was impossible, each visitor felt it with his palm in the darkness.

The palm of one fell on the trunk.

‘This creature is like a water-spout,’ he said.

The hand of another lighted on the elephant’s ear. To him the beat was evidently like a fan.

Another rubbed against its leg.

‘I found the elephant’s shape is like a pillar,’ he said.

Another laid his hand on its back.

‘Certainly this elephant was like a throne,’ he said.

The sensual eye is just like the palm of the hand. The palm has not the means of covering the whole of the beast.

The eye of the Sea is one thing and the foam another. Let the foam go, and gaze with the eye of the Sea. Day and night foam-flecks are flung from the sea: of amazing! You behold the foam but not the Sea. We are like boats dashing together; our eyes are darkened, yet we are in clear water."

In the Jain's version, a wise man then explains to them: "All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently is because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all the features you mentioned."

In the Buddhist's version, the raja says:
"O how they cling and wrangle, some who claim
For preacher and monk the honored name!
For, quarreling, each to his view they cling.
Such folk see only one side of a thing."

And yet, in a famous 19th century version poem by John Godfrey Saxe, the conflict never gets resolved:
"It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!"

It Had To Be You

One of my favourite: Harry Connick Jr and he was here in Singapore recently for the opening of the Mosaic Festival. Reminded of the first song when I was introduced to him way back in the 90's. That talent, timeless voice ... the big band sound ... awesome.

Felt in love for the first time when I heard Recipe For Love - the best! But what most will be familiar with is the title track from When Harry Met Sally - It Had To Be You. Enjoy :)

Come Here

If Music Be The Food Of Love

If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.

That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour!

... The Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare

Word

The word is half his that speaks, and half his that hears it.

... Michel de Montaigne

Philosophy

A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism,
but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds to religion.

... Francis Bacon

Even If You Were Only A Dream

Sometimes I wonder, sweetest love, if you
Were a mere dream in a long winter night,
A dream of spring-days, and of golden light
Which sheds its rays upon a frozen heart;
A dream of wine that fills the drunken eye.

And so I wonder, sweetest love, if I
Should drink this ruby wine, or rather weep;
Each tear a bezel with your face engraved,
A rosary to memorize your name...

There are so many ways to call you back -
Yes, even if you were only a dream.

... Mevlana Jalalludin Rumi

The River

In the valley of Kadisha where the mighty river flows, two little streams met and spoke to one another.

One stream said, "How came you, my friend, and how was your path?"

And the other answered, "My path was most encumbered. The wheel of the mill was broken, and the master farmer who used to conduct me from my channel to his plants, is dead. I struggled down oozing with the filth of laziness in the sun. But how was your path, my brother?"

And the other stream answered and said, "Mine was a different path. I came down the hills among fragrant flowers and shy willows; men and women drank of me with silvery cups, and little children paddled their rosy feet at my edges, and there was laughter all about me, and there were sweet songs. What a pity that your path was not so happy."

At that moment the river spoke with a loud voice and said, "Come in, come in, we are going to the sea. Come in, come in, speak no more. Be with me now. We are going to the sea. Come in, come in, for in me you shall forget you wanderings, sad or gay. Come in, come in. And you and I will forget all our ways when we reach the heart of our mother the sea."

... The Wanderer, Kahlil Gibran

The Other Wanderer

Once on a time I met another man of the roads. He too was a little mad, and thus spoke to me:

"I am a wanderer. Oftentimes it seems that I walk the earth among pygmies. And because my head is seventy cubits farther from the earth than theirs, it creates higher and freer thoughts.

"But in truth I walk not among men but above them, and all they can see of me is my footprints in their open fields.

"And often have I heard them discuss and disagree over the shape and size of my footprints. For there are some who say, 'These are the tracks of a mammoth that roamed the earth in the far past.' And others say, 'Nay, these are places where meteors have fallen from the distant stars.'

"But you, my friend, you know full well that they are naught save the footprints of a wanderer."

... The Wanderer, Kahlil Gibran

The Path

There lived among the hills a woman and her son, and he was her first-born and her only child. And the boy died of a fever whilst the physician stood by. The mother was distraught with sorrow, and she cried to the physician and besought him saying,

"Tell me, tell me, what was it that made quiet his striving and silent his song?"
And the physician said, "It was the fever."
And the mother said, "What is the fever?"
And the physician answered, "I cannot explain it. It is a thing infinitely small that visits the body, and we cannot see it with the human eye."
Then the physician left her. And she kept repeating to herself, "Something infinitely small. We cannot see it with our human eye."

And at evening the priest came to console her. And she wept and she cried out saying, "Oh, why have I lost my son, my only son, my first-born?"
And the priest answered, "My child, it is the will of God."
And the woman said, "What is God and where is God? I would see God that I may tear my bosom before Him, and pour the blood of my heart at His feet. Tell me where I shall find Him."
And the priest said, ""God is infinitely vast. He is not to be seen with our human eye."
Then the woman cried out, "The infinitely small has slain my son through the will of the infinitely great! Then what are we? What are we?"

At that moment the woman's mother came into the room with the shroud for the dead boy, and she heard the words of the priest and also her daughter's cry. And she laid down the shroud, and took her daughter's hand in her own hand, and she said, "My daughter, we ourselves are the infinitely small and the infinitely great; and we are the path between the two."

... The Wanderer, Kahlil Gibran

Sheherezade's Tales...

"...But when it was midnight Sheherezade awoke and signalled to her sister Dunyázád who sat up and said, "Allah upon thee, O my sister, recite to us some new story, delightsome and delectable wherewith to while away the waking hours of our latter night." "With joy and goodly gree," answered Sheherezade, "if this pious and auspicious King permit me." "Tell on," quoth the King who chanced to be sleepless and restless and therefore was pleased with the prospect of hearing her story... "

The Angel Of Death With The Proud And The Devout Man

IT is related, O auspicious King, that one of the olden monarchs was once minded to ride out in state with the officers of his realm and the grandees of his retinue and display to the folk the marvels of his magnificence. So he ordered his lords and emirs and equip them therefor and commanded his keeper of the wardrobe to bring him of the richest of raiment, such as befitted the King in his state, and he bade them bring his steeds of the finest breeds and pedigrees every man heeds. Which being done, he chose out of the raiment what rejoiced him most and of the horses that which he deemed best, and donning the clothes, together with a collar set with margarites and rubies and all manner jewels, mounted and set forth in state, making his destrier prance and curvet among his troops and glorying in his pride and despotic power.

And Iblis came to him and, laying his hand upon his nose, blew into his nostrils the breath of hauteur and conceit, so that he magnified and glorified himself and said in his heart, "Who among men is like unto me?" And he became so pulled up with arrogance and self-sufficiency, and so taken up with the thought of his own splendor and magnificence, that he would not vouchsafe a glance to any man.

Presently there stood before him one clad in tattered clothes and saluted him, but he returned not his salaam, whereupon the stranger laid hold of his horse's bridle. "Lift thy hand!" cried the King. "Thou knowest not whose bridle rein it is whereof thou takest hold." Quoth the other, "I have a need of thee." Quoth the King, "Wait till I alight, and then name thy need." Rejoined the stranger, "It is a secret and I will not tell it but in thine ear." So the King bowed his head to him and he said, "I am the Angel of Death and I purpose to take thy soul." Replied the King, "Have patience with me a little, whilst I return to my house and take leave of my people and children and neighbors and wife." "By no means so," answered the Angel. "Thou shalt never return nor look on them again, for the fated term of thy life is past."

So saying, he took the soul of the King (who fell off his horse's back dead) and departed thence.

Presently the Death Angel met a devout man, of whom Almighty Allah had accepted, and saluted him. He returned the salute, and the Angel said to him, "O pious man, I have a need of thee which must be kept secret." "Tell it in my ear," quoth the devotee, and quoth the other, "I am the Angel of Death." Replied the man: "Welcome to thee! And praised be Allah for thy coming! I am aweary of awaiting thine arrival, for indeed long hath been thine absence from the lover which longeth for thee." Said the Angel, "If thou have any business, make an end of it," but the other answered, saying, "There is nothing so urgent to me as the meeting with my Lord, to whom be honor and glory!" And the Angel said, "How wouldst thou fain have me take thy soul? I am bidden to take it as thou willest and choosest." He replied, "Tarry till I make the ablution and pray, and when I prostrate myself, then take my soul while my body is on the ground." Quoth the Angel, "Verily, my Lord (be He extolled and exalted!) commanded me not to take thy soul but with thy consent and as thou shouldst wish, so I will do thy will."

Then the devout man made the minor ablution and prayed, and the Angel of Death took his soul in the act of prostration and Almighty Allah transported it to the place of mercy and acceptance and forgiveness.

... A Thousand And One Nights aka The Arabian Nights