Je ne résiste pas et, pour une fois, je la fais à l’envers : parler d’un livre avant de l’avoir lu. Certes, mais l’occasion est trop rare pour ne pas être soulignée : je viens de me porter acquéreur du dernier Thomas Pynchon. Le bougre est sans conteste un des écrivains majeurs contemporains. Il est capable de défricher des territoires littéraires ahurissants, comme dans Mason & Dixon par exemple, qui ne ressemble à rien d’autre de ce que j’ai pu lire auparavant (exception faire du Jeu des perles de verres de Hermann Hesse…). Bref, avant de gober ce monstre de 1468 pages (et oui) et de vous en restituer la substantifique moelle, je ne résiste pas à vous donner le ton (page 14, je débute of course) :

En viel habitué de l’aérostat, Pugnax avait également appris, comme le reste de l’équipage, à répondre aux “appels de la nature” en s’exécutant dans la partie sous le vent de la nacelle, causant quelques étonnements parmi les populations terrestres, mais la chose n’était ni fréquente ni assez notoire pour que quiconque aille signaler et encore moins rassembler des témoignages concernant ces agressions scatologiques venues du ciel. Celles-ci étaient plutôt intégrées au folklore, au monde des superstitions voire, si l’on ne craint pas d’étendre la définition, au domaine religieux.

Et bing…

Par Bruno Dayan

“Is it your face
that adorns the garden?
Is it your fragrance
that intoxicates this garden?
Is it your spirit
that has made this brook
a river of wine?

Hundreds have looked for you
and died searching
in this garden
where you hide behind the scenes.

But this pain is not for those
who come as lovers.
You are easy to find here.
You are in the breeze
and in this river of wine.”

(Behind the Scenes, a Persian poem by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi, known as Jelaluddin Rumi – 1207–1273)

I took this picture of my friend Juliette Sushila last Sunday as we were walking on the ghats along the Ganges in Varanasi (Benaras).
It was one of the last summer days even though it was November.
That day she left for Paris and a kind of winter monsoon came.

Among several things my friend is running charity business with an hospital in the Indian state of Karnataka where she needs support.
www.donnonslavie.org/

Par Holly Randall

15 novembre matin

…de cet après midi. 

Encore un nouveau blog toujours sur WP :  Images en balade. Pas d’ordre chronologique,pas de dates…. enfin, c’est tout “expliqué” en page ” about”. 

6 novembre

 24 octobre- Ce matin, depuis l’Atenea.

“Aisee Vani Boliye, Mun Ka Aapa Khoye
Apna Tan Sheetal Kare, Auran Ko Sukh Hoye”
“Speak such words, sans ego’s ploy
Body remains composed, giving the listener joy”
(Kabir, 1440-1518)

This is one more portrait of the man whom I met at Jatar Ghat along the holy waters of the Ganges in Varanasi (Benaras).
It was nearby the place where the great Bhakti saint, Kabir, wrote his famous dohas (couplets) and sang the ideals of seeing all of humanity as one.

As I was playing with fishes at Jatar ghat’s shore along the Ganges in Varanasi (Benaras) this man came nearby, he was chewing paan (betel leaf) and therefore he couldn’t speak but he made me understand that he wanted a few pictures.
There was a little akhara upper and as he was big and tall I thought that he could be a pehlwan (Indian wrestler) who comes to train there.
The shots came out in a quite funny way because of his involuntary attitude which was a mix of absurd positions, the paan in his mouth and most of all a langot (Indian underwear) which was really too tiny for him.
I showed him what I was getting on my camera and after a good laugh, he accepted my guidance for a few poses.
On this picture there is still some happiness in his eyes and he is trying not to laugh because of his “chewing session”.

7 octobre-

30 septembre

30 septembre-

“I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges, – astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc. 
It is very important to note that some 2,500 years ago at the least Pythagoras went from Samos to the Ganges to learn geometry…
But he would certainly not have undertaken such a strange journey had the reputation of the Brahmins’ science not been long established in Europe.”
(Voltaire – French Enlightenment writer, essayist, and philosopher, 1694-1778)

This was shot at sunset along the holy waters of the Ganges at Jatar ghat in Varanasi (Benaras), the oldest living city in the world.

Happy Navratri to everyone !

“There is nothing to stop me, 
from getting lost, 
anywhere at all, 
if only I make a wish in my mind. 
So I open the wings of my song, 
I go beyond the stony wilderness of fairy tales, 
I lose my way and reach some far away place, 
where silence reigns. 
I get to know the “Champa” flower in “Parul” grove 
all in my own mind. 
There is nothing to stop me, 
from getting lost, 
anywhere at all, 
when the wings of my songs are afloat. 
As the sun sets in the horizon, 
when masses of clouds look like flowers in the sky, 
I float away somewhere far off. 
And in my mind, 
I burst open the closed door, of a fairy tale home.“
(by Rabindranath Tagore)

This is another glimpse of Varanasi (Benaras), the Eternal city, shot at dusk from Scindia ghat along the holy waters of the Ganges.
A few years ago I was reading those words by Tagore, I kept the first sentence in my note book without obvious reason.
Today as time has passed swiftly, I know that there is nothing to stop me from getting lost in Benaras…