Boccaccio's Love Tale

An interesting idea also an useful one to survive. Ten Florentine youth, seven women and three men to escape the Black Death, decided to flee to a remote villa in a country-side called Fiesole in Italy and stay there until the disease got subsided. Each evening they narrated tales to kill boredom and ennui except one day that dedicated to house-hold chores. On the tenth day, they were amazed to find them in possession of one hundred tales with them. The title of the book literally means 'Ten-day Event' (The Decameron). Boccaccio's 'Federigo and Giovanna' is the penultimate tale of the fifth day's narration. Boccaccio started composing this work, the one hundred tales, probably in 1350 and took one to three years to complete it. This interesting love story is about a young man of Florence, the son of Messers Filippo Alberighi. He is Federigo degli Alberighi. Federigo is in love with a very beautiful woman of Florence, Monna Giovanna.

Federigo was head over heels in love with the woman that he did everything to attract her. He took part in Joust and Tourneys and threw parties extensively and invited the gentle folk of the town. This unstinting love was snubbed by Giovanna who held up her chastity and threw no glance at this man. Federigo never stopped his activities and soon became a victim of penury. He sold all his wealth and chose to endure his poverty by staying on the only remaining farm of him in Campi. He held in possession a Falcon and that comforted him during his moments of dismay. In the meantime, Giovanna happily married and gave out a male child to the world. She was living happily until her husband fell ill and made a will to bequeath all his property to his lovable son, and made his wife heir to the property lest the son could die without legitimate children. After her husband's death, the widow came to spend sometime on one of her farms in Campi. There her son managed to hook up a friend-ship with Federigo and became a great fan of the falcon. One day the boy suddenly fell ill and day by day his illness aggravated. Monna was worried and wanted to mitigate his illness by doing what the boy really required. Knowing that the boy wants to possess the falcon of Federigo, Giovanna with all humility decided to visit him in person and with shame would ask for the falcon. On seeing Giovanna at his doorstep, that she never condescended to visit him when he was rich, Federigo became happy and decided to give her what he could. She expressed her interest in dining with him and unfortunately the poor man could not afford a decent meal. At last he killed the falcon and made a fine curry and served her with all happiness. Afterwards he felt bad of doing so, as the visit of hers was to have the falcon alive for her son. Reconciling with the fate, Giovanna returned empty-handed and the son of hers died owing either to the disappointment or the unrelenting illness in a few days. Giovanna was still young and rich and her brothers compelled her to marry and she decided to take the gentlemanly Federigo as her husband in the end.

The Uruguay Melody

A sheer poetry on screen from South America. This Uruguay movie is set in a small town of Melo abutting the Brazilian border. Some men of this village occupy themselves in contra banding goods (even household items) from the other side of the border to make a living. The movie is set in 1988 and based on the visit of the then Pope, Pope John Paul II, to Melo. There is much hoopla and hype about the turn-outs for the liturgical service that the Pope would hold in the small town. The villagers borrow money to set up stalls for the attendees. The protagonist Beto wears his 'Think-hat' and builds a toilet by doing service to the local don, who lets him pass through the border by bribing the watches, much to the agony and opposition of his wife. His daughter who has dreams of becoming a TV reporter dislikes her father's profession and at times acts indifferently towards him. Beto suffers from knee-pain and ignoring it, he gives a final trial to his inception of the toilet. With the saved up money of his wife, as the good-angel in him comes alive, for their daughter's higher studies, Beto buys a Western-type toilet mug and reaches his shanty abode at the last minute. On contrary to the expectation, the services end early and only a very less turn out has been seen from the other side of the border. The whole of the stall-holders is disappointed and is further deprived of expected wealth. The movie ends in a reconciliation between the father and the daughter, who realises the fatherly commitment and steps into her father's shoes to help him.

A Collage of Poems

Wanted: A Broom is a poem by the Tamil poet Chandrakanti. It is a simple narrative poem that describes the pangs of a woman, who details out her suffering. The poem voices the opposition to ‘Sthree-dhanam’- a kind of groom-price offered by the family of the bride to the groom at the time of marriage. The speaker of the poem is a woman. It seems that the woman was in love with a man. When they were in love, the man did not much ponder over the prospect of money. However, when he has decided to enter into the conjugal bliss with her, he enumerates the things that he expects from her or from her family. The list includes gold, money, utensils and goes on to include a broom to sweep the floor. Much angered by this act, the woman says that it is too much and she definitely needs a broom to sweep him off her heart and put him in trash. The woman considers such type of conjugality is only a corporate venture and not life. She is not crazy or a fool to cement such business tie with any male.

Street Dog is a poem by the Punjabi writer Amrita Pritam. It details the failed conjugal relationship between a man and a woman. The separation happened a long time ago and the speaker of the poem, the wife, keeps in her memory only a gruesome act that the separation went to engender. The poem begins with the act of separation. The pair decided to go on their separate ways and to do everything that would leave no trace of their past union. The woman ruminates on the events that happened as they decided to part. They put up their house on sale and started vacating it by scattering their things on the verandah. The woman felt that those things gazed at them and some of them, kept topsy-turvy, decided to cover their heads in shame. She looked at the vine that they had reared and thought that it was trying to say something to them or making a complaint to the water tap. The wife says that none of those things strikes her now and then; conversely she is often reminded of how a straying street dog that had entered into their empty home and was trapped inside and was found on the third day lying dead, when the wife went to show the house to a prospective owner. She is smitten by that sin often, which also serves as an appalling reminder of her erstwhile married-life.

S Usha is a popular Kannada writer. Her prescribed poem To Mother was translated by the notable Indian poet A K Ramanujan. It is a simple narrative poem that speaks out a woman’s mind. The speaker of the poem is a young girl who rises against tradition. She confronts her mother and pleads her to listen to what she has to say. According to the daughter, the traditional fixtures act as a veil to her rising. She wants her mother to take the sari of tradition off to pave way for sunlight and greenery. The mother snubs the daughter of often as the girl has reached seventeen and should not flash her dress in the street, should not look into the eyes of men and should put on girlish character. The daughter pleads to her mother not to play that tune that has been played for years by generations of mothers. She says that she cannot do things like circumambulating the holy plant in the yard, drawing kolams to go to heaven. She wants to go unleashed and unchecked and heed to only her raw energy and to live very different from her mother. The poem ends with the phrase, ‘let go, make way’. The tone of the speaker is one of exhaustion and dismay.

The Handicapped Caught in a Camera is Raghuvir Sahay’s poem that highlights the plight of the differently-abled in the world of able-bodied men and women. There is masochistic pleasure for the strong in humiliating the handicapped. The poet portrays a television programme in which a poor blind man is asked hurting questions. There are questions that want the blind person to answer how he has got that handicap, how it pains and hurts, and how he feels himself a deprived in the world of marauders. The presenter of the programme has only the intention of making the programme interesting. By putting embarrassing questions to elicit response from the participant, he succeeds in reducing him to tears. The success lies in making both the eyes glint with tear-dews. The show takes a nasty turn as it blows up the handicap several times big by close-up angles. The television channel will then gloat at creating awareness after gruelling the poor soul. The poem has an aversive tone that dismisses all these cruel practices in the name of modernity or creating awareness.

Guido Cavalcanti is a Thirteenth century Italian poet. His are simple nature poems with picturesque descriptions. Concerning a Shepherd Maid is narrated by a man who happens to meet a maid in a copse. She is a shepherdess and very beautiful, fairer than any star. She holds a wand in her hand to which the sheep magically oblige. She is rosy and cheerful with waving tresses. The speaker of the poem greets her and is amazed at seeing her all alone in the valley and she replies that she is lonely and when the birds sing she desires for company. At that moment, the birds begin to chirp rousing the maid’s longing for a company. The speaker decides to assuage her longing and offers himself for her kissing and embracing. The remarks of the poet has made her amorous and with a comprehensive willingness she takes him to a natural, flowery abode, where they make love and the speaker could sense the very presence of ‘love’ there.

A Rapture Concerning His Lady is the second of Cavalcanti’s prescribed poems. The poem talks about a good-looking woman. The speaker describes the furore that her presence does. The arrival of her makes the place bright and tremulous. No man could have a gorging sight to ogle her wholesomely. The speaker wants ‘love’ to discourse on her beauty and her looks on the left and right sides of hers. She is of such nature that in the eyes of men all women look ugly. All the virtuous things are under her command and all beautiful things on the world consider her their deity. The men have never been granted this boon by the greater power that they would know her perfectly.

Ode to Retirement is a philosophical poem by the sixteenth century Spanish poet Luis De Leon. The poem features places that promise everlasting happiness. The speaker of the poem is of the opinion that the person who flies away from the noise and cry of the mundane world would be happier, who has chosen the way that leads his soul to virtue and God. He will be calm as he has seen the eternal glitter of the abode of God. In order to reach the feet of God, one has to adhere to the following. One has to disdain flattery and the trump of fame, pageantry of power, and the gaze of the crowds. Having been tormented by all these, the soul wants to escape and fly to God. The prayer of the speaker to God is to lead him from the frowning eyes of the rich that see poverty indifferently and to live all alone in comfort that the heaven could bestow. The dream of the speaker is to live in a garden by the mountainside that is watered by the cascading rill and being amidst the flowers and chirping of birds. However, there at night the howling wind renders the timber and cries rise upward, though they fail in rousing fear in him, as he has given up all earthly things. He reclines in natural abode trying to catch the heavenly tune orchestrated by the master-hands.


Pirate’s Song is another of Spanish poems by the nineteenth century poet of fame Jose De Espronceda. The speaker of the poem is a sea-pirate, who ridicules the customs of the people who never take to sea for their livelihood. The ship of the pirate is known as ‘Dreaded’ by all and she has ten cannons on her board and she is known for greater speed. Its course is towards Istanbul, an historic Turkish port. The ship is dauntless as she has the mettle to face all. The captain of the ship, the pirate, sings that he has conquered a score of ships and hundreds of lords have surrendered to him. He says that his credos are that liberty is his god, the ship is his treasure and the sea is his governed. He considers the land as trifle. He gloats at how others on seeing ‘Dreaded’ veer off the course. He laughs at death and considers howling wind as players of lute. He lulls to sleep by the roll of thunder and growl of the winds.

The Cow is a beautiful ballad by Victor Hugo and has been rendered in English by William Frederic Giese. The setting of the poem is a farm at noon. It is an idyllic scene with clucking hens and mongrels. A cow of superb reddish brown skin and huge in size stands nearby the old man who has chosen to amble in the afternoon heat. She leads her fawn and deliberately lets a group of urchins follow her. The udder of the cow is pendent in shape as it has passed the time to milk. The urchins that have marble teeth and unkempt air squeeze the udder and spurt the milk onto their faces in an attempt to drink. The derelict maid would be without the afternoon quota of milk. The cow is not perturbed as it has allowed the greedy mouths to drink from its udder. She has done it deliberately as a fecund nurse would feed her offspring. The poet finishes the poem with the remark that the cow’s gaze wanders in regions void of thought unmindful to the furore there.

More Strong than Time is a poem by Victor Hugo that depicts the strong will of the male-lover. The male lover who also is the speaker of the poem is courageous to encounter ‘time’. He enumerates the things that have made him achieve such virility. The lover has enjoyed the lips of his lover, has laid his pale face between her hands, has known the soul of hers and its bloom by allowing himself to travel into it. He has also listened patiently to the voice of her heart as it has spoken of its mysterious things. He has also enlivened by her sorrow and happiness. He has seen and imbibed the star-light of hers hanging over his head. More importantly, a rose petal from her heart and days has fallen to him and he has secured it. All these things give him courage to say to the passing time that he will never grow old and as he has a rose in his heart that can never be plucked by the passing of time. The wings of time may hit him but it would never spill the cup fulfilled with love. The poem ends with two remarks of the speaker. He says that his heart more fire and more love than time could frost and make him forget respectively.

Samson and Delila

Samson and Delila, a 2009 Australian film that won the Camera dOr at Cannes in the same year, is a film featuring the lives of three Australian Aborigines. There is an upcountry Aborigines settlement very interior into the deep part of Australia. The small settlement has power connection and people live in a kind of 'antediluvian' open tenements, however has been made up of modern material, that have only a roof over them. Delila lives with her grandmother who suffers from senility and old-age diseases, for which she is getting treated in the mobile-makeshift hospital. Samson, our hero, has the unusual habit of sniffing petrol very often, on one occasion, he steals petrol from a car and does not use it when his vehicle runs out of the fuel. He wakes up every morning and sniffs petrol and comes out of his house to snatch his brother's guitar and plays on it blaring. He is enamored of Delila, who lives on the native art of making rugs, quilts and mats, along with her grandmother.

Samson follows wherever Delila goes. The old woman also suggests her of accepting him as her husband. All of a sudden the old woman dies, in her sleep, and the girl performs the act of cutting her lock, and is get beaten by neighbourhood woman for not caring the old woman. Samson steals a car of the neighbourhood and takes Delila with him to some city. There they meet an Australian vagabond who lives under a bridge and who also offers them food. They try to live out the days by stealing from a departmental stores and making attempts to sell Delila's decorated wall hangings and rugs. One day as they walk by, a group of white young men kidnaps Delila, rapes and leaves her to her fate. On another occasion, she is hit by a car and fractures her left leg. Unknown of her whereabouts, Samson resigns himself underneath the bridge and swoons out of fasting. Delila returns in a car to carry him to her native tenement, that is not the one she has shared with her grandmother, and the movie ends Delila doing everything to keep the almost invalid Samson up.

Samson seldom speaks in the movie. He deprives himself of his handicap of stammering when he is forced to utter his name for food from the vagabond Australian, the only occasion he has had the opportunity to speak. The movie portrays some of the customs of the aborigines, as Samson also cuts his hair as he has not found Delila as she has met with the accident. The final ritual of burying or cremating the dead is not shown in the movie. The dead grandmother is left there in her bed as the scene jumps to Delila cutting her locks and is getting beaten by the neighbours. The movie also includes scenes that show how the aborigine Delila is finding her art-works difficult to be sold. Whereas a 'Native Items Stores' display quotes a high price for the quilt that Delila's grandmother has made, along with her photograph. As far as the writer of this article is concerned, the movie gives out an opening into the livelihoods of the aborigines as they are torn between their nativity and the invaded cultural traits.

Why was i in a kind of hiatus?

Why was i in a kind of hiatus? These are the reasons.

LOSING

Losing anything is good. As a matter of fact the loss would put anyone in the state of regression and try to take a reversal of the progress. Many would contradict. A sudden loss of life of a bread-winner of a family would never be a good thing. It is costly and will never be easily supplanted. Still it is good. It would definitely pave way for some new blossoms and horizons. Losing something would surely upset one's rhythm, i.e. the rhythm of the kind of routine that one has learned to adopt for a period of time. The routine would never be congenital and would be dismounted at any time. One picks up a style of routine, on many occasions unconsciously, by periods of doldrums. However the act of losing or for that matter losing itself will seldom be goodness as a whole. It comes with a mixture of things. It sometimes puts the losers stagnate and rooted to ground and makes them ponder over their immobility.

'La Belle Noiseuse'

Honore de Balzac's 'The Unknown Masterpiece' is the title of his French short story 'Le Chefd' Oeuvre inconnu', in English. Nicolas Poussin is a young and upcoming painter who is not sure of his talent and has had an obsession of indescribable nature with his success as a renowned painter. The story opens with Nicolas sauntering before the chateau of a famous painter Porbus. He is reluctant to get in. His poverty is one of the reasons for his stagnancy. It is the Paris of 1612 that has drawn the poor painter from his native place hoping to find a foothold in the world of artists. One of his friends, who is rich enough to support him has seen to it that Nicolas reaches Paris safely. It usually happens to gifted individuals in the world. Within a very short while from his arrival, he is spotted by a very beautiful, rich young woman Gillette. Gillette is that sort of a young girl who would do anything for a poor artist who wants to realise his dream. She falls in love with the young man and sheds all her riches to be with the hapless artist. His intention to meet Porbus is to get inspiration and promotion in the field of art as he has nothing but a few canvasses, pieces of chalk and charcoal and not palette with paints and brushes.

A stranger overtakes Nicolas on the flight of staircase and knocks at the atelier. It is opened by an emaciated man and Nicolas gets a feeling that the figure is Porbus. The stranger is old and bald-headed and has a promising visage and spirit in his eyes. The stranger looks at the canvass at the easel, that upholds a recently done portrait of St. Mary of Egypt at a boat with a boatman. Porbus is all ears as the old man begins a discourse on painting, use of light and tint and bringing life into the painting. He dismisses any painting that merely copies things as they are, which is nothing but a prising of objects off nature and making them lifeless. He wants the veins of women in portraits blush with flowing blood. Nicolas is roused by the criticism as he finds the portrait promising. He intervenes with a raddled face to praise the painting. The old man wants Nicolas to prove his mettle as a connoisseur of art and Nicolas draws a line drawing, a reproduction of St. Mary of Egypt and signs on the canvass as Nicolas Poussin. The old man and Porbus admire his talent and approve him of a painter and the old man begins his lesson of improving the portrait of Porbus. The old man is Frenhofer, a student of a great artist, Mabuse. Mabuse taught him about the employment of light and shade on portraits. Frenhofer was rich enough to sponsor Mabuse and learn everything from him. He starts working like a possessed spirit on Porbus' portrait and improves it with his magical brush-strokes.

Frenhofer's talent is admirable and uncanny. He compares this with his life-time work, 'Belle Noiseuse', as he has been working on it for ten years, and it titles itself to be his masterpiece. It is a portrait of a courtezan, Catherine Lescault, that remains incomplete as Frenhofer is incapable of combining light with shade and cannot produce shape of the body successfully. He does not want to show the portrait to his hosts, as he takes Porbus and Nicolas for a drink to his studio, where Nicolas is flabbergasted by the portrait of Georgina, as he considers the figure of the woman as his lover, he her creator, lover and husband. Three months pass and the man could not finish his masterpiece, as his efforts to perfect it on seeing the paintings of great masters and he is in dire requirement of a perfect model. Porbus meets him and tries to strike a deal with him. Gillette is conveyed of Nicolas' admiration for Frenhofer and his masterpiece and is requested by Nicolas to pose for the completion of it. Gillette does not want to do so. However her love for Nicolas and the future of Poussin drive her to accept the proposal. The deal of Porbus is that Frenhofer should show his masterpiece as they swap women, Gillette for Noiseuse.

Though Poussin initiates the suggestion of Gillette posing for the portrait, he rues for his decision as he sees the eyes of the old painter gain unusual energy on seeing the silhoutte of Gillette's body. She wants Poussin to wait outside the studio with a dagger in his hand, strongly clutching its hilt and rush in if hears a squeal from her. After waiting for several hours, the gentlemen are let in to find a hazy, foggy portrait, that Frenhofer claims shrouding the figure of a fantastic woman. Poussin and Porbus point out the artist's failure that Frenhofer refuses to accept and accuses of them trying to cheat him. The artist Poussin is distracted by the cry of Gillette and the lover in him wakes up to take her out of the atelier. Frenhofer is discombobulated and bids a nasty farewell. The story ends the very next day when Porbus discovers that Frenhofer died the previous night after setting his portraits on fire including his masterpiece.

In 1991, Jacques Rivette, a French director made a film La Belle Noiseuse, a very liberal adaptation of Balzec's twenty page short story. It is a near to four hour film extensively detaililing the recuperative artistic energy of Frenhofer. The film begins in a village inn with Marianne and Nicolas (Gillette is Marianne in the film), as they are waiting for Porbus to take them to the chateau of Frenhofer. Marianne is interested as Nicolas talks a lot about the painter and has given arresting looks while looking at the portraits of him. She does not know much of the painter nor has she been acquainted with his paintings. The painter lives with his ex-model wife Liz, who has been the painter's model for many of his famous paintings and he has later confined her beauty to himself by not letting her pose after the marriage. Marianne is good looking and lures the painter's chances of reviving his effort to produce the la belle noiseuse masterpiece. Unlike in the story, Marianne has many a modelling session with Frenhofer for almost a week, visiting the chateau everyday, much to the discomfiture of Nicolas from the third day onwards. In the film, Liz warns Marianne not to see the finished product and which is snubbed by Marianne. The finished masterpiece is not shown to the audience and is known only to Marianne, who gets angered by the portrait, Liz and the servant-maid's daughter. Frenhofer seals the portrait with bricks and mortar on a wall and shows the nude back and buttocks of a woman as his masterpiece. The director takes a lot of liberty with Balzac's story as the film has a model-ex-lover to Nicolas. The film ends with a scathing opinion of Nicolas on Frenhofer's masterpiece as a lampoon and anti-climactic comic relief.

A great feature of the film is, it depicts real-time sketching of portraits with the lending of hand by the painter Bernard Dufour, a French painter notable for abstract painting.