Sunday, October 25, 2015

Right, but Wrong!

One of my pastimes is reading comments on absolutely anything as long as there is even a slight hint of ‘bickering’ expected to erupt. That means I also read reviews of things which have ratings ranging from 1 to 5 (stars) fully populated, especially the bottom half because they are the more fun to read. These constitute what David Gorman likes to call “Found Poems” (more here) in his comedy show “Modern Life is Good…ish”. I’ll leave the poetry part to my blog’s later half and get on with one small review for now:

The donuts had the disgusting consistency of porous styrofoam, and were similarly flavorless. The syrup was fine. – An Amazon Review

Let us dissect the above review of Rasagullas on Amazon.com (ignoring articles, verbs, prepositions, etc.):

Donuts – They are not!

Disgusting – Wrong qualifier for what’s to follow…

Consistency – A very high-level word used by very high-level connoisseurs like me to describe what does not need a description.

Porous – Right he is for once in this sentence.

Styrofoam – He’s getting the hold of it.

Similarly – hmmm⋯mmm

Flavorless – Sort of right again, but then what else do you expect from ‘denatured’ protein extracted out of milk.

Syrup – Yes, it is there to take the ‘less’ out of the above word and add more of the remaining word.

Fine – Finally something positive but it should have been the only word in the review!

Let’s have some sweets and forget the above (no hard feelings [pun intended]) while reading some serious poetry:

सफर के साथ सफर के नए मसाइल थे
घरों का ज़िक्र तो रस्ते में छुट जाता था

Safar ke saath safar ke naye masaail the
Gharon ka zikr to raste mein chhut jaata tha

The journeys had their own new problems
Thoughts of home just forgotten on the way

वसीम बरेलवी (Waseem Barelvi)

Here’s the beautiful site, which hosts the full Ghazal containing the above Sher:

Rekhta