how do you say ghyeun tak in French?

There is so much you can learn from people. Especially if the people who you meet come from different backgrounds than yours. There is a great cultural exchange and it leaves everybody much richer. I blogged about this some days back – when we got friendly with our French neighbor - Andy. She was this massive lady who was in India on a secondment and was with us for 6 months. We only got to know her in the last two months and got pretty friendly. She was sweet and she was open. Open to sharing and open to learning. When both collide it makes for a great conversation.

We had good fun moments along the way as well. I realized by talking to her how racist we can get. She spoke about how being a racist is frowned upon and in meetings it is a complete no no. I realized that one has to try and stop being a racist everywhere to be truly neutral. In one office meeting one guy very insensitively spoke about the M word. A lot of us if office are actually racist and see Muslims as different from ‘us’ all. They give into the hype and they are completely taken in by it. When I was much younger I have seen the Mumbai riots and I fell to the fallacy of us versus them. It took me many years to come out and tell myself and the world – screw you. Stop being a racist. I keep arguing that it’s not a religious issue but for many it’s a social issue. The marginalized take to crime and brotherhood as they probably have no other option. If they are given stability and opportunity, crime will automatically fall. In every city there is a pocket of crime and marginalization. The more we propagate the cliché the more it will stick. It becomes self-fulfilling prophesy. In meetings I see people talk loosely about it. In one meeting a senior person spoke disparagingly about Muslims. It was just after my many conversations with Andy where she spoke about ticking a colleague off for being racist. Inspired I ticked him off – I told him you are being a racist. The conversation ended. I think it’s a start. This will take time but people will have to realize not be so. There are different people in this world. Their culture may differ from yours. It is up to us to be sensitive to all of them. To embrace this difference and enjoy them. It’s tough at many times, but to accept and to enjoy the difference is the first step to growing up and learning.

I keep looking out for titles to watch with Jispa. I want her to expand her scope of films to enjoy. So I think about movies I watched as a kid and try to get her to enjoy them. One such movie was Escape through Victory. Almost everyone my age and above would remember this movie. It was a Doordarshan favorite. English movies would be played typically on Friday evening at around 10. This movie was about a POW camp in WW2. Here the POWs have a match with the German national team to prove to the Germans themselves about the Aryan supremacy. With Stallone as a goalie and Pele playing a role as well, the movie quickly achieved cult status when I was a kid. I remember Pele doing a bicycle kick to score. So when I saw it at the library I brought it home. We called Andy to watch it along with us. Andy hails from Lyon in France and it seems Lyon was the base for the underground resistance during the German occupation in WW2. Andy’s family was also involved and at some level a few were even captured and executed. So her perspective was very real and very vivid as compared to anything I might have heard or read before. About how after her grand mom’s death, they found a cupboard stacked full of sugar. She knew that in war Sugar will be heavily rationed, the spectre of the cold war always loomed. In the movie at the end, thanks to the brutal German play and the one sided referring, the crowd goes behind the POW team and they start singing. Thanks to Andy after all these years I understood the significance of the act. Andy started singing along with them. They started singing the French national Anthem.

Then Andy explained the anthem (La Marseillaise) to us. And wow what a rousing violent anthem it is. Here is one part:

Grab your weapons, citizens!
Form your batallions!
Let us march! Let us march!
May impure blood
Water our fields

No wonder you can sing it at a football pitch and expect the team to kill and maim. In contrast the Indian anthem plays on as an ode to peace brotherhood and harmony. Not that I have anything against it but it’s not what I want to play and listen and imbibe before a sports event. You would need a different song.

And immediately I was in charge of doing an anthem for the Puneri Paltan kabaddi team. My brief to the lyrists and composer was simple – the French national anthem. I want the people to feel the passion, the beat the lyrics must inspire to kill , to attack and to maim… no brother hood here.

An excerpt:

Kasske pakkad,
jamm ke jhappat,
Todun, modun, gheyun taak!

The song came out amazing and then I spoke to Andy about it and told her how she inspired me to do this song!

Once the video comes out, I will put it up.

But its fun to have learnt so much and already begun to apply it everywhere… that’s the fun of cultures crossing and meeting. And our elders, idiots that they are still insist on opposing cross cultural love marriages…

…

Full French anthem and the Puneri Paltan anthem as follows.

La Marseillaise

Let's go children of the fatherland,
The day of glory has arrived!
Against us tyranny's
Bloody flag is raised! (repeat)
In the countryside, do you hear
The roaring of these fierce soldiers?
They come right to our arms
To slit the throats of our sons, our friends!

Refrain

Grab your weapons, citizens!
Form your batallions!
Let us march! Let us march!
May impure blood
Water our fields!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This horde of slaves, traitors, plotting kings,
What do they want?
For whom these vile shackles,
These long-prepared irons? (repeat)
Frenchmen, for us, oh! what an insult!
What emotions that must excite!
It is us that they dare to consider
Returning to ancient slavery!

What! These foreign troops
Would make laws in our home!
What! These mercenary phalanxes
Would bring down our proud warriors! (repeat)
Good Lord! By chained hands
Our brows would bend beneath the yoke!
Vile despots would become
The masters of our fate!

Tremble, tyrants! and you, traitors,
The disgrace of all groups,
Tremble! Your parricidal plans
Will finally pay the price! (repeat)
Everyone is a soldier to fight you,
If they fall, our young heros,
France will make more,
Ready to battle you!

Frenchmen, as magnanimous warriors,
Bear or hold back your blows!
Spare these sad victims,
Regretfully arming against us. (repeat)
But not these bloodthirsty despots,
But not these accomplices of Bouillé,
All of these animals who, without pity,
Tear their mother's breast to pieces!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Sacred love of France,
Lead, support our avenging arms!
Liberty, beloved Liberty,
Fight with your defenders! (repeat)
Under our flags, let victory
Hasten to your manly tones!
May your dying enemies
See your triumph and our glory!

Refrain

We will enter the pit
When our elders are no longer there;
There, we will find their dust
And the traces of their virtues. (repeat)
Much less eager to outlive them
Than to share their casket,
We will have the sublime pride
Of avenging them or following them!

Refrain

--

Puneri Paltan theme song

Eh kass ke pakkad,
jamm ke jhappat,
todun, phodun, gheyun taak!

Kabbadi kabbadi Kabbadi kabbadi (2)

Kab kab kab Kabbadi kabbadi
Kab kab kab Kabbadi kabbadi
Kab kab kab Kabbadi kabbadi

Eh Puneri Paltan aaliiiii (tutaari)

Arre chodenge na…
arre modenge ha…

Hey chodenge na…
arre modenge ha..
inn lakeeron se aagein hai apna jahaan (2)

Rokein humein,
aisa kissmein hai dum,
na bacchega koi,
mitti ki kassam…

Chyaa maaila gheyun tak!
eh sodu nakko!
ek phodun tak!

(Chorus)
Kasske pakkad,
jamm ke jhappat,
Todun, modun, gheyun taak! (3)

Aasma kar dekhle,
kiss mein kitna zor hain,
Chingaariyaan nahi,
hum bhaddakti aag hai!

Ragon mein daudti, (hey)
zidd jeet ki, (hey)
bas khel hi nahi
yeh mahayudh hai (2)

Chyaa maaila gheyun tak!
Kasske pakkad,
jamm ke jhappat,
Todun, modun, gheyun taak! (3)

Puneri Puneri Puneri Puneri (2)
eh majhi Puneri Paltan aali aali re (4)

Todun, modun, gheyun taak!