Zendagi Migzara

Under the calm night sky, we murmur calmly Lorca's lines from City That Never Sleeps: "In the sky there is nobody asleep. Nobody, nobody. Nobody is asleep..." and together we express our wish to read the Spanish poet's works again as we recollected how we had to struggle to understand the meaning of WH Auden's famous poem on art, suffering and indifference - Musee des Beaux Arts (1938). We thought of Pieter Brueghel the Senior's painting Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (1558) that inspired the poem and a friend said she had no clue about it. The painting had been inspired by the Greek myth of Icarus and the poem was inspired by the painting. Next day at office, I showed her the pic from Google images (thank God for Google!), where Icarus' flailing legs may be seen at the far right corner. He is the subject of the painting; Brueghel deliberately relegates him to the corner to bring out the theme of his painting.

I said a silent prayer of thanks to ICD for painfully trying to make our young and restless ears comprehend and appreciate the beauty of the lines during my final year at Brabourne. The poem was difficult and not having ever seen the famous painting, we could only imagine it. Yet, the words and ideas were so poignant and novel to me that I remember having memorised every word of it. I analysed the poem as best I could, determined to answer any question that may be asked on it - the poem as a representative of Auden's work, the meaning and inherent symbolism in it, how it could be an example of a modern poet's idea of modernism, the role of myths in literature and the significance of myths for modernists, word usage/figures of speech/imagery in it etc. Imagine my joy when a question was indeed asked and I set about answering in a way I felt about it (Why cant one be a college student forever - forever young and happy!!!).

I am copy-pasting the poem in its entirety. The French title refers to the famous museum in Brussels where the painting is displayed and means Museum of Fine Arts. Auden talks about how suffering is an individual feat that goes often unnoticed by others; we suffer alone and our tragedies are our own. Our fall, like Icarus', is only a splash in the vast sea of life that someone may or may not have heard. Even if you survive the biggest tragedies, life will continue for you and if you succumb to them, the sun will still shine on others. As Khaled Hosseini says in his novel The Kite Runner - Zendagi Migzara (we say zindagi and they say zendagi!)...It's Afghan for that endearingly stupid cliche - Life goes on...!!!!

Musée des Beaux Arts by WH Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,

The old Masters: how well they understood

Its human position: how it takes place

While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;

How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting

For the miraculous birth, there always must be

Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating

On a pond at the edge of the wood:

They never forgot

That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course

Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot

Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse

Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away

Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may

Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,

But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone

As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green

Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen

Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,

Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.