Friday, November 28, 2008

'A Wednesday'


I moved to Mumbai six years ago from New York City, and I have seen India change with each terrorist attack. Wednesday night's attack will prove a defining turning point. India will go from being "resiliently defensive" to "resolutely offensive."

To understand the impact on the financial capital of India one needs to know the unique place the Taj Mahal Hotel and the Oberoi Complex (both the Oberoi Trident and the Oberoi) play in the fabric of the city's life, especially for its professionals. The Taj Mahal Hotel and the Oberoi Complex are not just the Four Seasons and Pierre of New York City. They are Mumbai's lifeline and blood.

As a consultant and a hedge fund manager, I, like thousands of Mumbai professionals, could count on being at these hotels two to three times a week. In any given week, more than a dozen conferences are being held at either hotel attended by the city's lawyers, bankers, consultants and entrepreneurs. The hotels are the Ellis Island for foreign firms and foreign professionals. Whole floors of these hotels serve as offices. The first outpost office of any major MNC is the Taj or the Oberoi: McKinsey, Blackstone, Texas Pacific Group, the list is endless.


But the hotels are much more than financial destinations; they are cultural centers. The best bookshop in Mumbai is in the Taj. Out of the 10 best restaurants in the city, half are in these two hotels. After a late night out, the 24 hour coffee shops of both hotels are filled with young people using them as late-night diners. Visit these same coffee shops in the day and you might see two families having a cup of tea discussing a matrimonial alliance. For a Mumbaiker, these hotels serve as a second home.

Every Indian is familiar with the Taj, its iconic red brick architecture façade serves as the backdrop for so many stories and Bollywood movies. So when Sonia Gandhi, the President of the ruling Congress Party, says that these are attacks on India's prestige, she means it.
If the attacks on the two hotels were not enough, the CST train terminal was hit. One out of every 10 commuters uses the CST (formerly known as the Victoria Terminus) daily. And after attacking the CST, the terrorists hit the Cama Hospital, a hospital for women and children. The last major target was a Jewish center. Mumbai has housed an Iraqi Jewish community for centuries. Not once have they been targeted. That has changed.

These attacks are going to serve as a tipping point for India. India has had no less than 10 terrorist attacks over the last five years described as India's 9/11. And so now is the latest assault.


As the Indian landscape changed, so has the Indian attitude. The first Bollywood movie on the attacks highlighted the resilience of Mumbai citizens. But in conversations, writings and film, people have shifted from resilience to wanting revenge. One of the most successful movies of 2008 highlights an ordinary citizen taking revenge. The surprise hit of 2008 in India is a low-budget thriller called "Wednesday." "Wednesday" is a taut thriller where the audience is held in suspense. The person the audience believes is a terrorist hell-bent on releasing his jailed compatriots is actually a vigilante. He doesn't secure the release; he blows them up. The audience cheers as he tells the police, "We (the people) are tired of being resilient. Our hands are not tied, we too can hit back." Audiences around the country clapped and cheered his soliloquy. And now with these attacks, the attitude hardens even more. CNN-IBN, the local English news channel, not known for hyperbole, is calling its coverage not Terror in Mumbai, but "War on Mumbai." Local anchors refer to the rescue operations as urban warfare.

Last week, at an Indian leadership summit, I watched Shashi Tharoor, the former U.N. Undersecretary General and India's candidate to be Secretary General, ask Henry Kissinger how India should react to Pakistani agents attacking the Indian Embassy in Kabul. Mr. Kissinger said it wasn't his place to answer. Fair enough, but the question remains what should India do?
India faces tough decisions over the next few weeks and months. Every time India has been hit, there has be no counter reaction. The vast majority of Indians believe that the attacks emanate from Pakistan. While most Indians don't blame Pakistanis, they do blame instruments and agents of the Pakistani government, specifically the ISI. With the bombing in Kabul, the U.S. confirmed that the ISI was involved adding an independent credible voice to India's charges of Pakistani involvement.

In his first speech on Thursday to the nation, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said "It is evident that the group which carried out these attacks, based outside the country, had come with single-minded determination to create havoc in the commercial capital." There is little doubt as to which country Prime Minister Singh has in mind.

The people will demand action against the masterminds of the attacks. And perception in India is that it is the ISI guides and masterminds the attacks. Elections in India are in due in the next six months and pressure will mount on the Indian government to act. Joe Biden was right, Barack Obama will face an international test in the first six months. South Asia looks to be that test.


- Prashant Agrawal, CEO of Indipepal.com

Friday, October 10, 2008

Singur 'Sing No More'

The withdrawal of the Nano project from West Bengal is the most depressing and disappointing news I've read in a long, long time, more so because I, like so many other right-thinking Bengalis, was hoping that the project would somehow be salvaged. Not that the project was a pristine one. Questions can justifiably be raised as to the way in which some of the land was acquired, and maybe on other policy matters as well.

Ms Mamata Banerjee could well have asked for a referendum to be held, or some such other legal and acceptable form of protest.But then, legal and sane is not what Mamata is all about. She is famous for her histrionics, for rushing in where angels fear to tread and for her pro-people paglami (madness). She has to maintain her brand image, and the image of West Bengal can go take a dive for all she seems to care. She is such a wrong sort of opposition leader in a state which desperately requires a strong and SENSIBLE opposition. It is simply not healthy for a democracy to have a ruling party, which by hook or crook, has remained in power for donkey's years.

The CPI(M) is an ugly party, period. In its cynicism, behind its doublespeak, under its smooth manipulation of facts and factions, in its ruthless and systematic mowing down of any protest, in its seeping down and eroding basic services like health/education and basic values like work culture, in its three decades of anti-industry-stance and recent pro-industry 'won't you come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly'-attitude, it reeks of ugliness. A little deodorant in the form of a smiling Buddhadev Bhattacharjee is not really enough to hide the stench.

There is something rotten in the state of Denmark (as Hamlet said) and Ms Banerjee is not the person to stem the rot. Instead of offering viable alternatives, she is getting sucked into the very rot which she is supposedly exposing. And caught in the crossfire between UGLY and PAGLI, the Tatas have left Singur, breaking a million hopes. I feel so, so sad when I hear people talking dismissively and derisively about West Bengal. It's a place where people talk more and work less, where no business can thrive because people are only interested in politics, where it rains bandhs and strikes…that is what I hear all the time. The red party flag has become synonymous with STOP WORK. The Singur project was supposed to change all that. It was supposed to herald a new era, a BENGAL SHINING instead of a BENGAL SHIRKING. That is not to be.

And the schism between my West Bengal, muddled and riddled with self-destructing Ugly-s and Paglis, and the rest of India, marching ahead with new-found confidence, has widened all that much more.

Friday, August 29, 2008

Hard Rock Caffein

I was at the Hard Rock Cafe, Mumbai for the Independence Rock Elims last nite, and wasn't overwhelmed like how people are when they debut the HRC. You know friend, this is India, so its all showbiz. The only thing I liked was the band Aftertaste.

Venue and Venetians
The whole place is so huge and lit up with floor levels to give it a bigger look, its supposed to be a mecca of rock, but it turned out that majority of the crowd were people who also go to a Hawaian Shack or Toto's Garage. On paper a pint is supposed to be 128 but they charged 160. Drunk kids on frequent tequila shots swayed to the nationwide (India of course!) "Rock revolution-resurrection-marketing gimmick-fad-coolness" factor to which the sponsors spooled their giveaways, high priced booze, et al unto a massive tendering. Most of the families, sloshed media executives, girls from ad agencies, wannabe model-celebs, college kids dowsed in the cool factor of wanna model-celebs who also listen to hard rock and sway to Backstreet Boys (yes they are very much alive!) - all of them were completely clueless to the music that was being catered to them. One good (worst!) thing that the Big Indian Rock Scene has created is that any band can get away with bad music without jeers, as long as the crowed is being catered to and serviced.
Bands with names like "Depth" and Manipest (or Manefus or Manifest who cares dood...when you gotta get drunk and gigolo dance to them while they cry back their Hits titled "must drink" "we are all wasted" "do you like what you see" - well to that NO I dont! @#$%#) and a certain self proclaimed 'music man's' band monkeyed around the roofed stage!

A Never Before Experience
You only had to be there to 'feel' it.
In between two bands suddenly the speakers started playing YMCA disco track and all the Hard Rock "boys" primarily waiters, climbed up an isle in a row and started dancing in unison, entertaining the crowd. And they were doing their periodick pelvic thursts as if it were the gay version of Coyote Ugly - if you have seen the film. The crowd went crazy andloving it wild at that. I just stood there and pondered - feeling deeply out of place.

This was supposed to be a rock show at a hard rock place!
Now there are gay bars in the world elsewhere where there are gigolo dancers and sleaze-bar waitresses on offer for cover charges and free, however for LUCRETIA's sake This is HRC! They have a bloody legacy to follow and stride ahead. The only compensatory feeling I gathered was I being a metalhead can proudly walk into HRC with my head held high and tresses abounce without having to confuse people of my kind. Often do i wonder - am I the last of my kind?
'Coz its supposed to be the only certified ROCK cafe and I believe the only way to attain ultimate peace and satisfaction for us hordes would be to travel abroad and be a part of the underground scene. This country can afford to be fake at the spending class level even on high inflation GDPs.

Last Word
After spending some odd moments trying to align with the place, I bumped into Prashant (guitarist Exhumation/ Scribe), an old friend who curiously enquired, "YOU Here? How?" It took me a while, when I then realized his amusement in surprise. As I laughed to myself on my long way back home.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

7 Countries. 3 Continents. 1 Tribe!

On the advent of Sam Dunn's second film
GLOBAL METAL
7 Countries. 3 Continents. 1 Tribe
with his, now distintive self-styled filming of bands and fans,
this repost would definitely try to arouse the mutual feeling
of anticipation and excitement
for any metalhead across the universe.
Aptly subheaded as ONE TRIBE!
A multitude of horns up to Dunn and Mcfayden.
It's because of you we still have hope on earth.



Finally the thing that I was waiting for, to take me off recipes. This movie is a tribute to metal; right from early classick roots to the genre-wise tracking of a sound growing heavier and intense each passing decade. A master documentary cut by the most original and real metal head I have ever come across - Samuel Dunn. An anthropologist by education, Dunn makes a likable companion in our journey through the metal underground, meeting some of the biggest stars of the genre on the way.


What makes things really exciting, is the fact that Dunn had chosen India amongst the countries to feature in his sophomore effort which is due. He was here to cover a few Indian metal bands as well as his old time favourites Iron Maiden headlining at Bangalore this year.



A head banger's journey starts off by examining Metal's roots with the long debate in regards to who was the first Metal band ever. Then, we are taken through an analysis of how metal sub-genres came to exist. Dunn also gives his thoughts about Metal's culture, viewpoints, religious standpoints, the fans and every other aspect of metal. Some of the veterans of the scene as well as some insightful outsiders give their interesting opinions to support the argument at hand. The film balances the serious aspects of Metal with some unintentional humor. Personalities like Alice Cooper, Bruce Dickinson, Alex Webster, Slipknot, Ghaal, Dee Snider, Doro, Ihsahn and many others offer their own individual thoughts in an intellectual way while bands like Mayhem make a fool out of themselves during a drunken interview.





The structure of the film follows life's most provocative subjects - Censorship, Sexuality, Death & Violence, and more. Each area is thoughtfully explored with comments from many musicians and some outside observers. From the calm commentary of Rob Zombie to the wry humour of Dio.



The most amazing moment of the film is when Dee Snider of Twisted Sister walks in the courtroom to testify; clad in hair apparent, torn jeans, ripped jacket in a room full of bureaucrats and beholders of moralistic jurisdicktion headed by Tipper Gore, wife of Al Gore, circa 1984. She had run a crusade against metal during those times. And Dee in sheer deliberation pulls out his "speech" of a testimonial reads out loud for the courtroon. It was politically neat and sent sarcastic pinches for Ms. Gore while the men in suits are visually shaken with uneasy tweaks and turns all around.


There are funny moments where Alice Cooper claims to be the first one, whose music was coined as the term Heavy Metal. Then further in the course of the film he reassures that it was shock rock!




The spine chilling and appalling moment for me was when Dunn interviews Gaahl from Gorgoroth. And this behemoth of a Black Metal frontman sips his wine, pauses and with a near statue-like gaze he says "Satan", with a deep drowning voice and goes ahead to support church burnings with stark contempt towards the church.

Dunn is a true metal head. The documentary is extremely entertaining and informative. It made me proud to be a metal head. It even made me give bands I'm not too fond of another chance. Bottom line is, if you're a Metal fan you'll enjoy this from beginning to end. If you're a curious outsider, here's your chance to understand our world better and get a more defined opinion of our music. And even if you don't, well to quote Dunn at the end: "We're doing just fine without you…"

Friday, June 6, 2008

Lucid Hedonism I & II: A repost for the rains


Lucid Hedonism

What is it about the Mediterranean sunset? The wine, the air, the people, the music, the sea...oh yes the sea. Mykonos, Ibiza, French Riviera, Bali. Take Goa, coz I am still poor. It’s the calm of the chaos. The freedom. The earthy sense of belonging. Close to a world we all ignore in the buzz of a mechanized jungle.

Here we come in praise of the sun. Psychedelic colours fill your eyes up as you look in its direction. Or do we see glistening mermaids in the shimmering sea as I lie in my hammock. This mix of pina colada is heaven. This Cafe Del Mar mix of Chicane - Offshore is pristine. The beach is lonely apart from a few pleasure seekers like me. There is a little hilltop at a distance. I can hear faint ambient music coming in my direction, calling me. I look at my side. I see the Tooth Fairy in her dark glasses looking at the sky. Her pale skin has turned a shade darker with the tan. She looks back at me. And we both know. Hand in hand we start our slow walk towards the hillock by the sea. The sun is on its way to never land. Alfredo, our tattoo guy, screams out something to us from his shack. He was flinging something in the air, which looked like currency notes. Poor fellow, will realise when he wakes up next morning...I mean if he ever sleeps.

I pull the Tooth Fairy up the rocks as she joyfully chuckles something funny that I cannot recall. I ask her to stop thinking of Bombay. We reach the top. The wind almost blows my Tooth Fairy off her feet into the fall from the cliff several feet down. I hold her with both hands in a firm grip. The music is louder now. Its psytrance. The crowd is more or less....ok lets not get into ethnicity. The crowd is good. They are gesticulating in a strange way that is no more strange to me, as if throwing their bodies around. I see a long-haired blond girl sitting at the far end of the cliff in deep meditation, facing the setting sun. They are brothers and sisters of the earth. One world, one life. Fellow Earthlings! This is the time to be. We are alive.

Someone tugs me by my hand. I turn around to see someone I recognize but can't quiet remember. She takes me winding through the crowd to a small shack nearby. More crowds. Humdrum. Kids running here and there. A few people had gathered there looking at something in unison. Before I wondered what, I could see the magic that they were going through. A sole paraglider hovering in the sky with the huge crimson sun touching the waters as a perfect backdrop. The sky is a flurry mix of a thousand shades. Crimson, Purple, Blue. The sand never felt so good under my feet. And in this moment I am happy. I felt Love. I take Toothy by her arms and planted a placid kiss on her frail lips.

This is pure Hedonism. This is my lucid dream.


Moksha: Lucid Hedonism II



Here....this is eternity. Freeze frame. The moment stops. This is the world. This is nothingness.

So many times I have runed on apocalyptic thoughts and prayed for a mass phenomenon. Six years back the world was close to a real happening, Y2k. But it turned out to be a marketing hype. That was sad. Nostradamus and the Church, you both were miserably wrong! Then came Aum Shinrikyo - The Supreme Truth, the Japanese Cult. OK. Forget that. Think about Sensations - the mammoth raves organised in Germany. Think G8 Live. These are mass occurrences. But nothing ever happens. No adrenaline. Finally I'm getting out of here. Arms are stretched wide, on the edge and the angel glides down to take me. It becomes tiring to ask oneself all the time "whats next?". Its finally over. The end of stagnation, the final rot. The everlasting celebration begins.

World! Be happy , in your neverending tryst clamouring for space, to accomodate your body and your mind.

Samsara! Be happy in the chaos. Hope you find the euilibrium that you desperately need. Beauty you could never be appreciated. Nature thou shall always be defiled. Samsara! Be happy in your own world.

Then....there is light. Luminous, effervescent, unearthly, divine light. Which gives enormous strength. Which brings about extreme positivity. It feels like I have always been working out in the gym. It feels like I have always been practising the divine Yogasanas all my life. Its like mint jacuzzi after a Turkish massage laced with enchanting oil and magickal mud. Maybe this is the perpetual feeling which everyone vies for? Or maybe they forget what are they seeking for.

Thoughts should have a getaway which is most significant. Thoughts should lead to action. Action removes stagnation. Its this static ecstatic state of mind which should be omnipresent and shall never fade.

We should all be willfully seeking this pleasure.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Grand Endless Light (noor-un-ala)


The omnipresence
Your Omnipresence
In all the four directions
You are the grand instrument of light

This showering brilliance cleaves the darkness
You're yonder, You're beyond
Oh this light! What a luminescence!
noor-un-ala

I ask, is there anyone else other than you?
And when I did
It silenced the dark, blushed the light away to shyness

I asked the birds, where's the sky abound
I asked the silence, then where is the sound?
From flowers, leaves, colours came this ever-blooming song
noor-un-ala

I raised the veil that revealed what else but your splendour
I raised a step towards where else but your haven
I raised an eye only to what else but your face

In the hum of the bumblebee
In the tinkering of the bangles

In the body and soul of lovers
In the eyes of the woman separated from her beloved
In melody and in symphony
There is just you
You only You
noor-un-ala



In the heart's crazy pondering
And mind's ceaseless wandering is you
So lift me away from these will you
Life has forever been a mystery
and has been to this day
To empathize, is there a need?
If empathized, who's got the need?
Those who have, some say its love
And some say its prayer

Oh this spell of passionate frenzy
Your grace is only the only way
And that is Love.

(This author's translation of Noor-un-ala by M.F. Hussain. OST Film - Meenaxi.
Picture courtesy Ravneet Kaur, Jahan-e-Khusro)

A Sonnet (reprise)


Crazy mind sojourns a pipe dream
Crazy lil mind, bewildered thoughts beam

Crazy throbs of the heart, crazier sighs
Crazy longings prevail, crazier the nights

Crazy eyes seek a crazier gaze
Crazy mind rests in perpetual haze

Crazy cosmic loner yearns for a crazier soul
Crafty let the world be, as your hand in mine we roll

Crazy let the song, crazier the tune be
Crazy intoxicated feet let sway to a crazier melody

Crazy is the darkness, crazier the silence
Quivering flame glows in a crazier madness

Crazy veil reveals your subtle oblivious gleam
Crazy mind sojourns a pipe dream



My rendition of 'Bawra Mann' by Swanand Kirkire from the Sudhir Mishra film "Hazaron Khwaishein Aisi" 2005


.

A spring in remembrance


Without you, my love, I shall not find another
Who'll give peace to my soul and indulge me

I've gone and seen it all
America, Russia, Malaysia
There wasn't a difference
They all had a condition in forfiet

Some asked for my time
Some were fascinated with how I look
Some demanded my fidelity
But none wanted my demons

Besides you
No one else
Wanted my demons
Without you
No one else
Shall shade me in the sun

The way you waited a few moments I won't forget
I shan't forget all my life
When you said, looking away
"You shall weep in my memory"
I laughed a strange laugh
But you didn't
You had a secret in your heart
Why didn't you tell me

Without you
No one shall
Reveal this secret to me
Without you
What druid has the cure to my ills
Today I found a note of yours
In which you had scribbled
A Varis Shah couplet
Upon reading which a teardrop fell
What was locked in my eyes
Was revealed today

That these tears of mine
Will be kissed by no one else but you
That, till then these tears of mine
Will wither in the dust.


This author's translation of Rabbi Shergill's Tere Bin.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Through the roof top


Anti-China protests have gone bloody with bad images on TV with the Beijing Olympics at the corner. Its even on Euronews...and now the Europeans are also concerned.

(pic. Miss Tibet 2004 Tashi Yangchen)

I have been with Tibetans and they are nice people, however there were a few issues which I found a bit unnerving and hard to imagine.
To get the fuller image of what 'atrocities' that China has committed on Tibet, I get the better picture here. China has built the Lhasa-Qinghai rail route which is the world's highest rail platform train. Chinese culture has so much to learn from, especially from their rich civilisations which have en-grained thousands of years of research and development. Though communism has its own negative points still China's growth rate been a sustainable above 10%. Every nation has shortcoming, but it depends on the administrators to take the right decisions.

Some segments of the media say that the Kingdom of Tibet was a free country in the past and no other country has a right to take over like this. However, my point is that the problem with Tibet is the ambiguation of international borders to be known as the TAR (Tibet Autonomous Region) since the CHinese invasion. There is one more argument to this point that some historians refer to Tibet as being a part of India. American movies have always made Villians out of China due to their own benefit and interests.

So as a citizen of India, whom do I believe or where do I go? Should I be just another by-stander in this whole issue which is creating waves across the world?

I read the book KORA
Its by Tenzing Tsundue.
He is the so-called flag bearer of protests in India
This guy calls himself as an Tibetan with an Indian heart. He stays in Dharamsala and also calls himself a Mumbaikar.
But still thats an emotional angle to things however when one looks at resolving international affairs one should take an administrative stand.
Only when china attacked these poor and peaceful people, they came to their senses and started shouting for independence.
what was happening before?
did no one try to proclaim anything about Tibet?
Don't you think that this is a false baseless war of loss of identity with the enemy being no one and themselves left to be blamed?

For instance, Lets consider myself as a tramp, a nomad.
I have no fixed address.
I roam the world and call it my home.
And I am "where I lay my head is home" types.
But do you think anybody will recognise me this way?
I need an ID, a permit, a visa, a nationality.

The time before China attacked, Tibetans were happy living like nomadic peaceful tribes I don't see anywhere that has mentioned Tibet as an independent nation though there is a mention of a kingdom. To that I have to say that India has had its own share of kingdoms which were deemed 'princely states' during the Raj. We have our own issues here.

Rules and laws are need to attain equilibrium from chaos, or else it would end in a way we see that its happening now. Tibetan administrators should have thought of it in ancient times. It would had protected the affected and the vulnerable.

There was a time when shangri-la was considered heaven, an obscure paradise
on earth. Decades later we discovered Tibet.

They should have voiced an independence claim for nationhood eons back
instead of now creating a fracas every now and then infront of the Chinese embassy in Delhi. More so, worsening matters when the Indo-Sino relations are just about to bloom and flourish. The bloodshed has already started. Thats a complete display of stupidity. The Holy Dalai Lama is but a crippled megalomaniac turned politician and Tsundue is a rockstar, climbing embassy floors with the Tibetan flag in hand to protest against visiting Chinese dignitaries. Is this monkey business going to create a solution when you are dealing with someone really powerful?

I was in Dharamsala, and there you will find Tibetans reluctant to speak properly with you as if it was their country and region. Interestingly their attitude towards expats are very friendly. Are they forgetting the fact that if India weren't to take a soft stand for Tibetans, they would not had succored refuge in any other country?
Inspite of all this way the circus and furore by these 'peaceful' people in Delhi which in itself is the capital of a country known for advocating peace and restraint?

(pic. - A serene Mcleodgunj street, at my visit a month ago)
You cant speak Hindi...or you show you can't,
You cant speak English or at least you show you can't,
and still you live as a free being in our country.
and you act like you are someone alien. Why this attitude?
Dharamsala is mini Tibet and in the beautiful heart of India.
There is another huge Tibetan camp in the world situated in Dharwar, Karnataka, with over 50,000 in population. Allow me to humour, would they become the new extended Kingdoms of Tibet?

Tsundue talks about torture on Tibetans by Chinese, like inserting of electric rods in vaginas of tibetan women. Now listening to that will I become an extremist like Tenzing?

If I were a Tibetan, I probably would have. Well these stories are definitely heartrending but then you should look at the problem more at the administrative level keeping in mind the psychological impacts. Like for instance, the major reason for the Abu Ghraib and Guatanamo Bay prison tortures by the American army was a direct repercussion of Bush's prolonged military regime in Iraq. Fresh American blood is turning crazy living in Iraq dust for almost a decade now.

Finally I would just like to say that when you can't protect your identity in your own country...then I don't believe it is any use to cry hoarse under the belly of the beast.
This is all that I have to collate to all my known and unknown Tibetan friends.

Friday, March 14, 2008

A prayer in spiritual replenishment


Vexation of spirit is a waste of time
Negative thinking is a waste of thought
Verbal conflict is a waste of word
Physical conflict is a waste of flesh

People will always be who they want
And that's what really makes the world go round
Unconditional love is scarce
Now and forever more
Forever more, forever more...

You've always been good to me
Even when I'm not good to myself
You've always been fair to me
Even when I'm not fair to myself
You've always done right by me
So I will do right by you...

You see, you've always had faith in me
And so I'll have faith in you
You've always been there for me
And so I'll be there for you...

Bless your eyes and may your days be long
Bless your eyes and may your dreams come true
May you rise on the morning when the kingdom come
Good deeds aren't remembered in the hearts of men.

- Damian Jr. Gong Marley