ZINDEGI (life)

ZINDEGI (Life - La vie)

Choreography and dance: Andréine Bel.
Created at Théâtre de la Minoterie, Marseille (France) on 22 February 1992.
This choregraphy has been recipient of SWARZANKAR AWARD (Pune) in 1994.
The Urdu poem by Badrun Nisa Biban has been transcribed and translated by Finn Thiesen.
Voice in French: Michèle Sébastia
Music by Kishori Amonkar, Pandit Birju Maharaj, Vidur Mallik and students.
Sound recordings by Bernard Bel:
(1) a sunset ceremonial by the Nath community of Asthal Bohar, Rohtak (UP) in 1996;
(2) street sounds, Sikandra road, New Delhi in 1978.

Texte du poème en français :

De ce monde ni de l'autre je n'ai connaissance.
J'ai passé mon temps dans le coin d'une cage.
Avec son regard langoureux celui qui tient la coupe m'a rendue si inconsciente
que j'ai l'impression de ne vivre que dans ses yeux.
Faisant de ma vie un jeu j'ai distrait mon époux.
Quel bonheur! Quelqu'un au moins aura su profiter de ma vie.
Dans les mains d'un être sans pitié le jardin paraît si attirant.
Ainsi il est passé et n'est pas revenu : le printemps de ma vie.

Text of poem in English:

Neither of this world nor of the next one do I have a knowledge.
I wasted my life in the corner of a cage.
With his amourous look the cupbearer has made me so unconscious
that I seem to live only in his eyes.
By making a plaything out of my life I have amused him.
What a happy fate! At least someone has benefited from my life.
At the hands of some merciless one the garden has got such an appearance.
Thus it passed and never came back: the springtime of my life.

------