Translation and Reading of Gustav Mahler’s ‘Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde’ (‘The Drinking Song of the Earth’s Sorrow’)

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Talk of flogging a dead horse. At times, life just likes to knock you down, spit on your face, and trample over your body. But even this metaphor cannot come close to what occurred to Gustav Mahler in the summer of 1907. The growing spirit of antisemitism forced him to resign as Director of the … Read more

Three Pre-Raphaelite Paintings

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Ah yes. The year 1848. A time of unrest, of a growing gap between the rich and the poor. A time of many revolutionary groups throughout Europe declaring their fed-upness (that’s not a word) with the status quo, attempting to overthrow the previous political establishment. A revolutionary spirit was haunting the continent – mainly in … Read more

A Beginner’s Guide to Reading (and writing) Metre

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Phew! Metre. Or Meter, for the dear readers from the former colony. Such a laden term, which reminds you of hours spent huddled over a god-forsaken poem during rainy school days, trying to determine whether Hamlet’s ‘To Be or Not to Be’ speech is trochaic or iambic and what on earth the teacher meant by … Read more

The Sacrifice – Short Story

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We have reached the mountains and let the servants go and do as they please, while my son and I will go in the other direction, searching for our specific destination. We reach it in time; a lonely hillside with a single rock pointing upwards is to represent the altar. A slight scent from the … Read more