Panis Angelicus [Hymn]

Uploaded by Lord Sebastian Flyte
PANIS ANGELICUS
Written by Saint Thomas Aquinas
Music by César Franck
Performed by Friar Alessandro Brustenghi

Panis angelicus fit panis hominum;
Bread of the Angels is made bread for mankind;
Dat panis coelicus figuris terminum;
Gifted bread of Heaven, of all imaginings the end;
O res mirabilis! Manducat dominum
Oh, thing miraculous! This body of God will nourish
Pauper, pauper servus et humilis.
Pauper, pauper servus et humilis.
The poorest and humblest of servants.

Panis angelicus fit panis hominum;
Bread of the Angels is made bread for mankind;
Dat panis coelicus figuris terminum;
Gifted bread of Heaven, of all imaginings the end;
O res mirabilis! Manducat dominum
Oh, thing miraculous! This body of God will nourish
Pauper, pauper servus et humilis
Pauper, pauper servus et humilis.
The poorest and humblest of servants.

..............................................................................................................................


A Note From The Gull

Thank you Friar Alessandro.

I took the advice generously dispensed recently by a compatriot that we should use Google to educate ourselves about whether the human body can or cannot survive without food and without water for more than X number of days. So anxious was I to avoid being included on that author's list of “morons who don’t even have the sense to google longest hunger strike” that I even let slide his comment on totalitarianism and rushed through the rest of his article.

Well, I am happy to report to my readers that once again my willingness to humbly take the counsel of my betters has paid off. I diligently googled and found the story about an Indian sadhu named Prahlad Jani who claims to have not taken food or water for over six decades. The video below is just a snippet of the documentary which tells his story.  You are entitled to arrive at your own conclusions after acknowledging of course, the inputs of the critics who questioned the validity of the scientific investigation conducted by the Government of India.

My intention is not to suggest that Dr. Wayne Kublalsingh is being sustained by pranic feeding. Those are matters about which I know virtually nothing but it shocks me even more to consider that he may not even be receiving the benefit of that sustenance in his struggle. I am not at Dr. Wayne Kublalsingh's side 24/7 so I cannot say that my belief is based on what my eyes have seen. I believe him because I have no reason not to, because deceit is not something that I associate with his name, a name by the way, which is destined to be admitted to the memory of the blessed. Mine definitely won't. Will yours?

For better or for worse, to be raised Roman Catholic is to be steeped in the mysteries, and over the years, despite the best efforts of the dross of this world, I remain predisposed to entertain the miraculous. Apparently Shakespeare was similarly afflicted:

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Uploaded by lightdocumentary.com

See: The Case of Prahlad Jani

For more information about the film: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/lightdocumentary

"Patria est communis omnium parens" - Our native land is the common parent of us all. Keep it beautiful, make it even more so.

Blessed is all of creation
Blessed be my beautiful people
Blessed be the day of our awakening
Blessed is my country
Blessed are her patient hills.

Mweh ka allay!
Guanaguanare

Chaudhvin ka chand, ya Aaftab ho?

SUHANI RAAT AND CHAUDHVIN KA CHAND

Mashup performed by Aakash Gandhi [ft Jonita Gandhi and Studiounplugged]

SUHANI RAAT

Suhani raat dhal chuki, na jaane tum kab aaoge

The beautiful night has slipped away, don't know when you will come.

Suhani raat dhal chuki, na jaane tum kab aaoge

The beautiful night has slipped away, don't know when you will come.

Jahan ki rut badal chuki, na jaane tum kab aaoge

Throughout the world the seasons have changed, don't know when you will come.

Suhani raat dhal chuki, na jaane tum kab aaoge

The beautiful night has slipped away, don't know when you will come.

Nazaarein apni mastiyaan dikha dikhaake so gaye

The sights have shown their beautiful effects and are gone now

Sitaarein apni roshni luta lutaake so gaye

The stars shone and now are no more.

Suhani raat dhal chuki, na jaane tum kab aaoge

The beautiful night has slipped away, don't know when you will come.

Jahan ki rut badal chuki, na jaane tum kab aaoge

Throughout the world the seasons have changed, don't know when you will come.

CHAUDHVIN KA CHAND

Chaudhvin ka chand ho, ya aaftaab ho

Are you the full moon, or the dazzling sun?

Jo bhi ho tum Khuda ki kasam, laajawab ho

Whatever you may be, I swear to God, you are beyond compare!

Chaudhvin ka chand ho?

Are you the full moon?

Zulfein hain jaise kaandhon pe baadal jhuke hue

Your hair is like a soft cloud kissing your shoulders

Aankhen hain jaisi mey ke peyaale bhare hue

Your eyes are like two goblets

Masti hai jis mein pyar ki, tum woh sharaab ho

And you are the wine that fills them with a zest for love.

Chaudhvin ka chand ho, ya aaftaab ho

Are you the full moon, or the sun?

Jo bhi ho tum Khuda ki kasam, laajawab ho

Whatever you may be, I swear to God, you are beyond compare!

Mohammed Rafi sang the original songs: Suhani Raat and Chaudhvin Ka Chand

..............................................................................................................................  



A Note From The Gull

Listening to this haunting mashup tonight, I am writing through this terrible sadness that I am feeling. When I first listened to this soulful performance, I heard my conversation with my country. These words, "Suhani raat dhal chuki, na jaane tum kab aaoge" and "Chaudhvin ka chand ho, ya aaftaab ho " are now never far from my lips and I find myself spontaneously saying them softly to myself as I go about my daily activities.

For me, three states are expressed in this beautiful remake:

1. Love and desire.

Jo bhi ho tum Khuda ki kasam, laajawab ho | Whatever you may be, I swear to God, you are beyond compare!

2. Anxious, lingering, persistent hope.

Suhani raat dhal chuki, na jaane tum kab aaoge | The beautiful night has slipped away, don't know when you will come.

3. An undercurrent of growing despair that that hope may not be realised.

The painful possibility that the "don't know when you will come" will be replaced with, "You never came. My heart is broken."

I have always felt these for my country. I feel these with Dr. Wayne Kublalsingh. The two, the man and my country, are one and the same for me.  For over two months many of us who are still capable of paying attention for more than three seconds have been inspired, embarrassed, challenged, disturbed, frustrated, threatened and outed by this man, the one who some have callously named "the human reptile."

I believe instead, that Dr. Wayne Kublalsingh is The ProtoTrinbagonian and only time will tell if he is one of the last of a trial breed on the verge of extinction or a viable precursor of what is to come. I prefer to hope that like a lance, he is opening the way and leading our advance. Roman Catholic priest, Father Clyde Harvey, suggests that it may not be that we are losing our soul as a nation but that at this moment in time, we, our leaders included, are being offered the precious opportunity to create it for the first time.

Like Father Harvey advises, we have to look beyond personalities. They, like the thousand and one upsets which have had our heads spinning over the past few years, not to mention what went before, are only symptoms, just pustules on the back of the beast, the same beast to which many of us have been furtively throwing scraps under the dinner table. They are symptoms being used as distractions, symptoms labelled disease to condemn us to an infinity of applying and reapplying plasters to societal sores that predictably continue to weep profusely. They are symptoms which confound and enervate, unsettle and exhaust, to dumb down this country with punishing, mindless dissembling...not a day of peace, not a day of intelligence, not a day of hope that isn't doomed to betrayal. I am beside myself with exhaustion and I am just a witness from afar.

To borrow the title of Neil Bissoondath's novel, there is a casual brutality about the way in which we regard and treat each other in this country.  Others have given much thought to explaining why this is so but I have no time tonight.  WE have no time. There will come a day of darkness when the hearts of the conscious will be even more broken than they are today. They will not dare to ask themselves the question: What could we have done? because the answer in all its clarity will come when it is too late. On that day, those who still have the capacity to recognise loss and to mourn it will say:

Sitaarein apni roshni luta lutaake so gaye | The stars shone and now are gone.

"Patria est communis omnium parens" - Our native land is the common parent of us all. Keep it beautiful, make it even more so.

Blessed is all of creation
Blessed be my beautiful people
Blessed be the day of our awakening
Blessed is my country
Blessed are her patient hills.

Mweh ka allay!
Guanaguanare

Below the Surface [Song]

TRUTH, TRANSPARENCY, TRUST.
Trikuta meri, na jaane tum kab aaoge.

Patriot Dr. Wayne Kublalsingh
"For the more injustice rages, the more they fight."

Uploaded by edward spencer

BELOW THE SURFACE
By Mystic Prowler

Sometimes I does get angry when I see somebody watch a next man achievement
And declare that that was easy.
They doh see all the struggle and all the failure
They quickly form allegiance to toast the winner
But in this life there's a truth and every tree you see have a root
And is from way below the surface you bring up your fruit.

Now, Thomas Edison, the light bulb inventor
Is two thousand times he fail before the bulb could light
And when, when he reach age sixty-seven, a fire cost him two million
That's when his studio burned to the ground one December night
But he stood strong, faithful to his craft
And three weeks later released his first phonograph.

You see, he had the stuff great men are made of
Is the stuff you could miss unless you look below the surface
I say, he had the stuff great men are made of
Is the stuff you could miss unless you look below the surface.

They say that pressure, it does make diamonds out of rock
And is the same with the human character when our dreams are downstruck
In a jail, two men looking out through the same bars
One will fail 'cause he see mud while the other see stars
You see, while pressure humbles the weak it strengthens who earnestly seek
It's the barometer that measures the strong and the weak

Because Martin Luther and South African Nelson Mandela
The darkness in their jail cell couldn't dim their lights
And civil rights atrocities only fuel more energies
For the more injustice rages, the more they fight
And for twenty-seven years Nelson Mandela suffer
And from jail became President of South Africa.

You see, Nelson had the stuff that great men are made of
Is the stuff you could miss unless you look below the surface
Potential, I say, he had the stuff that great men are made of
Is the stuff you could miss unless you look below the surface.

Check any success story, take any one you wish
And you'll see the road is often littered with blocks and rubbish
When as you clear one hurdle, you will meet another
And as you lift one burden, you will hit a next gutter
You see while your progress is slow, your determination must grow
Just affirm and profess the success you already know.

Don't you know Elvis Presley was fired by Jimmy Denny?
After just one show, he was told, "Go back, go back and drive truck."
And the great Beethoven of music, imagine he was deaf at forty-six?
But that's when he produced his greatest musical stock
And the great Caruso stood firm by his choice
Although his teacher told him, "You can't sing and you have no voice."

But he had the stuff great men are made of
Is the stuff you could miss unless you look below the surface
Oh, he had the stuff great men are made of
Is the stuff you could miss unless you look below the surface.

As a nation, we would do well to train our young
Not to adopt a luck and chance approach or a gaming disposition
For they will dream of easy money and sweet tomorrow
From a get rich scheme with their one in one hundred thousand ratio
We need to teach foundations of truth, trees that send down good roots
Not parasites that suck at ill-gotten fruits.

Don't you know Basdeo Panday walked so many miles barefoot to school
Land in England with six dollars to take his law course?
And Arthur Napoleon Raymond Robinson, imagine he was shot and imprisoned?
Half blind and dying he said, "Attack, attack, attack with full force!"
For such men with belly, leadership was meant
No wonder they are Prime Minister and President.

You see, they had the stuff great men are made of
Is the stuff you could miss unless you look below the surface
I say, they had the stuff great men are made of
Is the stuff you could miss unless you look below the surface.

Source: The lyrics posted on this blog are often transcribed directly from performances. Although it is my intention to faithfully transcribe I do not get all the words and I have a knack for hearing the wrong thing. Please feel free to correct me or to fill in the words that I miss by dropping me a message via e-mail. I'd be forever grateful. Thanks in advance! ..............................................................................................................................
 
 
A Note From The Gull

Thank you, Mystic Prowler.  What can I say now that I have not said before? Concerned Trinbagonians, with the exception of a small minority, are impotent and struck dumb - cat got our tongue and catfish gone with our lignum vitae. So tonight I can only rest whatever hope I have left on the wisdom of the message generously shared by Trinbagonian Roman Catholic priest, Father Clyde Harvey:

"A man fasting for a cause challenges us about our soul. Where is the soul of the nation?

With the first hunger strike, Wayne Kublalsingh gave me, and I tried to communicate it to others, three words which I think can help us find our soul - Truth, Transparency, Trust.

And the Armstrong Report which is at the center of all of this is not about the Honourable Prime Minister. It's not even about Wayne Kublalsingh. It's about whether or not we, as a people, can develop principles and processes which allow us to believe in ourselves, to always stand for truth and to try to be transparent about what we do.

Unless I can believe in your truth when you speak to me, when you relate to me, nothing is possible. I can't trust you.  Unless to some extent I can think that I am seeing through you, the real you, in the way and the process that we are engaged in, I can't trust you. And people who don't trust each other can't form relationships. No nation can endure.

So we are faced today with that challenge and a man fasting is challenging us to ask ourselves - Is there anything that we are willing to die for? Do we love anything enough, in this case Trinidad and Tobago, to identify what are the values, what are the things that I would lay down my life for as a citizen of this country?

Unless some citizens have that sense, we're are not a Republic. We are still subjects of some monarch, whatever, whoever that monarch is, and we won't survive.

So, today as we face this, let's forget about the personalities and let's think Trinidad and Tobago."

--Father Clyde Harvey, Trinidad and Tobago.

"Patria est communis omnium parens" - Our native land is the common parent of us all. Keep it beautiful, make it even more so.

Blessed is all of creation
Blessed be my beautiful people
Blessed be the day of our awakening
Blessed is my country
Blessed are her patient hills.

Mweh ka allay!
Guanaguanare

Somebody mad. [Song]

Uploaded by edward spencer SOMEBODY MAD
By Mighty Chalkdust

In the Oval to see Pelé match, I sat next to Dr. Bharrat
We had a long talk, I said, Listen Doc, you know about mad people a damn lot
'Round the world you does travel to study insane people
But Doc, why do you go overseas when we have mad men here like peas?

I ask him,
Doc, what would you say if I should throw a dead dog on Frederick Street?
[I'll say you mad.] Bharrat say, [I'll say you mad.] All right
And if I give a dead corbeau to everyone I met?
[I'll say you mad, I'll say you mad.]
Well then, if a man could watch the La Basse right dey
And build houses so near for people to stay
To take in that stinking stench the whole day,
Somebody have to be mad, mad-mad
Somebody up in White Hall mad.

In the Oval, Bharrat was so shocked,
He drank three straight rums on the rocks
With my mad talk he disagreed, Chalkie, I have too many mouths to feed.
Ah doctor, be reasonable, you were trained to know mad people
And if you can't spot a madman just so, well then you are mad also.

I asked him,
Doc, if I should teach a Nigerian to model a dashiki?
[I'll say you mad.] He tell me. [I'll say you mad.] Amen!
And if Chalkie went to Washington to sing soul and rock steady?
[I'll say you mad, I'll say you mad.]
Well then, if a man could leave calypso and pan
To represent us up in Switzerland
And send six girls to model their behind,
Somebody have to be mad, mad-mad?
Somebody up in White Hall mad.

Doctor Bharrat, this is no joke but you are not doing your work
If some men just curse or call Williams a louse,
Allyuh does put them inside the madhouse
Look Gene Miles just sing kaiso, you put she in St. Ann's just so
And J.D. Elder raping our culture, Aubrey Adams and he should be there.

I ask him,
Doc, if I run you down with a cutlass in order to kill you dead?
[I'll say you mad, I'll say you mad.] Amen!
And when I corner you, I tell you, Pass. You're free to go instead?
[I'll say you mad, I'll say you mad.]
Well then, if a man could hold our soldiers just so
And to keep them jailed, you spend so much dough
And next day tell them they are free to go,
Somebody have to be mad, mad-mad?
Somebody up in White Hall mad.

Dr. Bharrat, now get this quick, I'm not talking 'bout Eric
I don't connect him with insanity 'cause he went to a university
I wonder if it's George John, oh no, he couldn't be the one
He has a good brain, so then it must be the thin, tall Chinee lady.

I ask him,
Doc, if I turn down a hungry man even though I have cash on me?
[I'll say you mad.] Bharrat say, [I'll say you mad.] All right.
And if I watch that very man and take away his money?
[I'll say you mad, I'll say you mad.]
Well then, if every year a man taxing we skin
Bread, butter, milk, oil, gas, and rum raising
Although we are jobless, poor and scrunting,
Somebody have to be mad, Doctor Bharrat?
Somebody up in White Hall mad.

Source: The lyrics posted on this blog are often transcribed directly from performances. Although it is my intention to faithfully transcribe I do not get all the words and I have a knack for hearing the wrong thing. Please feel free to correct me or to fill in the words that I miss by dropping me a message via e-mail. I'd be forever grateful. Thanks in advance! ..............................................................................................................................

 
A Note From The Gull

Thank you, Mighty Chalkdust.

"Patria est communis omnium parens" - Our native land is the common parent of us all. Keep it beautiful, make it even more so.

Blessed is all of creation
Blessed be my beautiful people
Blessed be the day of our awakening
Blessed is my country
Blessed are her patient hills.

Mweh ka allay!
Guanaguanare