Orlando

Detail of plants/trees/leaves from various Indian miniatures.

Cinema Paradiso

If I Could Tell You - W.H. Auden

Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

There are no fortunes to be told, although,
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

Suppose all the lions get up and go,
And all the brooks and soldiers run away;
Will Time say nothing but I told you so?
If I could tell you I would let you know.

IN THE EVENING
—C.P. Cavafy

Anyway those things would not have lasted long. The experience
of the years shows it to me. But Destiny arrived
in some haste and stopped them.
The beautiful life was brief.
But how potent were the perfumes,
on how splendid a bed we lay,
to what sensual delight we gave our bodies.

An echo of the days of pleasure,
an echo of the days drew near me,
a little of the fire of the youth of both of us;
again I took in my hands a letter,
and I read and reread till the light was gone.

And melancholy, I came out on the balcony—
came out to change my thoughts at least by looking at
a little of the city that I loved,
a little movement on the street, and in the shops.

THE LAST TOAST

Whether we like it or not,

We have only three choices:

Yesterday, today and tomorrow.

And not even three

Because as the philosopher says

Yesterday is yesterday

It belongs to us only in memory:

From the rose already plucked

No more petals can be drawn.

The cards to play

Are only two:

The present and the future.

And there aren’t even two

Because it’s a known fact

The present doesn’t exist

Except as it edges past

And is consumed…,

like youth.

In the end

We are only left with tomorrow.

I raise my glass

To the day that never arrives.

But that is all

we have at our disposal.

- Nicanor Parra

The Guest - Anna Akhmatova

All as before: against the dining-room windows
Beats the scattered windswept snow,
And I have not changed either,
But a man came to me.

I asked: “What do you want?”
He replied: “To be with you in Hell.”
I laughed: “Oh, you’ll foredoom
Us both to disaster.”

But lifting his dry hand
He lightly touched the flowers:
“Tell me how men kiss you,
Tell me how you kiss men.”

And his lustreless eyes
Did not move from my ring.
Not a single muscle quivered
On his radiantly evil face.

Oh, I know: his delight
Is the tense and passionate knowledge
That he needs nothing,
That I can refuse him nothing.

January 1, 1914

• Translated by Carl R. Proffer.

“I was determined that you should join me in our liberating quest. It seemed at the time that we were the only two out gay men of Indian origin that we knew. You went back to teach history at Delhi University, and I didn’t manage to visit you till 1980. We became very close as you helped me in my quest to visualise Indian gay men. After five years of British art schooling, I had not been able to find any mention of them and it had become my overarching goal to locate them in the canons of art history. You were my informant and also my muse and appeared in my earliest pictures at a time when nobody else would. Together we cruised the parks and parties of gay Delhi hoping to meet like-minded men in search of gay liberation. We talked a lot about where one could live as a gay man at that time, and you opted to live in India and make a difference while I found it impossible to go back and live in the closet.” - To Saleem Kidwai: A letter to a friendship by Sunil Gupta. Hindustan Times. 30/08/2021.

I went - C.P. Cavafy

I didn’t hold myself back. I gave in completely and went, 

went to those delectations that were half real, 

half wrought by my own mind, 

went into the brilliant night 

and drank strong wine, 

the way the champions of pleasure drink.”

-translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard, edited by George Savidis