Saturday, August 25, 2012

Mayabono Biharini Horini - Lyrics & Translation


This is an awesome song by Tagore, which also featured recently in the movie Bedroom with some interesting background music of rock.

Translating the quality of the words and the language is like translating Shakespeare - and is beyond my ability. But I cannot stand by - and feel I should do whatever I can to atleast carry the meaning to non-native speakers. So here's the English translation, which is more of an explanation to understand the song, and not to be taken as a song that can be sung.

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Maya bono biharini horini
Gohono sopono soncharini -
Keno tare dhoribare kori pon?
Okaron?

    Wandering doe of the enchanted forest
    Who roams withinin deepest (of my) dreams -
    Why do I want to capture her?
    Is there a reason?

Thak thak nijo mone dure te.
Ami shudhu banshuriro sure te -
Porosho koribo or prano-mon,
Okaron

    Let her be by herself afar.
    I'll only through the melody of my flute -
    Touch her life and soul,
    For no reason.

Chomokibe phagunero pobone
Poshibe akash bani shrobone.
Chitto akul hobe anukhon,
Okaron

    (She) will startle in the monsoon wind
    Will surrender as the heavens speak.
    Will grow restless now and then,
    For no reason.

Dur hote ami tare saadhibo
Gopone biroho dore bandhibo
Bandhono bihono sei - je badhon,
Okaron

    I will yearn her from afar,
    I will secretly fasten her with the rope of separation,
    A tie without a tie.
    For no reason.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Google Maps 6.10.0 update breaks feature

I upgraded to Maps 6.10.0 for Android today, and with much sadness I noticed yet another feature from the app is gone. You cannot anymore search for places which you have starred. In previous versions, you could type in the description of a starred location, and it would pop up at the top of your list. The picture below shows an example of what I mean -



If you clicked the first entry, which corresponds to some place I marked with a star myself, it will immediately take you to that place in the map. Showing up as the first entry when searched is really the expected behavior as explained in Google's support page -



Now this only happens only if you have bad Internet connection - in other words assuming you are connected to Internet, starred places almost never will even pop up anywhere in the list.

In fact this feature was broken since the 6.9.0 update. Another notable miss is the ability to have your places sorted by distance and direction in the My Places list - now they are only sorted by the date when you starred them.

This is unacceptable to me and hence I reverted to 6.8.0. The sad thing is Google has a long history of closing its eye on feedback - so I do not even expect a fix. Till now it is okay because I do not need the new features added - which are mostly UI enhancements and other additions not very useful to me. I will will just cross my fingers and hope that the last good version 6.8.0, will keep on working if they continue to add more 'features' - and that I will not have to choose from something really useful versus this in the future.