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Saturday, August 17, 2019

Pramila Khadun writes

On my eagle's wings

Eyes dreamy and drowsy,
I sat on the pillow-like feathers
Of the great eagle’s wings
Flying across the blue waters
While the wind lovingly caressed
The long strands of my hair.



The eagle had promised me
That it would remove me
From the cocoon of my life
And show the world to me,
The sparkling waves, the green meadows,
The fresh waters cascading down
To the meandering rivers,
The desert sands with lively oases,
And its home nestled
Among the beautiful blue cliffs 
Overlooking the grand ocean.



I, who wanted to find a lodgement elsewhere,
Willing to forget the affluent and the mendicant,
The luxury Harrods candles,
The glittering pearls and diamonds,
The game changers and money changers,
Relaxed on the great eagle’s wings
With neither safety belt nor blanket.



While a butterfly symphony
Hummed in my ears,
I clung to my eagle’s neck.
It soared high over vales and hill,
And I cried not tears of fears,
Nor thought of the heat or cold.



I could feel the essence
Of my feminism unfolding gently.
With elegance and brilliance
While my full potential unlocked
Far from the simulated realities
Of  predetermined goals.


Josephine Wall art - woman, sea, beach, josephine wall, butterfly, painting, aqua, olive branch, blue, art, wings, ocean, eagle, water, girl, bird, coast
-- Josephine Wall 

1 comment:

  1. In 1824 Charles Henry Harrod founded Harrod and Wicking, Linen Drapers, Retail in London. In 1832 he abandoned the clothing business and moved into groceries with Harrod & Co. Grocers, and in 1834 he established a wholesale grocery with a special interest in tea. In 1849 he set up a small shop on the site of the current store. The shop sold groceries and only had a turnover of £20 per week, but in the 1850s Knightsbridge grew into one of the most fashionable parts of London. In 1860 Harrod sold the business to his son Charles Digby Harrod, who acquired the adjoining buildings and built the business into a thriving retail operation selling medicines, perfumes, stationery, fruits, and vegetables; by 1861 he employed 100 people. He sold the store to sponge-and-cigar merchant Edgar Cohen for £120,000 via a stock market flotation in 1889; the new company was called Harrod's Stores Limited. The department store was acquired by House of Fraser in 1959, which was purchased by the Fayed brothers of Egypt in 1985. They were the sons of a primary school teacher. They founded a shipping company in Egypt before moving its headquarters to Genova, Italia, with offices in London. In the 1950s Mohamed Fayed, the oldest, was briefly married to the sister of Saudi Arabian arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, and they had a son Dodi who died in 1997 in a car crash in Paris with his fiancee Diana, princess of Wales, the former wife of the heir to the British throne. Around 1964 he entered into a close relationship with Haitian dictator François "Papa Doc" Duvalier, planning to establish an oil refinery, but terminated his stay in Haiti 6 months later when a sample of "crude oil" provided by Haitian associates proved to be low-grade molasses. He then moved to London and met sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktum, who hired him to set up IMS (International Marine Services) in 1968 as an early step in modernizing Dubai's business interests. The brothers began using the Al-Fayed name in the early 1970s. In 1984 they bought a 30% stake in House of Fraser and bought the remainder in 1985. In 1994 House of Fraser went public but Muhamed retained private ownership of Harrods. He sold it to Qatar Holdings, the sovereign wealth fund of Dawlat Qatar, in 2010.

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