Circle of Life Revisited

Our Cook: It doesn’t feel like Christmas at all.

Moi: Massacre hangover i guess. There’s just too much to take from the news.

So i decided to forgo the evening news for 3 days now. Last night, i watched instead Australia the movie starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. A long movie set in the 1940s in the Northern Territory the English called the Faraway Down, through the harsh human betrayal in the outback around cattle business, the breathtaking landscape of Australian deserts, and the Aboriginal power of chanting. My attention was caught not so much by the predictable Kidman-Jackman outback romance (reminds me so much of Kidman and Cruise in Far and Away), but by the Australian wilderness so alive in the enigmatic presence of the Aboriginal King George, chanter and grandfather of 13-year old Nullah the narrator in the movie. Nullah, a son of an Aboriginal mother and a white father played a very endearing role representing the Stolen Generations whose fate must end up in church missions because Australian law prohibited them from living either with their Aboriginal mothers or white fathers.

Minus the Western machismo of the cowboys – the meeting of English and Aboriginal cultures and in-between, the singing and dancing mystique of King George and the wizardry of Nullah, the dusty deserts and the herd of river-crossing and chased cattles were all worth my time.

And the closest wilderness i can imaginably traverse at the office? Lion King peeps and playing the spine-tingling Circle of Life. i luv u Rafiki, i luv u Simba:

Circle Of Life

[MS: Male Singer]
[BS: Background Singer]
[FS: Female Singer (lead)]

[MS:] Nants ingonyama bagithi baba [There comes a lion]
[BS:] Sithi uhhmm ingonyama [Oh yes, it’s a lion]
[MS:] Nants ingonyama bagithi baba [There comes a lion]
[BS:] Sithi uhhmm ingonyama [Oh yes, it’s a lion]
Ingonyama
[MS:] Siyo Nqoba [We’re going to conquer]
[BS:] Ingonyama
Ingonyama nengw’ enamabaal [It’s a lion and a tiger]
[repeats 5]
Ingonyama nengw’ enamabala (Se-to-kwa!)
Ingonyama nengw’ enamabala (Asana)
[repeats 1]
[FS:] From the day we arrive on the planet
And, blinking, step into the sun
There’s more to see than can ever be seen
More to do than can ever be done
There’s far too much to take in here
More to find than can ever be found
But the sun rolling high
Through the sapphire sky
Keeps great and small on the endless round
It’s the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle
The Circle of Life
[FS:] It’s The Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle
The Circle of Life