Tiger tiger

I was at this awesome production studio called Tiger Tiger in the old Petaling Jaya town, nicely decorated & (shriek!) with lots of cats. I love the ambience of the town by the way; the houses and the surroundings seemed to be trapped in 1980’s, even driving by the streets you can feel how the colors around you seem to be a little faded and pleasantly drab.

While being there, eyes darting across the house admiring the seemingly elegant black chandelier, the goldfish zen pond and the minimal furnishings, almost all seemed to be purchased from IKEA, I could not help wondering if the studio is dubbed after my favorite, identically titled poem by William Blake. When I was small, my father would recite the poem to me at my every insistence, mocking the roaring of a tiger, crouching close to the ground, sometimes arms flailing out and about in an impersonation of a fast-moving beast. Being young, his animated narration of the poem was my only definition of the poem, however as I grow up, just like many of us I seem to find a different, if not, my own interpretation of the poem – ambitions, somewhat existential (why & how), a mixture of beauty & terror (which sums up what life is all about) among others. (Photo from Jared Tyler)

Tiger, tiger, burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? What dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,

And water'd heaven with their tears,

Did He smile His work to see?

Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?