Ghazal by Gauhar Raza

tr. from Urdu-Hindi

Love for the nation gift-wrapped in faith; farce, that's how it'll be
Flowers, dried-up, gardens, gone, autumn, yellowed, that's how it'll be.

That savagery, once felt, still keeps Europe trembling in fear,
That savagery, will it now burn my land? Is that how it'll be?

Those gas chambers of the past still carry the stench of blood,
What else does blind love for nations do? What else will'it be?

It is true that in dark wells, utter lies, like boats, carry on,
but soon, the light of our truth will sink 'em, that's how it will be.

Those who've grown up on hatred, who've played with it like a toy,
in the days to come, what will hatred make them do? How will it be?

They ask the artists, the writers, why have you returned the honours?
Ask, how many sit quiet? Will shame knock on their doors? Will it be?

Do not eat this, do not wear that, do not, for God's sake, ever love,
The 'anti-national' stamp hovers in the air, that is how it'll be.

Do not forget, the young, the generations after us, are lit embers,
You play with fire an' think the sparks won't reach you; that's not how it'll be.

Gauhar Raza

 

Come

tr. from Ashok Vajpeyi's '??'

Come,
like darkness comes near darkness,
like water runs into water,
like light dissolves in light,

come, wear me,
like a tree wears the bark,
like a mud-path wears the grass,

take me,
like the darkness takes the roots,
like water takes the moon,
like the infinite takes time.

White truth

tr. from Munawwar Rana's 'Safed Sach'

His
fingers
always tell
the truth -- he
trusts them, shows
them off, every once in
a while, as we talk, he kisses
them lightly, one day, not knowing
better, he kept his fingers on my lips,
now they've started lying ever so slightly.


[After Munawwar Rana's return of the Sahitya Akademi award, Oct '15]

A Language of Forgetting

tr. from Rajesh Joshi's '????? ?? ????'

A river brushed against me
in the language of water,

and suddenly, in the language
of flight, the birds
moved below the clouds,

on trees written in a hieroglyphic script,
leaves stirred together, and in their movement
was the language of rustling -

it felt as if you are somewhere close,
drawing near in the language of the body

and whispering a language of forgetting
to those you could not.

I want to believe

tr. from Ashok Vajpeyi's '??????? ???? ????? ???'

I want to believe that
after my defeat in love
when I mourn in the utter loneliness of a poem,
then, somewhere at least a leaf will tremble for me,
that somewhere a bird will resent that her world is, despite everything, so green,
that, for a moment, a planet will slow down somewhere in the universe
and in some invisible vein of the earth, the lava will cool a little,
that the ancestors spread over centuries will try an' give solace to each other,
and the tears of gods will fall in untimely rain;
that I will cry
and through the whole universe
will run a cry of sorrow,
I want to believe that in my defeat, and in my grief,
the world will not leave me alone.

Grief surrounds me as if
now that is the only body I have to live in and die in
as if that is the real colour of living
which has become visible to me only just now.

I want to believe that
when I'll try and find my way through
pain's long corridors
then, the light at the end of that tunnel will be of grief,
that the window from which a hand will show me the way, will be grief's window,
and the house, whose porch I'll rest in, to gather strength to keep on going,
will be the house where grief lives.

I want to believe that
just like the other name of laughter is often kids or flowers,
just like the other name of hope is poetry,
like that, the other name of love will be grief.

He doesn't say - Ashok Vajpeyi

tr. from Ashok Vajpeyi's '?? ???? ????'

He says
he has only a little heart,
like sunrays say
they have a little light
fire says
it has a little warmth --

sunrays don't say they have the universe
fire doesn't say it has those flames
he doesn't say he has his body.

[after Ashok Vajpeyi's return of the Sahitya Akademi Award, Oct '15]