I’ve found that men who wear perfumes
Stink of insensitive relationships
And dead courtesies.
Tell them
Beyond the horizons of the knowledge of words
There is a wilderness
If you enter that wilderness
Wearing this same spirit based fragrance
In your armpits
Every single hair of yours
Will turn into a centipede
And dig its deadly claws
Deep into your skin.
Nazm
TO THE TALIBAN
Those who were afraid even of little girls
Those who abstain from knowledge
Are talking of the benevolence of God
God, who commands that knowledge be obtained.
They flout this command
And proclaim
That no hand should carry books
No fingers clasp a pen
No names be written
Nor any conventions of women.
Those who were afraid even of little girls
Are now proclaiming from town to town
That every modest woman
Shall don the veil.
That every question in every heart
Should be answered thus:
‘We do not want’.
These girls, soaring high like birds
We don’t want these girls to even look in the direction of schools or offices.
Whether she’s a spark of fire ora virtuous angel
Only a harem is her final destination.
Those who were afraid even of little girls
They lurk here somewhere
Spot them. Recognize them.
Because nothing is beyond them.
In this perishing city
Have fortitude and believe
That those who are afraid even of little girls
How trivial is their existence.
Proclaim from city to city
That those who are afraid even of little girls
How small, how insignificant they are.
Taliban se Qiblarau Guftagu
AMENDMENT IN THE TWELFTH AMENDMENT
To get rid of this plague of nudity
Spread all around
I requested the oppressors of my times
That the custom of burying us girls
As soon as we are born
Be made part of the Shariat Bill.
Barahavi Tarmeemmein Tarmeem
DYING VOICES FROM BURNING DAMASCUS AND BASRA
Wake up Amma!
The children are howling with hunger.
No stove,
For now, our whole house burns
Smoke filled
No one to call out to you
No one to fetch you
No one to save you.
Wake up Amma!
Ask how those children are
Who had hidden in the trench
Begging for water
Lips mouthing half uttered words.
Wake up Amma!
Today our town has neither walls nor doors
Nor homes
Nothing remains of fields or chimneys
No little boys or girls
No lamps or wicks either
No shovels or spades
Wake up Amma!
Rise from this circle of corpses
Rise to bury those whom you nurtured
Tell us at least
What does this blood soaked Basra look like?
Wake up Amma!
Tell us why you would not believe?
This empire thirsts for blood
And to quench its thirst
It stops neither at oceans nor at deserts
Its teeth are already sunk in every face
The empire has no eyes
Only two balls of fire
Fuelled by lust.
Wake up Amma!
Pause, and glance at this threshold
Of my dying lips and strangled breath.
This world, my foe
Forges my nakedness into photographs
Don’t feel ashamed Amma!
Wake up Amma!
Wake up Amma!
JalteDamishqaur Basra ki Bujhti Awaazein
Kishwar Naheed (1940- ) arguably Pakistan’s most influential woman poet, is known for her robust, strikingly brusque expressions of feminist angst and political fearlessness. She has held powerful positions in the literary milieu of Pakistan while simultaneously crusading vociferously for women’s rights against its repressive political regimes. She was briefly jailed in the 80’s for alleged pornography for her Urdu translation of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. She continues to write with the same roughshod passion even today.
About the Translator
Urvashi Sabu holds an MPhil (English Literature) from Delhi University (1994), and a PhD from Jamia Millia Islamia (2014).She is currently Associate Professor in the Department of English, P.G.D.A.V. College, Delhi University. Her PhD thesis is on `Pakistani Women Poets: Literary Representation and the Dynamics of Religion, Politics and Society’. She takes keen interest in poetry, drama, translation, and media studies, and is passionate about women’s issues.
About the Translator
An M.Phil(English Literature) with Delhi University (1994), and a PhD with Jamia Millia Islamia (2014), Dr. UrvashiSabu is Associate Professor in the Department of English, P.G.D.A.V. College, University of Delhi. She takes keen interest in poetry, drama, and translation; and is passionate about women’s issues.
