THE SOFT FRAGRANCE OF MY JASMINE
The soft fragrance of my jasmine
Floats on the breeze
Plays with the hand of the wind,
Is setting off in search of you.
The soft fragrance of my jasmine
Has curled around my wrists,
My arms, my throat.
It has woven chains about me.
It lurks in the fogging night,
Seeps through the darkening cold.
Rustling through the leafy thicket,
It’s setting off in search of you.
Translated by Patricia L. Sharpe
DEEP KISS
Deep myrrh-scented kiss,
deep with the tongue, suffused
with the musky perfume
of the wine of love: I’m reeling
with intoxication, languid
to the point of numbness,
yet with a mind so roused
an eye flies open
in every cell.
And you! Sucking my breath,
my life, from its deepest,
most ancient abode.
Kiss.
Wet, warm, dark.
Pitch black!
Like a moonless night,
when rain comes flooding in.
A glint of runaway time
fleeing in the wilderness of my soul
seems to be drawing closer.
I sway across a shadowy bridge.
It’s about to end, I think,
somewhere ahead,
there is light.
Translated by Patricia L. Sharpe
THE INTERROGATOR
The Interrogator is waiting
What should be our statement?
How life has suffered
It is hard to reveal
What the heart has endured
Impossible to recount.
Here is my statement then:
Take note then, this is all true.
All the allegations are true
My crime is proven
What I did though, was too little
That is my only regret
I hope I may have another chance
I owed more than I have paid as yet
To all that, add this too
So long as I breathe
I shall do it again
If possible I shall do it better
We shall write that word again
To make every dictator equipped with his armoury
Tremble upon reading that word
We shall play that tune again
To make every victim of oppression,
With bands of folded hands.
Dance to its rhythm.
This law is a rag
Worthy of the dust
Off the feet of the
Rebels
Dictatorship is a curse
This government of
Ordinances
We shall shred in a
public square.
The time is coming
For accountability
When they will have to account for it all
But, then, to answer for this,
Where would you be?
Less than a thorn, less
than dust
You are but a pebble by
the wayside
He, who obstructs the path
He is your master
We have now decided to clear the way
You who are only his instrument
You, we shall forgive.
Translated by Rukhsana Ahmad
FOUR WALLS AND A BLACK VEIL
What shall I do, Sire, with this black veil?
Why do you bestow on me this great favour?
I am not in mourning that I should wear it
To show the world my grief. Nor am I sick
That I should hide my shame
In its dark folds. Stamp my forehead with this
Dismal seal? If I am not too impudent, Sire
If you assure my life, may I tell you,
Most humbly: There lies, in your perfumed chamber,
A corpse that stinks. It begs for pity.
Cover that shroudless corpse. Not me.
Its stench is everywhere.
It cries for seclusion.
Listen to the heart-rending screams
Of those still naked beneath the veil.
You must know them well, these maids:
The hostage women of vanquished peoples,
Halal for a night, exiled at dawn;
The slave girls who carried your blessed seed
And brought forth children of half status only, yet
Was it not honour enough for them?
The wives who wait their precious turns
To pay homage to the conjugal couch;
The hapless, cowering girl-child
Whose blood will stain your gray beard red.
Life has no more tears to shed; it shed them all
In that fragrant chamber where, for ages now,
This sacrificial drama has played
And replayed. Please, Sire, bring it down.
The curtain. Now. You need it to cover the corpse.
I am not on this earth merely as a signet
Of your great lust.
These four walls and this black veil –
Let them bless the rotting remains.
I have spread my sails
In the open wind, on the wide seas,
And by my side a man stands,
A companion who won my trust.
Translated by Patricia L. Sharpe
FOR FIRAQ GORAKHPURI
A Great Indian Urdu Poet
At Triveni, the place
of three waters, where Ganga
and Yamuna flow together:
A waterbird rising, its trailing feet
inscribe the surface.
Yamuna: deep and blue,
languid, mysterious, silent;
Ganga: white, powerful, restless,
an onward-pressing current that never ceases.
On the surface of the waters, reflections:
Chinks of sky. Earthen idols.
Green coconuts. A face
smeared with sandalwood.
A boatman,
all skin and bones,
rowing his shell across the twin currents.
Holy men counting their coins,
toting up their alms.
The bronze disk of the afternoon sun.
On the banks of Yamuna, the fort,
its dome and tall minarets,
their slanting shadows.
Visitors from Pakistan to the land
that was once their own. A garland
of bruised marigolds floating by.
Oars dipping and rising.
Snatches of overheard conversation.
‘Saraswati, the goddess of learning
and the arts, concealed from us,
flows somewhere here,
in river form…’
Whatever I gathered from that view
Or later learnt in life, I know that vista
was larger than what met
the eye. Its infinite outreaches
I dedicate to you, Firaq!
This, half-lit room, outside
the keening rainbird…
Raindrops whispering
against the glass, silence inside.
Mute tears can never express
our full reality.
Lonely, half-crippled old man!
Your land cannot endure the loss
of such beauty. Your people
can not allow you to pass away.
Life is not yet barren,
they will surely reincarnate you.
Translated by Patricia L. Sharpe
PURVA ANCHAL
(On a train through Eastern Uttar Pradesh, India, under curfew)
How beautiful is this land!
Beautiful and long-suffering.
A shawl of buckwheat green
Flutters in the wake
Of this train speeding
Through the East.
As far as the eye can see,
Green fields and granaries.
This land is a peasant woman
Coming home from the fields
With a bundle on her head.
Home?
Where angry vultures wheel
Over the rooftops and threaten to lunge,
Any minute, in any direction
The grass is wet with dew,
Unless my tear-glazed eyes
See only tears.
Brick and stone
Reduced to rubble.
Mosque and temple
Still locked
In the same old squabble.
Every brow
Disfigured by a frown.
A son of this land,
Laid long ago to rest,
Wakens now
To bring you peace.
Listen to Kabir,
Who pleads with you:
Wars of hatred
Do no honour to God.
Both Ram and Rahim
Will shun a loveless land.
Near a bamboo grove
Across the unruffled River Sarju
By a lotus pond thick with bloom
Stands a Buddha tablet
A message from the wise.
‘When two are locked in conflict
And ready to lose their lives,
Neither can win in the end,
Unless both do – and equally.
A battle lost by either
Will be fought and refought
Until both are destroyed
And both are equal losers.’
Such are the paradigms of war,
Such the insight of the Buddha.
Why are we, his heirs, so blind?
The Pandit and the Mullah
Are flattered and hung with garlands
And feasted and housed like lords,
While you dear people of the land
Are drowned every time
In the bloodbaths they inspire.
Translated by Patricia L. Sharpe
