The Most Dangerous Thing in the World is the Death of Our Dreams: Poems by PASH

“Francisco Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters is one of the 80 satirical aquatints that were collectively entitled Los Caprichos (Caprices; Follies). In a note Goya to this piece, Goya added “Imagination abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters; united with her, she is the mother of the arts and source of their wonders.” Los Caprichos were part of Goya’s attack against religious bigotry, superstition, and dull ignorance”

 

Pash
(Translated by Alok Bhalla)

The Most Dangerous Thing in the World is the Death of Our Dreams

The most dangerous thing in the world
is not the theft of your labour
the most dangerous thing in the world
is not torture by the police

To be caught in the coils of betrayal and greed
is not the most dangerous thing in the world
to be arrested without a crime
is certainly terrible

to shrink into a fearful silence
is certainly terrible
but not the most dangerous thing in the world

To remain silent in the face of widespread corruption
is certainly bad
to read by the light of fireflies
is certainly bad

to sit with clenched fists and let time go by
is certainly bad
but not the most dangerous thing in the world

The most dangerous thing in the world
is to become numb like a corpse
to accept everything
and not feel the suffering

The most dangerous thing in the world
is to leave home for work
and return home from work

The most dangerous thing in the world
is the death of our dreams

The most dangerous thing in the world
is when the eye does not see
the dull routines of time

The most dangerous thing in the world
is when the eyes trapped by
the shabby routines of the day
forget to look upon the world with love

The most dangerous song in the world
is sung like a sorrowful marsia
with the swagger of goons
before the doors of terrified people

The most dangerous moonlight
shines over desolate courtyards
after every murder and
does not sting your eyes like red chillies

The most dangerous night under the sky
fills life with hooting owls and howling wolves
and shuts the doors and windows of the soul
in everlasting darkness

**

Grass

I am grass
I grow wherever
you are
whatever you do.

Bomb a university
turn a hostel
into a heap
of rubble
break the roof
of our huts 
over our heads
but what’ll you do with me
I am grass
I grow on anything
and everything.

Destroy Banga
erase Sangrur
reduce Ludhiana to dust
but green blades of grass
will continue to grow
and after two years … ten years
passengers will once again ask the conductor
‘What is this place?
Drop me at Barnala
where dense grass grows.’

I am grass
I will do my work
I will always grow
wherever you are
whatever you do.

**

Our Blood is in the Habit of Celebrating Life

Undisturbed by all seasons or occasions
mocking even all the songs of gallows
our blood is in the habit
of celebrating life

Even when words are bruised
as they flow over rocks

our blood is in the habit
of singing

Who makes the pain of cold winter bearable?
Whose hands give comfort in ruthless times?

Our blood is in the habit
of caressing the flow of days
and breaching the walls of time

This celebration
this song is enough –
enough for those
who till yesterday
were swimming
 in the silent river our blood

our blood is in the habit
of celebrating life.

**

It is Now My Right

I bought a ticket 
to watch
your nautanki 
called “Democracy”

It is now my right
to sit in the auditorium
and hiss, mock and scream

You did not give a discount 
when you sold the ticket

It is now my right
to tear down the curtain
with my own hands
and set the seats on fire.

******* 

Pash was a radical Panjabi poet whose actual name was Avtar Singh Sandhu. He was born in Talwandi Salem, a village near Jalandhar, in 1950. He was, of course, arrested on various charges and imprisoned for two years. He edited a magazine named, Siarh (The Plowline). In 1988 he was assassinated by Khalistani militants

Alok Bhalla obtained his M. A. form Delhi University, India and his Doctorate from Kent State University, US. He retired as Professor of literature from the Central University of English and Foreign Languages, Hyderabad, India. After retirement, he was invited as Visiting Professor by Jamia Millia Islamia and Ambedkar University, Delhi, India. As a critic, translator, editor and poet, he has published more than thirty books. His recent books include Stories About the Partition of India (4 volumes), Partition Dialogues: Memories of a Lost Home, A Chronicle of the Peacocks and Story is a Vagabond (stories by Intizar Husain’s stories), Life and Times of Saadat Hasan Manto, and The Place of Translation in a Literary Habitat. He has also published Shades of the Preternatural and Politics of Atrocity and Lust (both on the Gothic novel and the vampire tale). He has translated Dharamvir Bharati’s play, Andha Yug: The Dark Age as well as stories, plays and poems by Bhisham Sahni, K. B. Vaid, Asghar Wajahat, Kunwar Narain, Kedarnath Singh and others. He has been the co-editor of four special volumes of the journal, Manoa, published by the University of Hawaii Press (US). He is also the author of a collection of poems entitled, The Grammar of Ruins. His volume of nonsense verse for children, Wild Verses of Wit and Whimsy, was illustrated by Manjula Padmanabhan. 
His latest book on miniature paintings of the Gita from late 17th century Mewar by Allah Baksh was published in 2019 and is the first in a series of five volumes of paintings from the Mahabharata (the other four volumes are in the press). In addition, he has edited 6 volumes of the journal Yatra: Writings from the Indian Sub-continent and published research papers in Journal of Peasant Studies, Kunapipi, Annual of Urdu, Asian Studies, Comparative Literature Studies, Toronto Review, Manoa, Hindi, Economic and Political Weekly, Social Scientist and others. He was elected to the Executive Board of the Sahitya Akademi (the Indian Academy of Literature).