Guest Editor and Translator (from Hindi): Alok Bhalla
“The bird in the forest can perch but on one bough,
And this should be the wise man’s pattern.”TsoSsu
AlokBhalla
In Memorium: Intizar Husain
1
He sent us as a precious gift
A story about children playing
Near a well with chiming bells and
Bees humming over the damp earth.
2
At lunch his wife whispered
Do not tell him about the mazar
Under the banyan tree
He will leave at once
To offer his homage to both.
Ideograms of time
Under the shadow of eternity.
3
In his travelogue
He didn’t write about his visit
To our home in Hyderabad
For it is forbidden to reveal
The secrets of one’s host.
4
It’s important to pay attention,
He said, to the neem tree.
In winterit follows the rising sun;
In summer its yellowing leaves
Accompany the hot winds and
Mark the route of departing souls.
5
His fatherhad advised him
If you want to be a poet
Be patient; be still; wait…
Listen to the tapping of a woodpecker
And learn to scan the sounds of words.
He got lost, instead, in the dark woods of Amir Hamza
Where spirits spin stories of other enchantments.
6
There is no rule book for immigrants to live by
Every time they cross a border
Their nostalgias fade and are lost
Their dreams of a future are oftenin ruins
They cannot follow a middle-path.
7
As he walked along the dry path around
A field of wheat ripening in the sun
He saw sparrows twitter in the sky
Suddenly their wings caught fire
And their bodies exploded.
8
Each of us lives at the edge of a cataclysm.
2022
***
Vinod Kumar Shukla
1. Look at Your Home From Afar
Look at your home from afar
like the one who longs to return home
but despairs of ever coming back
from across the seven seas.
As you travel
to other lands
look back
at your country
as if from outer space.
The memory of your children at home
will be the memory of children on earth.
Concern about food and water at home
will be concern about food and water on earth
anxiety about hunger on earth
will be anxiety about hunger at home
and journey back to earth
will be like returning home.
Life at home is such a mess
that after taking a few steps
away from home
I turn back
as if returning to earth.
*
- Dream Traveler
Ah! Is this where have I arrived?
I’ll stay where
I have arrived
in my dream!
I don’t know what
I will do at home?
I must dream
about returning home.
I travelled in a dream
I must return in a dream.
Since my return was delayed
I slept till late in the morning.
*
- A Girls Sees Green Trees
When a girl sees green trees
she catches a glimpse of the sky.
When she sees high rise buildings
she catches a glimpse of the sky.
If she doesn’t see the trees
but only sees a bird in the trees
she catches a glimpse of the sky.
If she keeps her window shut for hours
or only opens it a little
she catches a glimpse of the sky.
If in her absentmindedness
she steps onto the street
and looks right and left
she catches a glimpse of the sky.
The girl seems very worried.
*
4. I Shall Go to Meet Those Who Will Never Come Home
I shall go to meet
those who will never
come to my home.
A river in flood
will never come to my home
I shall go to the river bank
to meet people like the river
swim a little and drown.
Mountains, hills, rocks, lakes
innumerable trees and farms
will never come to my home
I shall go from village to village
from forest to forest
lane to lane
to meet people like those
wholabour in the fields.
My first and last wish
shall be to meet them
not out of idle curiosity
but to make serious inquiry.
***
Asghar Wajahat
Seeds and the Earth
He is a strange man. His pockets are always full of seeds. Seeds of all kinds.Seeds which grow into trees, plants, creepers, flowers and fruit.
His pockets are always full of seeds. He shows then to everyone. ‘See, these are seeds…Look at them carefully…they really are seeds…!’ And when people agree that they indeed are seeds, he laughs aloud and says, ‘Yes! Yes! They are seeds!’ Then he laughs again. It seems as if he is making fun of the seeds. He laugher is like an earthquake; its sound fills heaven and earth.
He then takes the seeds out of his pockets and flings them into the air. The seeds float in the breeze and then fall to the ground.
The seasons change. Summer ends. Rain falls. Winter follows. Summer arrives again. Rain falls again. But the seeds do not sprout. No plants grow.
He laughs loudly and says, ‘See, I have broken the relation between the seeds and the earth! Now seeds and the earth have no relation with each other!’
******
Note The epigraph above is from Poems by TsoSsu, "The Scholar in the Narrow Street," in Translations from the Chinese, by Arthur Waley (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1941), P. 75,Alok Bhalla is a literary critic, poet, translator and editor based in New Delhi
Alok Bhalla in The Beacon
Leave a Reply