I am frightened of newspapers these days
frightened
that there must be in them
somewhere
the news
that nothing has happened

 You perhaps do not know
– or maybe you do –
how terrifying it is when nothing happens
when your eyes wait with baited breath
and all lies passive
like a cold woman

Even the talk of people in the village assembly
seems like a serpent
holding in its paralyzing clutch
the tree
that would sway in freedom

 I am afraid
this world which looks abandoned and incomplete
like an assembly of vacant chairs
must be thinking how ridiculous we are

 What a shame
that even after centuries
bread, work and death should think
we live only for them

I do not know how I should explain
to shy mornings and rallying nights
and to gentle evenings
that we have not come here to be greeted with a salute
from them
and that there is nothing to embrace
between equals
when one stands at arm’s length
from arms outstretched for an embrace

Even accidents arrive nowadays
like panting old men
on whores’ staircases

Why isn’t there anything
these days
like the first meeting
with one’s first love?

This country
the creation of great souls
– how long, after all, will it escape
the horned fiend of death?

When, at last, shall we return
to our homes
that happen to be
like happenings –
we
the exiles from life’s humble noises?

When shall we, at last, sit
around the smoke from smoldering fires
and listen
to the proud fire’s tales?

One day
we shall surely kiss
the cheeks of seasons

All earth will then become
a newspaper
and it will carry the news
of so many happenings
one day

Translated by Rjesh Kumar Sharma

When I faltered
and fell at your feet
you became the Buddha
but I am still trying
to balance my wounded flight

I call from a withered orchard
far away from beyond Lake Mansarovar
I speak not to you
but to the soldier breathing his last
in the battlefield of Kalinga

Why is it
that knowledge is only the twist of a rope
around our necks?

Soldier, can you tell me
why the way to salvation lies
through your and my
last hiccups?

Do not the footprints
that have left for the Banyan at Gaya
know that time is aging in my eyes?
Into those footprints will converge
one day

Yashodhara’s
– but for me the Himalayas will extend interminably
moment after moment

Soldier, you have seen the country
expand and shrink this side and that
of rivers
but Lake Mansarovar
– which is like a deep far-off moonlit night –
never understood
why and how man became Dravidian sometimes
but at others Aryan
it never understood
why the verses of the Quran and the Vedas rose
like smoke
to choke the nostrils and eyes of men
and why the water from Mansarovar
never returned
to tell the tales of men dishonoured by knowledge

Soldier, Mansarovar would little know
why I, a drop of its vapours, did not return this time
from another merry wandering with friendly winds

Mansarovar is not an Abdali
nor did I bring, like Sabir, some threatening word
but let me tell you something –
wherever Shah Nawaz happens to be
a mere unsheathed bright silence becomes
for the sake of his speech
a word
but in my wings the nectar
oozing from the first-time mother’s tender breasts
has never changed into a shelter
of any one of the seven colours

And do you know, Soldier,
how impotence makes language a rascal
– which uses the word history for a wound
and civilization
for the pain of wounds untold?

It perhaps thinks all flying birds are swans
and pearls are merely peas, pulses or grains of rice

It knows just this much –
that Mansarovar engenders rivers for the sake of a folly called nation
it understands only this –
that the poetry of the Vedas and the Quran is just smoke

Mansarovar is, for it, a mere lake,
a dead quiet –
and the melting of embodied words
into sounds
by Harvallabh or Tansen or Ghulam Ali, music –
in the sound of death’s footsteps
it finds the song of swans

Soldier, it sounds, of course, awkward
to describe a dying man as one
who belongs to the race of swans

But all this is the mischief of language
– that poetry should be reduced
to mere smoke
and man, blinded and sneezing,
should submit to regimented obedience
and offer his chest – annoyed with his beating heart –
to the devil
for medals of valour
and that the devil should plant in his chest
nails of gold
and teach him the ways to turn gold
into grains
and food into vodka
and that vodka change man
into a jackal, a fox, and then a wolf
– and the pack of wolves
into society

Soldier, how can the swan say
that Tolstoy arrived too late
and that the real story had begun way before the day
the ploughman’s bread was stolen . . .

O Soldier, if you agree to rise
we shall leave this rascally language to die
in the battlefield of Kalinga
and proceed for the Siddhartha of Kapilavastu
on the way
we shall also meet Shankaracharya
before giving all knowledge back
to the East India Company

Later you can go and live
on any piece of the naked earth
– without telling the sea
that real history is the other one

My messages
the rivers from Mansarovar will carry
messages that shall be
like gypsy songs
or like the pollen of divinity
dropping sweetly from wanderer eyes
messages that shall have
the mystery of mountain springs

If you could just arise, O Soldier!
if you could only arise . . . .

Translated by Rjesh Kumar Sharma

I ask the Sun
flying across the sky –
Is this what they call time?

That events should trample
like crazy elephants
over all human consciousness?

That each question should be
no more than an error
of absorption in thought?

Why are we retold the same old joke
every time?

Why do they say
we live?

Think for a moment –
How many here have anything to do
with the thing called life?

What kind of God’s mercy is that
which falls alike on hands cracked
and bleeding
from weeding a field of wheat
and on the pulpy bodies
stretched on divans in a marketplace?

Why is it
that a loud-crying silence lies frozen
on faces besieged
by the noise of ox bells and of engines drawing water?

Who is it
that devours the fried fish of biceps
of dreams chopped
with swaths on fodder-choppers?

Why does the peasant in my village
beg for mercy
from a mere police constable?

Why is it
that every time someone being crushed
shrieks
the cry is disposed of as a poem?

I ask the Sun
that flies across the sky

 

Translated by Rjesh Kumar Sharma

Time is a bloody dog, my nightingale!
Come, leave the orchards
and watch the souls wandering homeless
on streets

Bark or howl
in mourning
for your song will cure no one now

Wasn’t this the song that sat like dew on twigs
but fled
terrified like vapours
before a mere flake
of sunlight?

Time is a bloody dog, my nightingale!
It has nibbled away
the hands of clocks
it has bitten off walls
and pissed on flowerpots

Don’t know
what else it would’ve done
hadn’t the government’s men put it on leash
and tied it
outside their bungalows

My nightingale!
My doings are of a different kind
I have lost every wager that looked
like life

I now wish to be horse
not man

For the saddle is too painful
on human bones
the spiky bridle hurts
and my human feet do not keep
the beat of a poem

Time is a bloody dog,
my nightingale!

Translated by Rjesh Kumar Sharma

Not everyone dreams

The fire that sleeps
in grains of lifeless gunpowder
does not dream

Dreams grow
in hearts of courage

They spring
when sleep is merciful

Everyone
that is why
dreams

Translated by Rjesh Kumar Sharma

Deep inside me
the clouds thunder

I fear for you
lest you be blown away
with the innocence
of nests

I live in a world of savages
who do not know
what lightning can do

Translated by Rjesh Kumar Sharma

You have
purposely
dishonoured words.

If they have lost their way
who else can you blame?

These trees want me to answer
what they should call the Sun
that neither burns
nor turns red.

I look towards the trees,
count the colours of wind,
and size up the seasons.

And I cannot say
the Sun is not guilty.

For the sake of the Sun
I make rude words sit
in Swayamvara.

You would think
I have flung myself
into a chasm
from some high peak.

The truth is I have changed the meaning
of chasms,
I have taken the wind
for a swing,
have made use of mountains
for a leap beyond.

I have changed
for you
what suicide means.

Comrade, life shall mean something else to you.

Even if, before dying,
you finally understood life,
who would trust you?
Who would forgive you?

You
who purposely violated
the innocence of meaning.

Translated by Rjesh Kumar Sharma

Most treacherous is not the robbery
of hard earned wages
Most horrible is not the torture by the police.
Most dangerous is not the graft for the treason and greed.
To be caught while asleep is surely bad
surely bad is to be buried in silence

But it is not most dangerous.

To remain dumb and silent in the face of trickery
Even when just, is definitely bad
Surely bad is reading in the light of a firefly

But it is not most dangerous

Most dangerous is
To be filled with dead peace
Not to feel agony and bear it all,
Leaving home for work
And from work return home
Most dangerous is the death of our dreams.

Most dangerous is that watch
Which run on your wrist
But stand still for your eyes.
Most dangerous is that eye
Which sees all but remains frostlike,
The eye that forgets to kiss the world with love,
The eye lost in the blinding mist of the material world.
That sinks the simple meaning of visible things
And is lost in the meaning return of useless games.

Most dangerous is the moon
Which rises in the numb yard
After each murder,
but does not pierce your eyes like hot chilies.

Most dangerous is the song
which climbs the mourning wail
In order to reach your ears
And repeats the cough of an evil man
At the door of the frightened people.

Most dangerous is the night
Falling in the sky of living souls,
Extinguishing them all
In which only owls shriek and jackals growl,
And eternal darkness covers all the windows.

Most heinous is the direction
In which the sun of the soul light
Pierces the east of your body.
Most treacherous is not the
robbery of hard earned wages.
Most horrible is not the torture of police
Most dangerous is not graft taken for greed and treason.

Translation by Dr.Satnam Singh Sandhu

Do not ask me, my love, for the old love
I had thought life is aglow with your presence
The sorrows of the world negligible when compared with agony of your love
From your face, the spring gets its permanence in creation
What else does the world have if not your eyes?
If I get you the fate will submit to me
It would not really but I wished it merely
There are sorrows other than those of love in the world
There are joys other than those of a union with you
Dreadful dark spells of countless centuries
Woven in silk, satin and brocade
Bodies on sale here and there in streets, markets
Smeared of ashes, drenched in blood
Bodies right our of ovens of diseases
Pus oozing out of rotting wounds
One cannot help but turn to look that ways too
One cannot help it even though your beauty is still heart-warming
There are sorrows other than those of love in the world
There are joys other than those of a union with you
Do not ask me, my love, for the old love

 

Comrade, do you occasionally get a newspaper?
Don’t believe the piecemeal news.
Last year the one who drowned in the village pond…
It was not mother.
A brick got disengaged from the blue terrace and fell down.
At the very first raid, mother
trying to swim through Gorky’s novel
ran away from the police.
at the banks of the novel
and sometimes fades like her own blessings.
And recently, the poet
who was in news for joining the party safely
it was not I, it was a Dek tree on the outside wall
which bad spirits, wearing police uniforms
had learnt to climb up and down.
Long before that news went to print,
when night was sliding into words
and the dark- like cobra, sat coiled on names…
I stole whatever remained of the party’s compassion
and slid down…stole away
into the human clamour
When my own feet were listening to me
like love poems
I went and put the waning compassion
carefully among crow’s eggs
To Sadhu Singh and Jirvi*, I have complained
many times about these news.
Who say that the paralysis of news
does not let them walk on their own feet
they ask for crutches of our death
“if we believed their truth
we would have cried over you many times over.”
Every time I read the news of a sudden raid
I tell mother-
Its not you, but another warrior with your name
Mother knows nothing of grammatical nuances
Shivering in the chilling innocence of old age
She mistakes a naming word for a caste name
and a caste name for a collective noun
For her whenever a bullet is fired on a name
Some caste or some emotion is murdered
Comrade, mother is anyways crazy
Both of us and news cannot change her
For coming home late, she will
With any household object
Or with the whole house, beat you and later
Stuff her dry breast in your mouth

 

 

I can prove
two and two make three.
The present is liestory.
The human face looks like a spoon.
You know –
bills and bills of a hundred
move on in courts, bus-stands and parks –
writing diaries, taking pictures,
completing reports.
Sons are made to rape their mothers
in the ‘Law Protection Centres.’
‘Dacoits’ toil in the fields.
The declaration of accepting demands
is made by dropping bombs.
That loving your own people could mean
spying for the ‘enemy nation.’
And the reward for the greatest treachery
could be the highest seat.
So two and two can make three;
the present could be liestory
and the human face too
can look like a spoon.

 

 

 

We who have not fought
are not your good sons, oh life
though we always tried
we tried to shrink the scope of war
for just a meal and a worn out quilt
we kept on weaving something like peace
in the strings of pridelessness
we kept regarding the years as age
years that kept stabbing our bodies
when each moment kept thundering
like a fierce opponent
hiding in a chest
we kept on avoiding the war

wishing to avoid the war
we belittled ourselves
retired father just became useless old man for us
and ever-worried wife appeared like a witch
there were always signs of bankruptcy
we dared not to look into the eyes
of innocent daughters
we remained fearful of converting
the hiding places into bunkers

fear, at times grew on us like slavery
fear at times adorned our heads in guise of turbans
fear at times bloomed in minds as aesthetics
fear at times grabbed our souls as gentleness
fear at times tickled out of lips like a gossip
we who have not fought, oh life
are your utterly deceptive sons

our wish to avoid war
has thrown us flat on the ground
the peace for which we kept crowding
kept tickling the taste buds of wolves…
peace is nowhere
its all about the howling of the jackals inside us
peace is just fantasy of life
while sitting in morose defensive posture..
there is nothing called peace
its all about hiding in a roadside ditch
upon spotting an underground comrade
peace is nowhere
its all about the fear of thundering war cries
and finding music from our howls
there is no peace anywhere else

wasted crops for want of irrigation
trembling villages under the burden of bank loans
and stretched out arms for peace,
is the meanest joke of our era

peace is the wound caused by broken bangle
peace is the wild laughter
behind the doors of infamous mansions
peace is the hapless cry
of the insulted wise beards
peace is nothing else
peace is the rifle of the sentry
guarding the border between happiness and sorrows
peace is the chopped arm
of the poets accepting royal honours
peace is the shine of the white attire of ministers
peace is nothing else…
or peace is Gandhi’s loin cloth
which can be used to hang a billion people
asking for peace means
fighting a war at meanest level
peace is no where

we are just lonely without war
we get drained off while running away from ourselves
just limited without war
we get finished within arm’s length
without war, we are not friends
we only survive on pseudo emotions

war will provide
toys to our children
war will bring
beautiful embroidery designs for our sisters
war will descend as
milk in our wives’ breasts
war will become
spectacles for the ageing mother
war will blossom as
flower on the graves of our forefathers

time has since long been
like an untamed horse
which has dragged us far away from life
nothing but war will control this horse
only war will control this horse

Translation by Dr. Lok Raj
.

 

 

 

We don’t want anything for form’s sake:
Like muscles pulled in the back of our arms,
Or lashes prominently visible
On the back of the oxen,
Or our future sacred and shrunk
In the affidavits of loans;
We want everything actual
Of life, equality and what not.

As the sun, the wind and the cloud
Remain close to us in houses and fields;
Likewise we want to have
Of polity, belief and joy,
A feel close to our lives,
Mighty ones, we want everything actual.

We don’t want anything hoax-like
As a tout’s evidence falsely concocted
In a case of illicit distillation;
Fairness that a patwari may profess,
Or the oath the middleman may take –
A fact on the palm of our hand we want
Like saltish tinge in sugar-cane’s jaggery
Or nicotine in the burning hookah;
Something like skein on the beloved’s lips
The lover feels on kissing, we want.

We don’t want books to read
Tucked on the lathis of the police;
We don’t want to hear
Songs to the tune of military boots declaimed,
With yearning fingertips we want to feel
Songs resonating on the tops of trees.
To taste something bitter in tear-gas,
Or one’s own blood on the tongue to taste,
Is recreation for none;
But we don’t want anything for form’s sake
We want everything actual
Life, socialism or what not…

Translated by Tejwant Singh Gill
.

 

 

 

No
I am not losing my sleep over
how and when
you’ll strike
to finish me off
frankly, I couldn’t care less
about it
because
I don’t have the patience
of a watchman
to be on eternal guard
to sift and filter
countless moments
to await
the time slot
your henchmen have fixed for me.
No
I don’t waste my time thinking such trifles
nor am I sentimental about
the memories of my village
and the folks I left behind
No I don’t think now about
such things as
the fine hues of red
when the sun sets over the village
nor do I care about
how she feels.

Translated by Suresh Sethi

.

 

 

 

The life of a pirate is not so dangerous
nor is a bashup in a police lockup
spying too is not very dangerous

to be woken up in the middle of the night
by the secret police
I admit is nerve wrecking
so is the quiet lonely fear
which follows you
and throttles your chest
when you are locked up in a cell
on a framed up false charge
for a crime you did not commit
all this I admit is bad enough
but all these are still not so dangerous

because the most dangerous thing is
to live like a dead man
when you don’t feel any thing
when the routine of daily life saps you totally
the fixed life of
home to work
work to home
that is a life without dreams
that is the most dangerous thing

that is when
the hour is alive and kicking for everyone
excepting for you
that life is the most dangerous thing

because
like the eyes of a dead fish
you stare at everything
but cannot feel anything
about yourself
or about others
that’s why
the most dangerous are those people
who have forgotten how to love people
for such people
live and shift aimlessly
in the ordinary humdrum orbit of their lives
in which nothing happens
nothing moves
like a placid cemetery

these people
are like that cold blooded moon
which feels nothing
no pain, love, sympathy or revulsion
when it goes over the courtyards
of the innocent victims
butchered in a slaughter

the most ugly sight is
that of a debauched old man
who is trying to sing a melody
but only succeeds in racking his weak chest

So the most dangerous life is the one
in which our conscience doesn’t prick you
because your soul is dead
that’s why I say

piracy is not so dangerous
spying is not so dangerous
bashup in a police lockup is not so dangerous
the most dangerous life is…

Translated by Suresh Sethi


.

 

 

 

Every one doesn’t have the propensity to dream
that’s why
the fuse of a dynamite
lies dormant in the belly
because it cannot dream
of explosions
otherwise it would explode
by itself

Every one doesn’t have the propensity to dream
that’s why
sweat
in the palm of the hand
just dries up
without galvanising into action
that’s why
rows upon rows of history books
on shelves
lie mute

because in order to dream
one must have courage and stamina
and the propensity to dream…


Translated by Suresh Sethi


.

 

 

 

 

I can prove
two and two make three.
The present is liestory.
The human face looks like a spoon.

You know –
bills and bills of a hundred
move on in courts, bus-stands and parks –
writing diaries, taking pictures,
completing reports.

Sons are made to rape their mothers
in the ‘Law Protection Centres.’
‘Dacoits’ toil in the fields.

The declaration of accepting demands
is made by dropping bombs.
That loving your own people could mean
spying for the ‘enemy nation.’
And the reward for the greatest treachery
could be the highest seat.

So two and two can make three;
the present could be liestory
and the human face too
can look like a spoon.

Translated by Samartha Vashishtha

.

 

 

 

I seek farewell
My beloved, I seek farewell
I had wanted to write a poem
Which you could have read till you lived

In that poem, there would have been mention of –
The fragrance of corriander
The rustle of sugarcane
also, of the dew seeping from the trees
and the froth of milk in the bucket
And everything else-
That I saw in your body, would have found a mention

In that poem-
The stiffness of my hands had to smile
The fish plates of my thighs had to swim
And the soft shawl of my chest hair
would have reeked of love
In that poem for you
for me
and for life’s every relation
There would have been a lot

But it is too tasteless-
to struggle with the contours of the world map
And even If I wrote that poem, full of good omen
It would have died,
Leaving me and you wailing over its chest

My love, the poem has become very immaterial
As the weapons continue growing their nails
And before every poem
It has become necessary
to fight with these weapons

In a war
Everything is easily understood
as easily as the enemy’s and one’s own name
and in this situation –
Comparing the roundness of my lips, ready to kiss
With the roundness of Earth
Or comapring the bend in your back
to the breath of Ocean
would have felt like like a joke
And that is why I did not…

I could not make it possible – keeping in one line
Your desire to feed my child in our courtyard
and the totality of war

And now i seek farewell
and now I seek farewell

You will have to forhet everyhting, my love
Except this, that I had an unsatiating desire to live
That I wanted to drown, till my neck, in life
You live my part of life as well, my love
You live my part of life as well

Translated by Rahul Pandita

 

.

 

 

 

Eagles have flown aloft taking in their beaks
Our desire for a mornent’s life of peace.
Friends, let us indeed,
In pursuit of the flying eagles, proceed.

Who knows when may come over here
Critics wearing red badges
And start the campaign
To pour false praise on poems
Before the daily expanding building
Of the police station
To take into grasp your village, your family
The trembling leaf of your self respect
Gets glued to the daily record
Of that rapier tongued munshi;
It is better now indeed,
In pursuit of the flying eagles, proceed.

In your whole life will not get repaid
Loan on sister’s marriage incurred,
Every drop of blood
Sprinkled in the fields
Will not provide colour
Enough to paint the face
Of a serene smiling person.
To add to it further
All the nights of life put together
Will not count down the stars of the sky;
Then, friends, let us, indeed,
In pursuit of the flying eagles proceed.

If you have had on your tongue
The taste of hot gur cooling in the trough,
And seen with open eyes
The glow in the moon lit night
Of the moist field when levelled,
You will definitely do then something
About that devouring vote’s paper
That casts grabbing looks
On the green crops in our fields.
Those who have seen golden corncobs
Of maize drying on our roofs,
But have not come across
Contracting prices in the market,
Will never come to grasp
The enmity professed
By that ruling woman in Delhi
With this bare footed village damsel.
In this dungeon of life
When your voice to yourself returns,
Dreams like the unstruck neck of the old ox
In rankling eyes burn,
And the dirt of the streets sticks
To life’s most beautiful years,
Then the best thing to do
Is, friends, indeed,
In pursuit of the flying eagles to proceed.

Translated by Tejwant Singh Gill

.

 

 

 

He lived a long life
For his name to survive.

The earth was vast
And his village was small;
All his life he slept under one thatched roof,
All his life he defecated in the same field;
And always he ,wished
For his name to survive.

All his life he heard three sounds only:
One was the crowing of the cock,
The other was the muffling of animals,
And the third was of the morsel chewed
In the silken light of sand dunes,
He never heard the sound of the setting sun,
He never heard the blossoming of flowers in spring;
The stars never sang a song for him.

All his life he knew three hues only:
One was the hue of the earth
That he could not take to even once.
The other was the hue of the sky
That bore several names But none came easy to him.
The last was the hue of his wife’s cheeks
That in modesty never named all his life.

He could compete in eating turnips,
Many a time he won the bet in eating maize,
But himself he got eaten without a bet.

Years of his life like ripe melons
Were as such eation away in full.
Like milk milched fresh
His goodness was gulped with relish,
The awareness never dawned on him
How prosperous was he in health,

The instinct to survive in the world
Pursued him relentless like the biting bee;
Like a statue he stood
That called for no celebration.

The way from his thatched house
Still leads to the well,
In his foot print lost
Under millions of others,
Laughs yet the wound of the thorn,
Laughs. yet the wound of the thorn.

Translated by Tejwant Singh Gill

.

 

 

 

My dear, you must be complaining of my love
That your fond wishes have gone waste for me.
Have gone waste the sun fight and the shade
You with fond needle wove in handkerchiefs.

A poet though I have missed to read
The poetry of promise reflected in your eyes,
On my lips reserved for you, my dear,
Has dried the bitter and tasteless song of bread.

My adoration, my integrity are doubly wounded,
Wounded is your laughter as of linseed flowers;
They take me away, the enemies of your happiness,
Leaving behind the shameless rattle of handcuffs.

It is on your door only that my head bows,
Time and again I deride the prison door;
Only in my village do I live effaced,
But defy the rulers with relentless derision.

All my pain passes through the point of needle,
Ravaged is the peace of thoughts and of fields;
Those who marauded grace from the fields,
Have now become the enemies of your beauty.

I have seen wheat crop nourished on dew,
With modesty lurking in her eyes,
Sun light relaxing on the flowing water,
I have seen the moon kissing the sleepy trees.

I have seen fragrance chanting from wild flowers,
Seen the minting machine operating in cotton crops;
Seen the fodder crops changing hue chameleon like,
I have seen the evening descending on mustard crops.

My every joy is tied to the freedom of the crops,
Every peasant�s tale tells the story of your smile;
My fate is one with the fate of the changing time,
My tale is but the tale of the shining sword.

Bitterness has so hardened my face
That moon light gets scratched at its sight,
My life’s bitterness holds for history
The position strong enough for people to revive.

Translated by Tejwant Singh Gill

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While grazing camels, your loving brother
Is by camels grazed away.
Sister! He will never come to see you now.

How I wished to come
And make your mother in law divulge
The ghee so far kept hidden,
And into her forehead hurl
Bowl with bare sugar filled!
Strange is the tale of wicked camels,
Neither are they themselves to be seen
Nor is visible the dust they raise
Audible is only the sound their gums make
When songs of herdsmen they munch away.

I had this feeling in mind
That enough for them is greenery
Spread out in my eyes.
When they munched away my hands
They little knew how disabled I got,
0, father, to carry your blind limb’s burden.

Now the joy I was to bring for your present
Is hung on acacia tree at the border,
Like the unused coffin.
Crops, grown with such thrift, my sister,
Lie trampled by playful camels.

Translated by Tejwant Singh Gill

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Ominous is not loot of labour,
Or torture by the police,
Even greed that betrays is not most ominous at all.

To get caught unawares is rather bad,
Rather bad is to be muffled in timid silence,
But this is not ominous at all.

To get lost in the noise of corruption
To submit even when right is rather bad,
Rather bad is to read in the light of the glowworm,
To pass with pips screwed is bad
But this is not ominous at all.

Ominous is infact
To be filled with dead silence,
Lose concern and bear all things unconcerned,
To become the slave of routine,
Ominous is in fact
The death of our dreams.

Ominous is the watch
That vibrant on your wrist
Seems still when looked for time.

The eye is ominous
That sees all tat is cold as ice,
That forgets to feel the world with love
And falls for the sizzling blindness of things,
That imbibing the ordinariness of the world
Gets lost in the useless routine of life.

Ominous is the moon
That after each killing
Rises in courtyard muffled in silence,
But does not rancour like peppers in the eyes.

Ominous is the song
That to reach your ears
Goes beyond mourning,
And laughs like the cough of a boss
On the thresholds of the frightened faces.

Ominous is the night
In which owls shriek and jackals cry
Clinging to frames of eternally closed doors.

Ominous is the quarter
On which the sun of conscience sets
And the fragment of its dead silence
Enters a part of your body:
Loss of labour is not ominous,
Nor is torture by the police,
Even the greed that betrays is not ominous.

Translated by Tejwant Singh Gill

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After years of pining for you
I have long since forgotten
The verity of ray own voice,
The language I learnt to look human
Gave me words just enough
To compose your name.
It is long since letters
Lost their accent for me,
Except to draw the image of your sunny limbs

I can’t write anything now.
Have you ever seen lines rise in revolt?
All words dropping from my hands
Only your pictures do compose.

You are with me but only a pace apart
And this pace is perhaps longer than
Not just my age but several lives;
And expanding as without a break
It will some day engulf the whole earth
And take measure of the lifeless heavens.
You keep on staying in the motherland itself
For some day to your purlieu I shall return,
Either myself or this step
At least one will have to vanish, the

Translated by Tejwant Singh Gill

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Our mood is fine, of your own do write.
Write of ships gone asleep
At the bottom of the sea,
Of turmoil the journey entails,
Of itch and thud it contains.

Of God’s death, write,
And what to his saints has happened,
How those saints have fared,
At whose hands, has God then died.

Butchers of language and feelings,
Who at each others’ throat had got,
Of them, who came out the conqueror,
Do at the earliest, write.

Write if those marauders are under arrest,
At whose hands our nation’s tongue,
Has got so much defiled,
Through whose parole, it to chaff is consigned.

Write if water’s urge to ebb
In floods is swept or preserved,
Our mood is fine, of your own do write.

Translated by Tejwant Singh Gill

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