TRANSLATED FROM THE URDU BY RIZWAN AKHTAR
I always get late doing everything
something important, a promise
to call someone! call someone back!
to help or console a friend
to meet one by treading old paths
I always get late!
or to put heart in a stroll imbued
with seasons in transition,
to remember someone same as to forget
I always get late!
to ward off grief before someone’s death,
to tell someone what he took real
was an illusion,
I always get late…
only if I could have hung like an earring in your earlobes
confused but passionate at night unknowingly only
to possess you would have silently dropped, but
when in the morning half withered flowers trickled
from your tresses on not finding me in your ears you
would become desperate searching in each fragrant
wrinkle of your bed all the while your supple fingers
feel me in hands, again you would wear me on
now wary you would not take the risk of taking
me off, neither could you bear separation
intoxicated by intimacy I too would remain attached
only if I could have hung like an earring in your earlobes.
over city’s crannies are scattered
chopped ruined dreams
of which the city dwellers are ignorant
I roam day and night in alley’s nooks
collecting dreams
forge them in heart’s furnace
so they are purged, acquire limbs
glossy lips, cheeks, chiseled necks
like brides coming out of bridles
finding love of their lives,
“buy dreams! buy!”
with morning I call out
standing in a square
“dreams are original or phony”
clients haggle as if they
are connoisseurs of dreams,
but I am not a maestro
rather an artisan
twice removed from reality
only a remote mimic
but these are dreams are my livelihood,
evening falls
I chant again
“buy these golden dreams free
utterly free” and the buyers
recoil in fear suspecting free
dreams a fake merchandise
a jugglery, a selling tactic.
doubting by the time they
reach home dreams
would melt, scatter, evaporate
“worthless dreams, moreover
sold by a blind junk dealer”,
night falls
dreams stacked on my head
I return with a grumpy face
whining whole night while in sleep
“please! buy these dreams”
rather I will pay the cost”
“buy dreams’
my dreams
my dreams
‘their price too’.
the storm came and the foot prints were lost
the one whom I loved from heart was also lost
in the gathering I looked in all directions but
no one was so alone in the crowd and so lost
no one could recognize the voice far and wide
neither could empathize with silence’s pain, so lost
oh! the eagerness of walking barefoot caused blisters
on feet, sadly the desert was not vast enough for getting lost,
in Canaan Yousef’s dress was fated to tear apart
even then Zuleika could not touch him; all lost!
Tell me! desert rovers in search of love and fidelity
you found a doe-eyed Beloved or like Qais also lost
Sohni crossed stream on a raw pitcher to meet her lover
on the other hand, the strong boats drowned and lost.
Pakistani Literature
Issue 30| 2024
One evening by Muhammad Iqbal
On my way Redeemed by Oceans by Noon Meem Rashid
To a Girl by Fehmida Riaz
Click here
Translator’s Note
These are translations of four modern Urdu poets from Pakistan. Modern Urdu poetry on one hand remains loyal to its Arab-Persian base on the other hand is verily open to experimentalism arriving through writers’ exposure to western modern poetry. Munir Niazi (1928-2006) is a modern Urdu poet who has written both Ghazal and nazm (a loosely defined form of free verse). His poetry approaches existential conundrums. In “I always get late’, a simple but proud reflection on temporal conditions, the poet attempts to grapple with the ever complex question of time- something T.S. Eliot’s Prufrock also encounters. On the contrary, Majeed Amjad’s (1914-1974) poem ‘Earring’ is steeped in Romantic tradition of classical Urdu poetry and despite it being a free verse the poet captures the mellifluous, the rhythmic, the hypnotic – all elements at the core of the genre of Ghazal. The Persian word Ghazal literally means talking to women. The pain of unrequited love personified by a quotidian image of the beloved’s trinket the poet expresses his erotic desires with a control. The lover and the beloved are too conscious of scandal; an aesthetic streak in Urdu poetry. Noon. Meem Rashid (1910-75) is modern experimental poet. He can be called the Ezra Pound of Urdu verse, yet a voice deeply rooted in his milieu. Having lived in America and Europe his work is hybrid and contains an osmosis of Eastern and Western sensibility. The poem ‘Blind Junk Dealer’ is an appropriate version of indigenous flâneur; the vendor of dreams/artist is eking out survival walking through an urban crowd. It also echoes Dylan Thomas’ ‘In My Art or Sullen Craft’. Lastly, in these translations I have followed the ‘process model’ carefully straddling between the literal and the interpretative.
Raja Mehadi Ali’s Song Sung by Lata Mangeshkar
5 August 2025 | Translations – Vol (II)
it was the vocalizer who added to the tragedy of love
the song wilted on Lata’s tongue, its segmented grief
held each stanza as the first string plovered the
theme of platonic composure, tucked by a reluctant
eros, whose lurking apparition mired both Urdu
and the lyricist’s ego while lovers hanker after,
their outstretched arms in a Bollywood flick,
when emotions spill over like a river, tears, tumblers,
making a long delta of yearning and recursive waves,
وہ ہر شے جو تمہیں دکھ دے مجھے میرے صنم دے دو
everything that hurts you, give me my love’s cult,
‘eyes and sobs’ give me, I can transform them,
your sorrow is a catalyst for my grief
everything that pains you is now mine-
hyperbolic, maudlin, heads recline on each other
the outcome is whole; the pain seeks a destination!
تمہارے غم کو اپنا غم بنا لوں تو قرار آئے
I want our grief to be a twin flame.
Conjugal love is least defiled, the way Donne
often returns after failing in erotic, so we
can meld and disappear; like a consort
I wait for consummation, but the beloved-wife
often a failed blend; Joyce wrote pornographic
missives to Nora, Kafka to Melina about the body.
In the end, say valediction to crying, the smile
now embalmed like a smirk on a mummy,
lips cracked, but lubricated my soul, finding an outlet
Only if you love me, give me your pain.
اگر مجھ سے محبت ہے مجھے سب اپنے غم دے دو
The Heartbeat’s Secret Returned
5 August 2025 | Translations – Vol (II)
The Heartbeat’s Secret Returned
Dil Dhadakne ka Sabab Yaad Aaya
by Nasir Kazmi (1925-72)
Trans. By Rizwan Akhtar
It was your memory that made my heart flutter, I recalled
Just when the heart fluttered, it was your memory, I recalled,
in this adversity, it was so difficult to handle the day at hand, I recalled
strangely it was your memory that enthralled my heart, I recalled,
so to say spending that day was always a challenge, I recalled
what haunted me most was your night-pledge, I recalled,
Oh! You breached your vow of faithfulness, I recalled,
rather prefer to die instead of exposing your perfidy, I recalled.
After you left, I saw many people, I recalled
indeed, I was often reminded of cities of happiness, I recalled.
I too wanted to tell the tale of my heart, but I recalled
it was your moment of departure that denied me, then recalled.
Afterwards, when I sat alone under the shade of a tree, I recalled
and shed tears in your memory over your departure, again recalled,
it is your memory that made my heart flutter, I recalled
Just when the heart fluttered it was your memory, I recalled.
Original Text
دل دھڑکنے کا سبب یاد آیا
وہ تری یاد تھی اب یاد آیا
آج مشکل تھا سنبھلنا اے دوست
تو مصیبت میں عجب یاد آیا
دن گزارا تھا بڑی مشکل سے
پھر ترا وعدۂ شب یاد آیا
تیرا بھولا ہوا پیمان وفا
مر رہیں گے اگر اب یاد آیا
پھر کئی لوگ نظر سے گزرے
پھر کوئی شہر طرب یاد آیا
حال دل ہم بھی سناتے لیکن
جب وہ رخصت ہوا تب یاد آیا
بیٹھ کر سایۂ گل میں ناصرؔ
ہم بہت روئے وہ جب یاد آیا
Roman Text
dil dhaḌakne kā sabab yaad aayā
vo tirī yaad thī ab yaad aayā
aaj mushkil thā sambhalnā ai dost
tū musībat meñ ajab yaad aayā
din guzārā thā baḌī mushkil se
phir tirā va.ada-e-shab yaad aayā
terā bhūlā huā paimān-e-vafā
mar raheñge agar ab yaad aayā
phir ka.ī log nazar se guzre
phir koī shahr-e-tarab yaad aayā
hāl-e-dil ham bhī sunāte lekin
jab vo ruḳhsat huā tab yaad aayā
baiTh kar sāya-e-gul meñ ‘nāsir’
ham bahut ro.e vo jab yaad aayā