भरोसा रखना

वॉन गॉग हर खत में
अपने भाई थियो को लिखता था
मुझ पर भरोसा रखना
एक सदी से ज़्यादा हो गए हैं
दोनों भाईयों को इस धरती से कूच किए
लेकिन धरती के कोने कोने में हजारों कटे-अधकटे हाथ आज भी
किसी न किसी थियो को लिख रहे हैं
मुझ पर भरोसा रखना...

––-सुधांशु फिरदौस

The stench of sanity

There is something rotten - inside of
You, in your flesh, the stench of
Sanity. It breathes in your
Eyes, this thing…

Something decadent, in your
Flesh, decaying…

It will be too late – you will
Die of it!

This thing that sleeps with you
Night after night, like
An aging wanton woman,
Spent, but not quite spent –

And she waits for you to
Dump her, in some dark street
Corner… yet follows you,
Drunken whore!

There’s no getting away for you
You will die of it, this thing
That breathes…

Inside of you, in your flesh
The stench of sanity

 ---Deepti Naval

नौहा

रहने को सदा दहर में आता नहीं कोई
तुम जैसे गए ऐसे भी जाता नहीं कोई

डरता हूँ कहीं ख़ुश्क न हो जाए समुंदर
राख अपनी कभी आप बहाता नहीं कोई

इक बार तो ख़ुद मौत भी घबरा गई होगी
यूँ मौत को सीने से लगाता नहीं कोई

माना कि उजालों ने तुम्हें दाग़ दिए थे
बे-रात ढले शम्अ बुझाता नहीं कोई

साक़ी से गिला था तुम्हें मय-ख़ाने से शिकवा
अब ज़हर से भी प्यास बुझाता नहीं कोई

हर सुब्ह हिला देता था ज़ंजीर ज़माना
क्यूँ आज दिवाने को जगाता नहीं कोई

अर्थी तो उठा लेते हैं सब अश्क बहा के
नाज़-ए-दिल-ए-बेताब उठाता नहीं कोई

--- कैफ़ी आज़मी

Confronting Brahminical complacency

This movement has no short cuts,
It’s a caravan that sets its own course
as if following a law of nature.
Once, there was a deep chasm in this path
it would leave you stunned, just to imagine
how many sacrifices it took to fill it up;
We, the oppressed,
have the highest kind of love for these sacrifices.
We,
crores of people, know
from every lived moment
How to endure
To cower
To live
To fight
To die, quietly,
To raise our fists and wave them in the air, sometimes,
To cherish life.
All these filled, layer by layer,
the deep foundations of our path -
At some spots, blossoming like a flower
at others, dissolving into lava.
The histories of each word in the texts
recounting these experiences
are as deep as our sighs -
Does this text need any ‘introduction’?
I don’t think so.
But what I don’t understand is
this one thing -
In the name of ‘solidarity’
Will you do just anything you like?
Using the parachute of your social privileges
Will you land and install yourself ahead of this caravan too?
And tell us
How to walk?
How to think?
At a time when our agitating people, across the nation,
are using words as flaming sparks
to challenge the darkness your vile community has spread -
You want to tell us
How these sparks should blaze?
Don’t jump on our heads in the name of solidarity!
Interrogate your own oppressor community first,
put yourself in our shoes, walk with us
in our pain, in our sighs, quietly suffer with us
look at the mirror each time!
After all, solidarity demands certain ethics!

As for Gandhi This movement has surged far ahead of him
Please update yourself!

~ Gurinder Azad
Translated from Hindi by Akshay Pathak and Naren Bedide

प्रेमपत्र

प्रेत आएगा
किताब से निकाल ले जायेगा प्रेमपत्र
गिद्ध उसे पहाड़ पर नोच-नोच खायेगा

चोर आयेगा तो प्रेमपत्र ही चुरायेगा
जुआरी प्रेमपत्र ही दाँव लगाएगा
ऋषि आयेंगे तो दान में माँगेंगे प्रेमपत्र

बारिश आयेगी तो प्रेमपत्र ही गलाएगी
आग आयेगी तो जलाएगी प्रेमपत्र
बंदिशें प्रेमपत्र पर ही लगाई जाएँगी

साँप आएगा तो डसेगा प्रेमपत्र
झींगुर आयेंगे तो चाटेंगे प्रेमपत्र
कीड़े प्रेमपत्र ही काटेंगे

प्रलय के दिनों में सप्तर्षि मछली और मनु
सब वेद बचायेंगे
कोई नहीं बचायेगा प्रेमपत्र

कोई रोम बचायेगा कोई मदीना
कोई चाँदी बचायेगा कोई सोना

मै निपट अकेला कैसे बचाऊँगा तुम्हारा प्रेमपत्र

--- बद्रीनारायण

फ़र्क़ और फ़र्क़

क्या फ़र्क़ है बूढ़े और बालक में?
 फ़र्क़ ही फ़र्क़ है,
 यह भी कोई प्रश्न है!

बूढ़ा उठता भी है तो गिरते-२
बालक गिरता भी है तो उठते-२
एक में जिस जगह भविष्य का समापन है
दूसरे में उसी जगह शुभागमन।

 ---श्रीकान्त जोशी

To Think of Time

1

TO think of time—of all that retrospection,
To think of to-day, and the ages continued henceforward.

Have you guess'd you yourself would not continue?
Have you dreaded these earth-beetles?
Have you fear'd the future would be nothing to you?

Is to-day nothing? is the beginningless past nothing?
If the future is nothing they are just as surely nothing.

To think that the sun rose in the east—that men and women
were flexible, real, alive—that every thing was alive,
To think that you and I did not see, feel, think, nor bear our part,
To think that we are now here and bear our part.


2

Not a day passes, not a minute or second without an accouchement,
Not a day passes, not a minute or second without a corpse.

The dull nights go over and the dull days also,
The soreness of lying so much in bed goes over,
The physician after long putting off gives the silent and terrible look for an answer,
The children come hurried and weeping, and the brothers and sisters are sent for,
Medicines stand unused on the shelf, (the camphor-smell has long pervaded the rooms,)
The faithful hand of the living does not desert the hand of the dying,
The twitching lips press lightly on the forehead of the dying,
The breath ceases and the pulse of the heart ceases,
The corpse stretches on the bed and the living look upon it,
It is palpable as the living are palpable.

The living look upon the corpse with their eyesight,
But without eyesight lingers a different living and looks curiously on the corpse.


3

To think the thought of death merged in the thought of materials,
To think of all these wonders of city and country, and others taking
great interest in them, and we taking no interest in them.

To think how eager we are in building our houses,
To think others shall be just as eager, and we quite indifferent.

(I see one building the house that serves him a few years, or seventy or eighty years at most,
I see one building the house that serves him longer than that.)

Slow-moving and black lines creep over the whole earth—they never cease—they are the burial lines,
He that was President was buried, and he that is now President shall surely be buried.


4

A reminiscence of the vulgar fate,
A frequent sample of the life and death of workmen,
Each after his kind.

Cold dash of waves at the ferry-wharf, posh and ice in the river,
half-frozen mud in the streets,
A gray discouraged sky overhead, the short last daylight of December,
A hearse and stages, the funeral of an old Broadway stage-driver,
the cortege mostly drivers.

Steady the trot to the cemetery, duly rattles the death-bell,
The gate is pass'd, the new-dug grave is halted at, the living alight,
the hearse uncloses,
The coffin is pass'd out, lower'd and settled, the whip is laid on the coffin,
the earth is swiftly shovel'd in,
The mound above is flatted with the spades—silence,
A minute—no one moves or speaks—it is done,
He is decently put away—is there any thing more?

He was a good fellow, free-mouth'd, quick-temper'd, not bad-looking,
Ready with life or death for a friend, fond of women, gambled,ate hearty, drank hearty,
Had known what it was to be flush, grew low-spirited toward the last,
sicken'd, was help'd by a contribution, Died, aged forty-one years—and that was his funeral.

Thumb extended, finger uplifted, apron, cape, gloves, strap, wet-weather clothes, whip carefully chosen,
Boss, spotter, starter, hostler, somebody loafing on you, you loafing
on somebody, headway, man before and man behind,
Good day's work, bad day's work, pet stock, mean stock, first out,
last out, turning-in at night,

To think that these are so much and so nigh to other drivers, and
he there takes no interest in them.


5

The markets, the government, the working-man's wages, to think
what account they are through our nights and days,
To think that other working-men will make just as great account
of them, yet we make little or no account.

The vulgar and the refined, what you call sin and what you call
goodness, to think how wide a difference,
To think the difference will still continue to others, yet we lie
beyond the difference.

To think how much pleasure there is,
Do you enjoy yourself in the city? or engaged in business? or
planning a nomination and election? or with your wife and
family?
Or with your mother and sisters? or in womanly housework? or
the beautiful maternal cares?
These also flow onward to others, you and I flow onward,
But in due time you and I shall take less interest in them.

Your farm, profits, crops—to think how engross'd you are,
To think there will still be farms, profits, crops, yet for you of
what avail?


6

What will be will be well, for what is is well,
To take interest is well, and not to take interest shall be well.

The domestic joys, the daily housework or business, the building
of houses, are not phantasms, they have weight, form,
location,
Farms, profits, crops, markets, wages, government, are none of
them phantasms,
The difference between sin and goodness is no delusion,
The earth is not an echo, man and his life and all the things of
his life are well-consider'd.

You are not thrown to the winds, you gather certainly and safely
around yourself,
Yourself! yourself! yourself, for ever and ever!


7

It is not to diffuse you that you were born of your mother and
father, it is to identify you,

It is not that you should be undecided, but that you should be decided,
Something long preparing and formless is arrived and form'd in you,
You are henceforth secure, whatever comes or goes.

The threads that were spun are gather'd, the weft crosses the warp,
the pattern is systematic.

The preparations have every one been justified,
The orchestra have sufficiently tuned their instruments, the baton
has given the signal.

The guest that was coming, he waited long, he is now housed,
He is one of those who are beautiful and happy, he is one of those
that to look upon and be with is enough.

The law of the past cannot be eluded,
The law of the present and future cannot be eluded,
The law of the living cannot be eluded, it is eternal,
The law of promotion and transformation cannot be eluded,
The law of heroes and good-doers cannot be eluded,
The law of drunkards, informers, mean persons, not one iota
thereof can be eluded.


8

Slow moving and black lines go ceaselessly over the earth,
Northerner goes carried and Southerner goes carried, and they on
the Atlantic side and they on the Pacific,
And they between, and all through the Mississippi country, and
all over the earth.

The great masters and kosmos are well as they go, the heroes and
good-doers are well,
The known leaders and inventors and the rich owners and pious
and distinguish'd may be well,
But there is more account than that, there is strict account of
all.

The interminable hordes of the ignorant and wicked are not
nothing,
The barbarians of Africa and Asia are not nothing,
The perpetual successions of shallow people are not nothing as
they go.

Of and in all these things,
I have dream'd that we are not to be changed so much, nor the
law of us changed,

I have dream'd that heroes and good-doers shall be under the present and past law,
And that murderers, drunkards, liars, shall be under the present and past law,
For I have dream'd that the law they are under now is enough.

And I have dream'd that the purpose and essence of the known life, the transient,
Is to form and decide identity for the unknown life, the permanent.

If all came but to ashes of dung,
If maggots and rats ended us, then Alarum! for we are betray'd,
Then indeed suspicion of death.

Do you suspect death? if I were to suspect death I should die now,
Do you think I could walk pleasantly and well-suited toward
annihilation?

Pleasantly and well-suited I walk,
Whither I walk I cannot define, but I know it is good,
The whole universe indicates that it is good,
The past and the present indicate that it is good.

How beautiful and perfect are the animals!
How perfect the earth, and the minutest thing upon it!
What is called good is perfect, and what is called bad is just as perfect,
The vegetables and minerals are all perfect, and the imponderable fluids perfect;
Slowly and surely they have pass'd on to this, and slowly and surely they yet pass on.


9

I swear I think now that every thing without exception has an eternal soul!
The trees have, rooted in the ground! the weeds of the sea have! the animals!

I swear I think there is nothing but immortality!
That the exquisite scheme is for it, and the nebulous float is for it,
and the cohering is for it!
And all preparation is for it—and identity is for it—and life and
materials are altogether for it!

--- Walt Whitman