Three Poems of Pash
Translated from Punjabi
by Rajesh Kumar Sharma
Truth
(Sachai)
I have never desired
the wind to sway to beats on Vividh Bharati
and play
- away from my view -
hide and seek with silk-soft curtains
I have never desired
tinted lights to filter through the glass pane and kiss
my songs on their lips
Whenever I have dreamed
I have seen myself console a weeping city
I have seen cities multiplying against villages
And I have watched
folded worker hands
closing into fists
I have never longed for cushions on a car seat
My dreams have never wandered
beyond the borders of a rickshaw puller’s
sleeping on a board outside some shop
and craving a bidi’s draught
How can I desire the wind to sway
to beats on Vividh Bharati?
I watch fodder crops burnt by scorching winds
How can I think of sweet luscious eyes
when I see lightless eyes raised towards heaven
and begging for rain?
Trans. on 26 September 2009
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From Cards
(Cardan Ton)
I am acquainted with the sand-built wall
of venerable customs
Scolded by parents
I will not cry
When I surrender myself to your embrace
your memory so fills the mists of sensation
I cannot read any news
against me
I know the old coppers with holes in them
are current no longer
and yet, like relics of the dead,
they have gone, leaving their conspiracies behind
And man remains as small as he looks
through the old copper’s hole.
Trans. on 26 September 2009
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Out of One’s Insecurity
(Apni Asurakhya Chon)
If the country’s security means
that one must murder conscience
as a precondition to live
that every word other than ‘yes’ looking out of your eye
must seem indecent
that the mind must bow in humiliating submission
to a depraved time --
we then stand in danger of the country’s security
We had thought the country to be something sacred
like one’s home,
free from any sultriness,
a place
where man moves like the sound of falling rain in streets,
where he sways like stalks of wheat in fields
and grants meaning
to the magnanimous vastness of the skies
We had thought the country to be some experience
like an embrace
We had thought the country to be some intoxication
like work
But if the country is a factory
for exploitation of the soul
if it is a laboratory
to produce morons --
we then stand in danger of this country
If the peace of the country only means
that we should break and crumble
like stones rolling down mountains
that the unashamed laughter of prices should for ever spit
on the face of earnings
that bathing in one’s own blood should be
the only holy virtue earned --
we then stand in danger of the peace
If the country’s security means
that strikes must be crushed to dye the peace in deeper hues
that the only martyrdom should be the one attained on borders
that the only art should be which blossoms on the ruler’s windowpane
that the only wisdom should be which waters the land from the authority’s well
that the only labour should be which sweeps the floors of royal palaces --
we stand then in danger of the country’s peace.
Trans. on 26 September 2009
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Translated by
Rajesh Kumar Sharma
Department of English
Punjabi University, Patiala – 147002
Email: sharajesh@gmail.com
http://www.litarkay.tripod.com/
http://kriticulture.blogspot.com/