राग दुर्गा | Raag Durga | Shiv Prasad Joshi

~ Sundeep Dougal ~ Leave a comment

क्या क्या चाहिए होता है
थोड़ा आग थोड़ा बारिश थोड़ा हवा मिट्टी थोड़ा आकाश
इस तरह निर्मित होता है एक राग
इस तरह तैयार होती है ज़िंदगी
छुपमछुपाई खेलने के लिए
घास की ढलानों पर दौड़ने के लिए।

सुरों की फुनगियों पर बैठी भी न थीं तितलियाँ
घोड़ों के कान के पास सरसराई भी न थी हवा
कुर्ते से जा चिपके भी न थे फूल
धप्पा!! अब मेरी बारी
कहकर मुरकी ढली भी न थी
छिप भी न पाई थी आसिफ़ा।

Raag Durga

What all do you need?
A little fire, a little rain, a little wind, earth, a little sky –
and thus a raag is made,
thus a life is readied,
to play hide-and-seek,
to run down slopes of grass.

the butterflies had not yet settled on the tips of notes
the breeze had not yet rustled by the horse’s ear
flowers had not yet clung to the kurta
“Dhappa!! Now it’s my turn” –
the murki had not yet slipped away
and Asifa had not yet found a place to hide.

Sheikh Farid: Shabd Sūhī Lalit | ਬੇੜਾ ਬੰਧਿ ਨ ਸਕਿਓ | beRaa baNdhii naa sakio

~ Sundeep Dougal ~ Leave a comment 
--- A Word on This Shabd ---
Kanav Gupta recently recited this Shabd to me, while admonishing me to mend my sleeping patterns, rudely pointing to my advancing years and reminding me of the urgency of life’s moments – that the boat must be secured before the waters rise.

--- Original Gurmukhi Text ---
ਸੂਹੀ ਲਲਿਤ
ਬੇੜਾ ਬੰਧਿ ਨ ਸਕਿਓ ਬੰਧਨ ਕੀ ਵੇਲਾ ॥
ਭਰਿ ਸਰਵਰੁ ਜਬ ਊਛਲੈ ਤਬ ਤਰਣੁ ਦੁਹੇਲਾ ॥੧॥
ਹਥੁ ਨ ਲਾਇ ਕਸੁੰਭੜੈ ਜਲਿ ਜਾਸੀ ਢੋਲਾ ॥੧॥ ਰਹਾਉ॥
ਇਕ ਆਪੀਨ੍ਹੈ ਪਤਲੀ ਸਹ ਕੇਰੇ ਬੋਲਾ ॥
ਦੁਧਾ ਥਣੀ ਨ ਆਵਈ ਫਿਰਿ ਹੋਇ ਨ ਮੇਲਾ ॥੨॥
ਕਹੈ ਫਰੀਦੁ ਸਹੇਲੀਹੋ ਸਹੁ ਅਲਾਏਸੀ ॥
ਹੰਸੁ ਚਲਸੀ ਡੁੰਮਣਾ ਅਹਿ ਤਨੁ ਢੇਰੀ ਥੀਸੀ ॥੩॥੨॥੭੯੪॥

--- In Devanagari Script ---
सूही ललित
बेड़ा बंधि न सकिओ बंधन की वेला ॥
भरि सरवरु जब ऊछलै तब तरणु दुहेला ॥१॥
हथु न लाइ कसुंभड़ै जलि जासी ढोला ॥१॥ रहाउ॥
इक आपीन्है पतली सह केरे बोला ॥
दुधा थणी न आवई फिरि होइ न मेल़ा ॥२॥
कहै फ़रीदु सहेलीहो सहु अलाएसी ॥
हंसु चलसी डुंमणा अहि तनु ढेरी थीसी ॥३॥२॥७९४॥

--- Roman Transliteration ---
Sūhī Lalit
Beṛā bandhi na sakio bandhan kī velā ॥
Bhari sarvar jab ūchhalai tab taraṇu duhelā ॥1॥
Hathu na lāi kasumbhaṛai jali jāsī ḍholā ॥1॥ rahāu ॥
Ik āpīnhai patlī sah kere bolā ॥
Dudhā thaṇī na āvaī phiri hoi na melā ॥2॥
Kahai Farīdu sahelīho saho alāesī ॥
Hansu chalasī ḍumṇā ahi tanu ḍherī thīsī ॥3॥2॥794॥

--- Line-by-Line Literal Translation ---
The boat could not be tied at the time of tying.
When the reservoir fills and rises, then crossing becomes difficult.
Do not put your hand on the safflower; it will go/loss in water. (Pause/Refrain)
One alone, frail, hears the words spoken to her.
When milk does not come into the breasts, then there is no meeting again.
Farid says: O companions, the master/Beloved will summon.
The swan will depart, wavering; this body will become a heap.

--- Rough English Poetic Rendering ---
The boat was never tied in time,
And when the waters rise, the crossing is lost.

Refrain:
Do not reach for the safflower, friend;
It will dissolve in the waves.

Alone, the frail one hears the admonition.
When the season of milk has passed, no union returns.

Farid says: companions, the Master will summon.
The swan will depart, wavering and hesitant,
And this body will lie, nothing but a heap of dust.

--- Explanatory Notes ---

Beṛā = boat of remembrance (Simran), i.e. spiritual preparation.

Bandhan kī velā = the time to prepare (life itself).

Bhari sarvar = when the river/reservoir floods, i.e. at death, it is hard to cross.

Kasumbh (safflower) = worldly attachments; its colour fades quickly.

Patlī = frail spiritual condition.

Dudhā thaṇī = the time when milk comes in the breasts, metaphor for the prime of life; once lost, the chance of union with the Beloved does not return.

Hansu (swan) = soul.

Ḍumṇā = wavering, two-minded.

Ahi tanu ḍherī = this body will become a heap of dust.

--- About Sheikh Farid ---
Sheikh Farid (1173–1266) was a Sufi poet whose writings are the oldest included in the Guru Granth Sahib. His verses, known as Shabds, convey spiritual wisdom, moral guidance, and reflections on life’s fleeting nature. Often set to Rāgs (musical measures), these Shabds combine metaphor, devotion, and practical counsel, urging the seeker to prepare their soul before the moment of reckoning arrives.

--- ਕਸੁੰਭੜੈ / Kasumbh Explained ---
My friend had heard this Shabd from his father and with his amazing memory could recite it by heart. He asked me if I knew the meaning of ਕਸੁੰਭੜੈ. Our first attempts to find the word in dictionaries did not yield any result until we finally tracked it down on YouTube and then on Punjabi Kavita (https://www.punjabi-kavita.com/ShabadBabaSheikhFarid.php#gsc.tab=0
), from where this text is taken.

Once the reference was found, dictionary meanings were easy to locate:

kusumbh / ਕੁਸੁੰਭ / kusumbhá / ਕੁਸੁੰਭਾ / kusumh / ਕੁਸੁਮ੍ਹ – Safflower (Carthamus tinctoria). The oil is used medicinally, the seeds are laxative, and the flowers are used in jaundice. The petals contain carthamic acid, which forms rouge when mixed with talc, and mixed with carbonate of soda produces a colourless card rouge that shows its colour only on the skin. The petals are also used as a rose-coloured dye or to adulterate saffron. (Source: Maya Singh)

In the Shabd, ਕਸੁੰਭੜੈ metaphorically refers to worldly attachments or desires that are fleeting and easily destroyed – like the colour of the safflower fading in water.

Nino Pedretti | Nobody Will Know

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No one will ever know
that we lived,
that we touched the streets with our feet
that we danced joyfully,
No one will ever know
that we gazed at the sea
from the train windows,
that we breathed
the air that settles
on the café chairs,
No one will ever know
that we stood
on the terrace of life
until the others arrived.

–Nino Pedretti, “Nobody Will Know”

Translator into English not known for now. 

Hindi translation by Asad Zaidi:
नीनो पेद्रेत्ती (1923-1981)

॥ कोई नहीं जानेगा ॥
कभी कोई नहीं जान पाएगा
कि हम जीवित थे,
कि इन गलियों में
पड़ते थे हमारे क़दम
कि हम ख़ुशी से नाचा करते थे,
कभी किसी को अनुमान नहीं होगा
कि हमने रेल की खिड़कियों से
समुद्र को देखा था,
कि जो हवा काफ़े की
कुर्सियों पर बैठी है
उसमें कभी हमने साँस ली थी,
कभी कोई नहीं जानेगा
कि हम खड़े रहे ज़िंदगी के कोठे पर
जब तक कि दूसरे वहाँ न आ गए।
—
(मूल कविता इटली की क्षेत्रीय भाषा रूमन्योल में। अंग्रेज़ी से अनुवाद : असद ज़ैदी)

AK Ramanujan | Love Poem for a Wife, 1

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Really what keeps us apart
at the end of years is unshared
childhood. You cannot, for instance,
meet my father. He is some years
dead. Neither can I meet yours:
he has lately lost his temper
and mellowed.
In the transverse midnight gossip
of cousins’ reunions among
brandy fumes, cashews and the Absences
of grandparents, you suddenly grow
nostalgic for my past and I
envy you your village dog-ride
and the mythology
of the sever crazy aunts.
You begin to recognize me
as I pass from ghost to real
and back again in the albums
of family rumours, in brothers’
anecdotes of how noisily
father bathed,
slapping soap on his back;
find sources for a familiar
sheep-mouth look in a sepia wedding
picture of father in a turban,
mother standing on her bare
splayed feet, silver rings
on her second toes;
and reduce the entire career
of my recent unique self
to the compulsion of some high
sentence in His Smilesian diary.
And your father, gone irrevocably
in age, after changing every day
your youth’s evenings,
he will acknowledge the wickedness
of no reminiscence: no, not
the burning end of the cigarette
in the balcony, pacing
to and fro as you came to the gate
late, after what you thought
was an innocent
date with a nice Muslim friend
who only hinted at touches.
Only two weeks ago, in Chicago,
you and your brother James started
one of your old drag-out fights
about where the bathroom was
in the backyard,
north or south of the well
next to the jackfruit tree
in your father’s father’s house
in Alleppey. Sister-in-law
and I were blank cut-outs
fitted to our respective
slots in a room
really nowhere as the two of you
got down to the floor to draw
blueprints of a house from memory
of everything, from newspapers
to the backs of envelopes
and road-maps of the United States
that happened
to flap in the other room
in a midnight wind: you wagered heirlooms
and husband’s earnings on what the Uncle in Kuwait
would say about the Bathroom
and the Well, and the dying,
by now dead,
tree next to it. Probably
only the Egyptians had it right:
their kings had sisters for queens
to continue the incests
of childhood into marriage.
or we should do as well-meaning
Hindus did.
betroth us before birth
forestalling separate horoscopes
and mother’s first periods,
and wed us in the oral cradle
and carry marriage back into
the namelessness of childhoods.

Rajendra Nath Rahbar | Jagjit Singh | tere ḳhushbuu meN base ḳhat | तेरे ख़ुशबू में बसे ख़त

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प्यार की आख़िरी पूँजी भी लुटा आया हूँ
अपनी हस्ती को भी लगता है मिटा आया हूँ
उम्र-भर की जो कमाई थी गँवा आया हूँ
तेरे ख़त आज मैं गँगा में बहा आया हूँ
आग बहते हुए पानी में लगा आया हूँ

तू ने लिख्खा था जला दूँ मैं तिरी तहरीरें
तू ने चाहा था जला दूँ मैं तिरी तस्वीरें
सोच लीं मैं ने मगर और ही कुछ तदबीरें
तेरे ख़त आज मैं गँगा में बहा आया हूँ
आग बहते हुए पानी में लगा आया हू

तेरे ख़ुशबू में बसे ख़त मैं जलाता कैसे
प्यार में डूबे हुए ख़त मैं जलाता कैसे
तेरे हाथों के लिखे ख़त मैं जलाता कैसे
तेरे ख़त आज मैं गँगा में बहा आया हूँ
आग बहते हुए पानी में लगा आया हूँ

जिन को दुनिया की निगाहों से छुपाए रक्खा
जिन को इक उम्र कलेजे से लगाए रक्खा
दीन जिन को जिन्हें ईमान बनाए रक्खा

जिन का हर लफ़्ज़ मुझे याद है पानी की तरह
याद थे मुझ को जो पैग़ाम-ए-ज़बानी की तरह
मुझ को प्यारे थे जो अनमोल निशानी की तरह

तू ने दुनिया की निगाहों से जो बच कर लिक्खे
साल-हा-साल मिरे नाम बराबर लिक्खे
कभी दिन में तो कभी रात को उठ कर लिक्खे

तेरे रूमाल तिरे ख़त तिरे छल्ले भी गए
तेरी तस्वीरें तिरे शोख़ लिफ़ाफ़े भी गए
एक युग ख़त्म हुआ युग के फ़साने भी गए
तेरे ख़त आज मैं गँगा में बहा आया हूँ
आग बहते हुए पानी में लगा आया हूँ

कितना बेचैन उन्हें लेने को गँगा-जल था
जो भी धारा था उन्हीं के लिए वो बेकल था
प्यार अपना भी तो गँगा की तरह निर्मल था
तेरे ख़त आज में गँगा में बहा आया हूँ
आग बहते हुए पानी में लगा आया हूँ






			

	


			
				


	

		
If Only The Young Were Trees | Mahmoud Darwish
	

				

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The tree is sister to the tree, or its good neighbour. The big one is kind to the little one, giving it the shade it needs. The tall one is kind to the short one, sending it a bird to keep it company at night. No tree attacks the fruit of another tree, and if one tree is barren the other does not make fun of it. A tree does not attack another tree and does not imitate a woodcutter.

When a tree becomes a boat it learns to swim. When it becomes a door it continues to keep secrets. When it becomes a chair it does not forget the sky that was once above it. When it becomes a table it teaches the poet not to be a woodcutter.

The tree is forgiveness and vigilance. It neither sleeps nor dreams, but is entrusted with the secrets of the dreamers, standing guard night and day, showing respect to passers-by and to the heavens.”-

– Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008), 
A River Dies of Thirst (Diaries), 2009,

Partial translation that has done the rounds without any attribution or acknowledgement about the translator:

“कोई भी दरख़्त किसी दूसरे दरख़्त से फल नहीं चुराता और अगर किसी दरख़्त को फल न लगें तो दूसरे दरख़्त उसका मज़ाक़ नहीं उड़ाते, एक दरख़्त दूसरे दरख़्त पर हमला नहीं करता और न ही किसी लकड़हारे का मुक़ाबला करते हैं।

जब वो दरख़्त कश्ती बन जाते हैं तो तैरना सीख लेते हैं, जब वो दरवाज़ा बन जाते हैं तो राज़ों को छिपाने वाले बन जाते हैं, जब वो कुर्सी बन जाते हैं तो उस आसमान को कभी नहीं भूलते जो कभी उनके ऊपर तना हुआ था।

जब वो मेज़ बन जाते हैं तो शायर को सिखाते हैं कि कभी लकड़हारा न बनो।”

			

	


			
				


	

		
What’s in it? | Vikram Seth
	

				

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I heard your name the other day
Mentioned by someone in a casual way.
She said she thought that you were looking great.
A waiter passed by with a plate.
She reached out for a sandwich, and your name
Went back from where it came.





But like a serious owlet I stood there,
Staring in mid-air.
I frowned, then followed her around
To hear, just once more, that sirenic sound –
Those consonants, those vowels – what a fool!
I show more circumspection as a rule.





I love you more than I can say.
Try as I do, it hasn’t gone away.
I hoped it would once, and I hope so still.
Someday, I’m sure, it will.
No glimpse, no news, no name will stir me then.
But when? But when?

			

	


			
				


	

		
Mistaken | Vikram Seth
	

				

			 ~ Sundeep Dougal			 ~ Leave a comment					

				

		

I smiled at you because I thought that you
Were someone else; you smiled back; and there grew
Between two strangers in a library
Something that seems like love; but you loved me
(If that’s the word) because you thought that I
Was other than I was. And by and by
We found we’d been mistaken all the while
From that first glance, that first mistaken smile.

			

	


			
				


	

		
Soon | Vikram Seth
	

				

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I shall die soon, I know.

This thing is in my blood.

It will not let me go.

It saps my cells for food.


It soaks my nights in sweat

And breaks my days in pain.

No hand or drug can treat

These limbs for love or gain.


Love was the strange first cause

That bred grief in its seed,

And gain knew its own laws—

To fix its place and breed.


He whom I love, thank God,

Won’t speak of hope or cure.

It would not do me good.

He sees that I am sure.


He knows what I have read

And will not bring me lies.

He sees that I am dead.

I read it in his eyes.


How am I to go on—

How will I bear this taste,

My throat cased in white spawn—

These hands that shake and waste?


Stay by my steel ward bed

And hold me where I lie.

Love me when I am dead

And do not let me die.

			

	


			
				


	

		
No Further War | Vikram Seth
	

				

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We are the last generations; Surdas, Bach,

Rembrandt, Du Fu, all life, love, work and worth

Will end in the particular rain; no ark

Will screen its force, no prayer procure rebirth.

The government of nations is assigned

Sage, journeyman and lunatic by rota;

A couple of toxic madmen sting mankind

Each century; we won’t escape the quota.

Dead planet of an unimportant star,

Beautiful earth, whose radiant creation

Became too radiant, no further war,

No suffering, frenzy or recrimination

Will litter your denatured crust or mar

Your deepening entropy with agitation.


from Summer Requiem by Vikram Seth