Ye khyaal e diwana aaj phir kahaan guzra (ghazal by Ali Jawad Zaidi)

Ye khyaal e diwana aaj phir kahaan guzra
Ik-ik lamhe par hashr ka gumaan guzra

Nok e khaar par chalna kal humin ko tha maloom
Aaj khaarzaaron se poora kaarwaan guzra

Zikr doston ka tha doston ki mehfil thi
Dushmanon ko kya kahiye dost ko garaan guzra

Jab firaq aa pahuncha bhoolne ki manzil tak
Qafila ummeedon ka dil mein nagahaan guzra

Tohfa e judaai tha ashk e surmaye e aalooda
Main jo ro pada aakhir mujhko kya gumaan guzra

Bheek humne maangi thi zeest se tabassum ki
Vo bhi ik ravaan lamha jaane kab kahaan guzra

Khatm hai safar apna, ab kahein to kya Zaidi
Kaise sakht dushman par dost ka gumaan guzra

- Ali Jawad Zaidi (page 48, Naseem-e-dasht-e-aarzu)

Vocabulary:

Gumaan: suspicion, false belief

Khaarzaar: thornfields

Garaan: dear/costly

Nagahaan: unforeseen

Alooda: polluted/soiled

Two 4-line poems by Ali Jawad Zaidi

Dil oob gaya khamosh rahte rahte

Dum ghutne laga ranj sahte sahte

Ik jaam idhar, haath badha kar saaqi

Aghyaar se koi baat kahte kahte 

- Ali Jawad Zaidi 

page 30 (Naseem-e-dasht-e-aarzu)

                    *

Chaak e sar damaan e khiza milta hai

Mausam naye mausam se gale milta hai

Aur aisi fizayein, hai ye aalam apna

Ik chot si lagti hai jo gul khilta hai.

- Ali Jawad Zaidi 

page 45 (Naseem-e-dasht-e-aarzu)

Ye na samjho matwalo

One of Ali Jawad Zaidi's Urdu ghazals, likely written soon after India won independence:

Ye na samjho matwalo! Kaun ab sataayega?
Haar maan li dukh ne, sukh to aazmaayega

Bekasi ke mele mein jo bhi gaahak aayega
Jholoyaa.n to bhar lega, khud bhi lut ke jayega

Dhoop mein naha legi jab asaadh ki dharti
Zarre-zarre mein saawan phir se kunmunaayega

Har guzarte lamhe par muhar lag chuki lekin
Laakh bhool jayega, phir bhi yaad aayega

Humne kitne afsaane likh ke chaak chaak kar daale
Waqt apna afsaana, hum ko kya sunaayega!

Baar-baar mud-mud kar yoon na dekh, deewane
Kaun raah dekhega, kaun phir bulaayega

Aankh kyun ladaate ho, dopahar ke sooraj se
Shaam ke dhundhalke mein, khud ye milne aayega

Za'm khud-parasti mein aaj ka naya insaa.n
Zindagi ki mayyat se butkada sajaayega

Fard-fard tanha hai, kul samaaj tanha hai
Main jo chup rahoon Zaidi, kaun gungunaayega?

[From the collection, Nazeem-e-dasht-e-Arzoo]

طشتری میں چائے کو پھونک مارتے ہوئے مجھے فیض مل گئے۔

I've tried my hand at translating a poem from English into Urdu. The poem is 'I find Faiz Blowing on his Saucer of Tea' by Imtiaz Dharkar. You'll find the same text in Nagri letters and Naskh. 

طشتری میں چائے کو پھونک مارتے ہوئے مجھے فیض مل گئے۔

 طشتری میں چائے کو پھونک مارتے ہوئے مجھے فیض مل گئے 

پڑوس کی دکان میں. 

فیض چچا، میں نے کہا، اپنا پرانا محلہ پہچان میں نہیں آتا۔

مکان مالک نے کرایہ بڑھا دیا  

اور جن لوگوں کو ہم جانتے تھے، سب چلے گئے۔

اکال میں اجڑنے کو آپ کا باغ چھوڑ آئے۔

کسی نے آپ کی کتابیں طاق سے اتاریں  

اور دوبارہ چھاپ دیں الفاظ بغیر۔  

ساری کوئلیں اٹھا لی گئیں اور پنجروں میں بند کر دی گئیں۔

وہ گلوکار جو آپ کے نغمے گایا کرتے تھے  

سامعین کے سامنے ہی ان کے گلے دبا دیے گئے۔

فیض نے طشتری اٹھا لی اور چائے پی۔  

جب دل بھر جائے، وہ زمین کا چہرہ

چیر دیتا ہے۔

تم اسے دکھ کہتی ہو،  

میں اسے امید کا ایک پھول۔

انہوں نے کہا، مجھے ایسا لگا مگر  

شاید مجھ سے سننے میں کوئی غلطی ہوئی ہو۔

ہو سکتا ہے ترجمے میں ان کے الفاظ  

الٹے ہو گئے ہوں۔

- Imtiaz Dharkar/Tr. Annie Zaidi

Many thanks to Saif Mahmood for discussion on a couple of tricky lines, and for correcting any mistakes he found in my Urdu spellings.

तश्तरी में चाय को फूंक मारते, मुझे फ़ैज़ मिल गए

पड़ोस की दुकान में

फ़ैज़ चचा, मैंने कहा,अपना पुराना मोहल्ला पहचान में नहीं आता

मकान मालिक ने किराया बढ़ा दिया

और जिन लोगों को हम जानते थे, सब चले गए

अकाल में उजड़ने को आपका बाग़ छोड़ आए

किसी ने आपकी किताबें ताक़ से उतारीं 

और दोबारा छाप दीं अल्फाज़  बग़ैर 

सारी कोइलें उठा ली गईं और पिंजरों में डाल दी गईं

जो गुलुकार आपके नग़मे गाया करते थे 

सामाइन के सामने ही उनके गले दबा दिए गए 

फ़ैज़ ने तश्तरी उठा ली और चाय पी

जब दिल भरा हो, वो ज़मीन का चेहरा 

चीर देता है 

तुम इसे दुःख कहती हो

मैं इसे उम्मीद का एक फूल

उन्होंने कहा, मुझे ऐसा लगा मगर

शायद मुझसे सुनने में गलती हुई हो

हो सकता है तर्जुमे में उनके अल्फाज़ 

उल्टे हो गए हों ।

[From Imtiaz Dharkar's 'Shadow Reader', page 79]

'Mohabbat karti aurat'

I took the liberty of doing an Urdu translation of Manglesh Dabral's Hindi poem 'Prem karti stree'. It didn't take much translation to be honest. The basic grammer and syntax is the same in Hindi/Urdu and Dabral's poetic idiom is rooted in the sort of everyday Hindi that is quite similar to everyday Urdu. This poem in particular had very few words that needed translation. I have only changed a few words, substituting everyday Urdu words that are also common to Hindi.

محبت  کرتی عورت دیکھتی ہے

ایک خواب  روز 

جاگنے پر سوچتی ہے کیا تھا وہ 

نکالنے بیٹھتی ہے معنی  

دکھتی ہیں اسکو عام فہم چیزیں 

کوئی ریتیلی جگہ 

لگاتار بہتا نل 

اسکا گھر بکھرا ہوا 

دیکھتی ہے کچھ ہے جو نظر نہیں آتا  

کئی بار دیکھنے کے بعد 

محبت  کرتی عورت  

یقین نہیں کرتی کسی کا 

کنگھا گرا دیتی ہے 

آئنے میں نہیں دیکھتی خود کو 

سوچتی ہے میں ایسے ہی ہوں ٹھیک 

اس کی سہیلیاں ایک ایک کر

اسے چھوڑ کر چلی جاتی ہیں 

دھوپ اسکے پاس آیے بنا نکل جاتی ہے 

   ہوا اسکے بال پریشان کیے بنا بہتی ہے 

اسکے کھاتے  بنا ہو جاتا ہے کھانا ختم 

محبت کرتی عورت 

ٹھگی جاتی ہے روز 

اسکو پتا نہیں چلتا باہر کیا ہو رہا ہے 

کون ٹھگ رہا ہے کون ہے بدکار  

پتا نہیں چلتا کہاں سے شروع ہوئی کہانی 

دنیا کو سمجھتی ہے وہ  

گود میں بیٹھا ہوا بچہ 

نکل جاتی ہے اکیلی سڑک پر 

دیکھتی ہے کتنا بڑا پھیلا شہر 

سوچتی ہے میں رہ لون گی یہیں کہیں 

- منگلیش ڈبرال  

In Roman font:

Mohabbat karti aurat dekhti hai

ek khwaab roz

Jaagne par sochti hai kya tha vo?

Nikaalne baith'ti hai maa'ni 

Dikhti hain use aam-fahm cheezain 

Koi reyteeli jagah

Lagataar behta nal

Uska ghar bikhra hua 

Dekhti hai kuch hai jo nazar nahin aata

kayi baar dekhne ke baad 

Mohabbat karti aurat

yaqeen nahin karti kisi ka 

Kangha gira deti hai

Aaine mein nahin dekhti khud ko

Sochti hai main aise hi hoon theek

Uski saheliyaan ek-ek kar

usey chhod kar chali jaati hain

Dhoop uske paas aaye bina nikal jaati hai

Hava uske baal bikhraaye bina behti hai

Uske khaaye bina ho jaata hai khana khatm

Mohabbat karti aurat

tthagi jaati hai roz

Usko pata nahin chalta baahar kya ho raha hai

kaun thag raha hai kaun hai badkaar

Pata nahin chalta kahaan se shuru hui kahaani

Duniya ko samajhti hai vo

go'd mein baitha hua bachcha

Nikal jaati hai akeli sadak par

Dekhti hai kitna bada phaila shehr

Sochti hai main reh loongi yahin kahin. 

- Manglesh Dabral 

(Urdu rendition of his Hindi poem 'Prem Karti Stree'. The original can be found here: https://www.hindwi.org/kavita/prem-karti-istri-manglesh-dabral-kavita)

A first attempt at translating prose

Shakeela Akhtar was one of the earliest women writers of Urdu fiction in the twentieth century. Born and buried in Bihar, she was obviously deeply rooted in the local landscape, local dialects and, if we are to use this story as any indication, in the texture of its social relations.

I do not claim to know the body of her work, and I am but a fledgling translator. However, I chanced upon ‘Dain’ in the course of my current research on representations of witch bodies in South Asian literature. Since it wasn’t yet available in English translation, I decided to undertake the task myself.

Shakeela Akhtar was born into a zamindar family in Ardal, near the river Son in Bihar. The river features prominently in this short story and the author was evidently well-acquainted with the vicissitudes in the lives of fishing communities in the region. While I have not read Akhtar’s own memoir, I have read Balmiki Ram’s Shakeela Akhtar Bahaisiyat Fiction-nigaar (Kitabi Duniya, Dehli, 2014). Ram was a Junior Research Fellow at Patna University when he wrote this analysis of Akhtar’s fiction, and it includes basic biographic details about the author.

Akhtar’s date of birth is uncertain. Ram’s book suggests that different scholars have mentioned the years 1912, 1914, 1919 and 1921 while 1916 has been mentioned on the website Rekhta.org. Her first story ‘Rehmat’ was published in 1939 in the journal Adab Latif, Lahore. Elsewhere, Ram mentions that her first story ‘Mothers’ was published in Adab Latif. There are disputes too over the claim that her first collection was first published by Maktaba Urdu, Lahore, when she was just eighteen. However, it is known that she was married to Dr Akhtar Urainvi in 1933 and that her literary life began soon thereafter. According to Ram, her first published book was Darpan (likely published in 1940), the second was Aankh Micholi (1948), third collection was Dain aur Doosre Afsane (1952); fourth was Aag aur Paththar (1962); the fifth book was a set of three novelettes, published as Tinke ka Sahara (1975) and the sixth was Lahu ke Mol (1978) for which she received an Urdu Akademi award. Her last book was Aakhri Salaam (1982). Shakeela Akhtar died on 10th February, 1994.

Read 'dain' in English translation here: https://www.outofprintmagazine.co.in/shakeela-akhtar_dain.html

A brief note on the translation: This story, 'Dain' was hard to translate partly because it made significant use of local dialects, spoken in the region around the river Son in Bihar. It is set in a time when zamindars or landlords were treated as local kings or rulers. The workers, agricultural or otherwise, were ‘rayyat,’ which literally means people and, in this story, is used in the sense of subjects or workers. However, in order to avoid confusion for readers in English, I have used the word tenant since it is a more accurate description of their status. In Urdu, the fisher-women address the landlord and his family as ‘maalik,’ which literally means ‘master’ and I have translated it as such. The relationship is essentially feudal but it is not that of owner and slave as ‘master’ might suggest in the western (especially American) context.

The original text had very erratic punctuation with quotation marks often missing or placed incorrectly. I have added these where required, but have stuck to the original tenses and first/third person speech as in the original.

I must profusely thank Musharraf Farooqi who was instrumental not only in my learning to read and write the Urdu script but who has also offered valuable feedback on this, my first attempt at translating Urdu prose. I must also thank Prof Abdur Rehman for helping with a sentence in Bhojpuri or Magahi that I was struggling with.